In Retrospect Transcripts

EPISODE 35 – VANESSA WILLIAMS V MISS AMERICA: ‘I WON’T LET THAT MAN DESTROY ME’ (PT 2)

Please note: This transcript has been automatically generated.

Jessica Bennett (00:00):

Hey, everyone. This is part two of our episodes about Vanessa Williams and Miss America. If you haven’t listened to part one, I recommend starting there.

Clips (00:08):

Our new Miss America is Vanessa Williams, Miss New York.

Jessica Bennett (00:14):

Vanessa Williams upended more than 60 years of white beauty standards when she was crowned Miss America in 1984, making history as the first Black pageant winner, but when a nude photo scandal forced her to cut her reign short, the public shaming was swift and relentless.

Clips (00:30):

Miss America, Vanessa Williams, took off her clothes, and now she’s being asked to give up her crown within 72 hours.

Jessica Bennett (00:37):

Racist hate mail was sent to her parents’ home. Derogatory graffiti was scrawled on shops in her hometown. She was characterized as a slut in the press. As one cultural historian put it, “She became the pageant’s own Hester Prynne,” but Vanessa Williams didn’t go away quietly. She would go on to make a staggering comeback and, of the publisher who released her nude photos, she vowed, “I won’t let that man destroy me.”

(01:08):

I’m Jessica Bennett-

Susie Banikarim (01:09):

… and I’m Susie Banikarim.

Jessica Bennett (01:11):

This is In Retrospect where, each week, we revisit a cultural moment from the past that shaped us-

Susie Banikarim (01:16):

… and that we just can’t stop thinking about.

Jessica Bennett (01:18):

Today, we’re talking about Vanessa Williams, who made history as the first Black Miss America, but whose win was overshadowed by a scandal that stripped her of her crown. We’re also talking about Miss America, the beauty pageant, that for more than a century sent a particular message about what womanhood was supposed to look like, young, thin, unmarried and white.

Susie Banikarim (01:40):

Jess, let’s take a moment to recap where we ended part one. Vanessa Williams has had this historic win as the first Black Miss America. She’s almost made it through the yearlong term, and it’s been a roller coaster. She’s had these amazing opportunities, but she’s also experienced some pretty explicit racist backlash.

Jessica Bennett (01:58):

Yeah. Exactly.

Susie Banikarim (01:59):

Just before her historic reign ends, Vanessa finds out that the porn magazine, Penthouse, is going to publish a bunch of nude photos she’d posed for as a model a few years before she entered the pageant, and it’s important to say that these nude photos were sold by the photographer without her permission. Right?

Jessica Bennett (02:20):

Yes. Exactly. They’re sold without her permission, and the photos are also with another woman in a lot of suggestive poses, which I’m saying only to note that there’s this homophobic undertone to the whole thing as well and Penthouse, the magazine, of course, really leans into the whole Miss America thing. One of the headlines is Here She Comes…

Susie Banikarim (02:40):

Of course. Of course, that’s how they frame it, and so now, we heard the clip at the top, the Miss America pageant is basically demanding she turn over her crown. They’ve given her just 72 hours to figure out what to do, but it doesn’t really sound like she has options. Right?

Jessica Bennett (02:56):

Yeah. It doesn’t really seem like she has many options, and so Vanessa and her family, and her publicist and her lawyer, they’re all hunkered down in her childhood home in Upstate New York trying to figure out what to do and, meanwhile, as you can imagine, the media is going crazy.

Susie Banikarim (03:11):

I can imagine. I imagine they’re going absolutely nuts.

Jessica Bennett (03:16):

This is the era of the tabloids. The New York Daily News headline says, “Miss America in Nude Pics.” Some of the other headlines, choice headlines, “Vanessa The Undressa”, that was real-

Susie Banikarim (03:27):

That’s terrible.

Jessica Bennett (03:29):

… and Mess America, mess like M-E-S-S, and then another one, “There She is… In the Buff.

Susie Banikarim (03:36):

Your heart really breaks for her. This has to feel so awful. She’s had this incredibly rough, overwhelming year. Even though it’s been exciting, to suddenly be exposed in this way, must feel terrible.

Jessica Bennett (03:49):

She actually in her memoir describes it as feeling like she’d been raped. It’s like it felt so utterly violating, and she had no control over how the images appeared or the fact that they did appear. What was interesting, too, is that all of the press at this time is then going and doing these man-on-the-street interviews where they’re just asking any old, random person what they think, and so there’s this interesting clip that I kept hearing in recap segments of this middle-aged, white lady pontificating on what she has done and what it means for Black people.

Clips (04:22):

I felt that she had the opportunity to do something really good for Black people, and she let them down.

Susie Banikarim (04:30):

Thank you, white lady, for telling us how Black people feel about Vanessa Williams. I’m sure Black people felt some sympathy for her, or at least some people did. I mean, this is not okay when someone releases pictures of you in this way. This is terrible.

Jessica Bennett (04:44):

Well, and it’s interesting, too, because this, of course, is before the time that we understood what that meant. We say now like she didn’t consent to the photos, but people weren’t using that language then. One of the interesting things that happens is that, at this time, she had done this whole cover shoot for Essence Magazine and they had this big piece coming out about her. It was really celebratory of her. When the editor got the news, it was too late to pull her from the cover. There she was in all of these negative headlines and she’s also on the cover of Essence which, interestingly, actually boosted Essence’s sales because, of course, it was now this scandal, but it also hurt their subscriptions because readers thought they were condoning these photos.

Susie Banikarim (05:27):

I mean that’s just ridiculous.

Jessica Bennett (05:29):

Yeah, and, of course, not surprisingly, when Penthouse actually does publish the images soon after Vanessa is given this heads-up, sales for that magazine go absolutely wild.

Clips (05:40):

While the photos may have ended her reign, they have not hurt sales of the magazine. They were booming.

Jessica Bennett (05:46):

Penthouse, by the way, we should note is an explicit magazine like much more so than Playboy. Playboy is considered in this genre like the tasteful one of the two.

Susie Banikarim (05:54):

Of course.

Jessica Bennett (05:56):

Over time, that issue of Penthouse would become the best-selling issue of all time, earning $24 million, none of which Vanessa Williams gets, of course, not that she would want it. It’s interesting because, at this time, Penthouse, this was like its MO, they had done something similar to Suzanne Somers a couple of years earlier. They would do this to Madonna a year later and then, somewhat famously, they did this to Pamela Anderson where they would buy these photos from whoever had them or leaked them. It didn’t matter whether the person who was in the photo had any say in it or wanted them to appear.

Susie Banikarim (06:31):

Oh, that’s right. I remember we talked about that during the Pamela Anderson episode. Okay, so they basically are creeps. I mean, that’s going to be my takeaway from this. This magazine hits the newsstands. What comes next?

Jessica Bennett (06:45):

As you know, the pageant is pushing for her to resign, and Al Marks, who is the head of the Miss America organization at this time, says, “She knows that the photographs are totally inconsistent with the Miss America image.” I mean, sure, and then he goes on to say, “As a man, as a father, as a grandfather, as a human being, I’ve never seen anything like these photos. I can’t even show them to my wife.”

Susie Banikarim (07:09):

I mean why is he showing Penthouse to his wife? Don’t do that then.

Jessica Bennett (07:12):

Or maybe do do that. Anyway, let me just say, for those wondering, because I feel like, if I were listening, I would be wondering what is actually in the photos, they are extremely sexually suggestive. She’s simulating sex acts with this other model. There is full frontal. You can really imagine how mortifying this is for her.

Susie Banikarim (07:30):

I really feel for her. How did her parents react?

Jessica Bennett (07:35):

Yeah. I mean, you can just imagine having to tell your parents this is occurring, but her parents were actually supportive and were, in fact, really opposed to her resigning. Her father told The Post at the time, “Our feeling is that she should continue with it. We feel she’s earned it. We feel it could be seen as an admission of guilt of having done something that was wrong and distasteful, and we don’t feel that she did.”

Susie Banikarim (07:56):

I mean that’s honestly really nice. It’s good that she had supportive parents who really held her up during this because, in a lot of cases, people’s parents aren’t this understanding. I like that for her.

Jessica Bennett (08:07):

Yeah, and there were people who supported her through this, too. I mean, once somebody becomes an underdog, sometimes people come out of the woodwork in support. There were those who took to the streets with signs that said things like, “Long Live the Queen,” and, “Boycott Penthouse,” and were protesting the magazine and really did stand by her.

Clips (08:25):

Long live the queen. Long live the queen.

Jessica Bennett (08:29):

Finally, after her 72 hours are up, Vanessa Williams holds a press conference to address the question of her resignation.

Clips (08:36):

Please, I would like to start. Can everyone hear me? Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the press, and thank you for your attendance today.

Jessica Bennett (08:45):

She reads from a paper of her prepared remarks. This is a packed room. It’s happening in Manhattan. You can see that she’s charismatic even in the face of these charges. Her voice is clear and calm. She manages to smile and make eye contact.

Clips (09:00):

As you all know, the Miss America pageant has asked for me to resign as Miss America 1984. Now is the time for my response.

Jessica Bennett (09:09):

First, she addresses how the photos came to be. It’s 1982. She’s a freshman in college. She replies to a models-wanted classified ad and, when she goes in, the photographer who’s hiring is basically like, “Look, if you want to be a model, you need a portfolio. I can help you with that,” and so the photographer offers her a summer job as his receptionist and makeup artist. She had some experience in that. She says they had a mostly normal working relationship, but then he would frequently ask if she wanted to pose nude and, eventually, she agrees.

Clips (09:42):

Based on his persistence and encouragement that I would be a good subject and his assurance that the photographs would just be for me to see, I was ultimately persuaded to do a session.

Jessica Bennett (09:56):

First, they do an artsy nude shoot in a forest. These photos are never leaked. Then, a week later, he asks her if she wants to do another nude shoot and, this time, it’s with another woman. The poses in the nude shoot look like they’re meant to be simulating sex.

Clips (10:10):

Each pose was set up. At no time was there any spontaneous or ongoing activity between myself and the other model.

Jessica Bennett (10:21):

One thing I want to note here is that she does tell people later on, “I know these photos look incriminating, but, believe me, there was no lesbian activity.” That, in and of itself, we could unpack, but that’s what she says. He promised her that these would be silhouette-style photos. You wouldn’t be able to see her face. He promises that he will not publish them. He lied, obviously.

Clips (10:43):

After viewing the photos, I was enraged and I felt a deep sense of personal embarrassment. It is one thing to face up to a mistake that one makes in youth, but it’s almost totally devastating to have to share it with the American public and the world at large as both a human being and as Miss American.

Jessica Bennett (11:03):

She then goes on to thank her family, friends and all of those who’ve come to her defense in what she describes as “the most difficult time in my young life” and then she says-

Clips (11:12):

Therefore, I do officially relinquish my title as Miss American 1984 to the Miss America pageant.

Clips (11:33):

Good evening. Miss America Vanessa Williams has lost her crown.

Clips (11:37):

Vanessa Williams yielded her crown as the glamour pageant demanded.

Clips (11:40):

She was stripped of her crown, that apparently being the only thing she had not previously doffed voluntarily.

Susie Banikarim (11:48):

Jess, I’m curious, did she have to resign? Are there actually rules in the pageant that she had violated?

Jessica Bennett (11:54):

Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting, technically not, but she had signed a contract swearing to, quote, good moral character, so that leaves it to Miss America to decide what good moral character is, and then she had also pledged that she had not engaged in what they described as acts of moral turpitude. The contract doesn’t define moral turpitude or good moral character, but I think that you can make the assumption that they didn’t think this was appropriate.

Susie Banikarim (12:20):

I’m embarrassed to admit that I do not know what turpitude means.

Jessica Bennett (12:23):

That’s so funny. I was just thinking the same thing. I was like, “What is moral turpitude?” Clearly, we need to Google that, but I feel like we get the gist. Right?

Susie Banikarim (12:31):

We get the idea. We get the idea. Now, she’s resigned. Does she go away quietly, or then what?

Jessica Bennett (12:39):

First off, she vows to keep fighting, which I think is pretty interesting. There’s this famous interview she gives to People Magazine shortly after all this happens in 1984 that she starts by saying, “I’m going to fight if it takes my last dime. I’m fighting for my life and for the people I’ve let down.”

Susie Banikarim (12:55):

Good for her.

Jessica Bennett (12:56):

Yeah, it is good for her, and to be able to say that, she’s not just backing away quietly, but one of the things that is so sad in the same interview is that she talks about how she feels like she hasn’t just let women down, but she’s let the whole Black community down. She goes on to say, “I made a terrible error in judgment. I know I’ll have to pay for it as long as I live,” and then there’s this line, which I feel like is one of these lines I’ve heard repeated and is one of the reasons why I wanted to revisit this story where she says, “But I am not a lesbian and I am not a slut, and somehow I’m going to make people believe me.”

Susie Banikarim (13:31):

I mean, you can understand why she felt the need to say that, but it’s depressing because there’s so many layers of ingrained homophobia and shame around sex in that. It makes sense. She’s a product of her time, but now we would be clear that there’s nothing wrong with being a lesbian and, frankly, there’s nothing wrong with being a slut. Your body, your choice. What happens to the title because it’s pretty close to the end of the term. Right?

Jessica Bennett (14:00):

Good question. I mean, you would think that they could just wait until the following year, but they actually promote, or whatever the word is in Miss America land, her first runner-up, who is this woman Suzette Charles, also a Black woman. She assumes the throne and, when she does, she says she would represent “the wholesome American image”, so really putting herself in contrast to what people were perceiving Vanessa as.

Susie Banikarim (14:23):

I don’t like Suzette Charles. I feel like she’s being rude to Vanessa with this little comment.

Jessica Bennett (14:28):

Yeah. I mean, it does seem that way, and then the pageant allows Vanessa to keep the scholarship money, but she does lose a bunch of money in endorsement deals. That’s a product of being Miss America. All of these companies partner with you. You do endorsements, and so she loses that money. She ultimately ends up suing the magazine and the photographer, but they argue that she had signed waivers allowing them to use the photos.

(14:50):

Vanessa says that’s not the case, but, basically, what happens is her lawyers warn her that her life and her sexual life, if she goes through with the suit, would be put so firmly under the microscope either in discovery or in deposition, and so she drops the suit. Meanwhile, as all of this is going down, it turns out this is great for Miss America, the pageant. They gain renewed interest in 1984. Ticket sales jump by 20%. Viewership briefly leaps back to 74 million. They’re thriving-

Susie Banikarim (15:23):

It’s so crazy. Of course.

Jessica Bennett (15:25):

… in the wake of this scandal.

Susie Banikarim (15:26):

There’s nothing like a scandal to resurrect something.

Jessica Bennett (15:28):

Right, so then you may think we’re getting to the end of the bad parts of this story, but it’s not actually over yet because what happens is that more nude photos come to life-

Susie Banikarim (15:37):

Oh, my God.

Jessica Bennett (15:38):

… and, again, Penthouse prints them out.

Susie Banikarim (15:40):

This poor girl.

Jessica Bennett (15:42):

I know. I know. Basically, this is from a shoot from around the same time, and this is a different photographer, another supposed fashion photographer. The scandal this time is that it was an S&M-esque shoot. Vanessa is in a leather harness and handcuffs, and the photos are published in the January 1985 edition of Penthouse.

Susie Banikarim (16:05):

This time, she thought she had all the negatives. She had actually made the effort to get the negatives of these photos.

Jessica Bennett (16:12):

Yes. In this case, she’s talked about how she was really uncomfortable mid-shoot. She knew that she felt uncomfortable. She cut the shoot short and she went back a week later, I think, with her boyfriend at the time to get all of the negatives, or so she thought. It’s interesting, too, because all of this reminds me of these stories that have come out more recently about Terry Richardson and all of these “fashion photographers” who are men who coerce models.

Susie Banikarim (16:37):

I was just thinking about that. I think, if you were not around for this era, some of these stories may seem strange. Why did she agree to do these things? The reality is, if you were a model coming up in the ’80s, you were asked to do these shoots and, if you didn’t do them, you were considered prude and sometimes dinged in your career, so it was an impossible choice. You needed to show that you were game and you were playful and you were willing to take risks. I’m sure she felt like she had to do this. She felt like-

Jessica Bennett (17:08):

Well, and she’s so young. I mean she’s a teenager, so what better does she know?

Susie Banikarim (17:11):

Yeah, she is so young. It’s always easy to forget when we’re talking about these stories that these are 19, 20, 21-year-old girls usually. Is she really demoralized at this point?

Jessica Bennett (17:21):

She’s so strong. She’s actually steadfast. Even as the second hit, the second terrible thing comes, she’s going to keep fighting. In that People Magazine article I mentioned, she says of the head of Penthouse Magazine, “One thing you can be sure of, I won’t let that man destroy me,” and she doesn’t. She’s adamant that she’s going to fight for the bigger dream for her, which always was to be in the entertainment business, to be a singer, an actress.

Clips (17:47):

I feel, at this time, I should expend my energies in launching what I hope will be a successful career in the entertainment business. I feel my new career will be the greatest challenge in my life.

Susie Banikarim (17:59):

This episode just makes me love Vanessa Williams more and more. It’s really inspiring that she did not just crawl away they wanted her to and hide.

Jessica Bennett (18:09):

She does end up taking some time away from the spotlight, probably smart, but what happens is she makes one of the greatest comebacks in entertainment history. (singing) Yeah, I mean, we recognize that song. Vanessa Williams goes on to have a very successful career as a late-’80s pop star. Her debut album drops in 1988. It has multiple singles on the Billboard charts, and then she goes on to receive 11 Grammy nominations. She enters stage and film. She becomes a television actress.

Susie Banikarim (18:42):

I love it.

Jessica Bennett (18:42):

She’s nominated for four Emmys and a Tony-

Susie Banikarim (18:45):

Amazing.

Jessica Bennett (18:45):

… all sorts of accolades, really, really successful, and she performs a song in Pocahontas (singing) which then ended up winning the academy award for best original song.

Susie Banikarim (18:59):

I just want to say that it’s amazing that she went from being dethroned to appearing in a Disney movie.

Jessica Bennett (19:06):

I know. Right?

Susie Banikarim (19:09):

That’s amazing. Right. She really has-

Jessica Bennett (19:10):

No. It really is.

Susie Banikarim (19:10):

… totally turned things around.

Jessica Bennett (19:12):

It’s so interesting to think about what allows someone to move past a thing that happened in this era where we didn’t let women move past things and what doesn’t. What are the small differences that allowed her to seemingly really move on from this and become a huge star. On Ugly Betty, I remember loving her character Wilhelmina.

Susie Banikarim (19:31):

Oh, yes, I love Ugly Betty.

Clips (19:32):

Even if I wanted to express sympathy, I physically can’t.

Jessica Bennett (19:34):

It’s so good. If it isn’t already clear, Vanessa really is a multifaceted talent. She’s on Broadway. She does mainstream TV. She’s a singer. She has gone on to write books. She really is doing everything that she set out to do and said she would.

Susie Banikarim (19:51):

I think it’s partially just who she is. Right? I mean she is someone who refuses to be torn down. I mean there is something really amazing about that.

Jessica Bennett (20:01):

Actually, she acknowledges that later. In 1996, she gets a career achievement prize, and she says in her speech, “I knew, once the dust settled, I would ultimately get the chance to do what I do best,” and she really did.

Susie Banikarim (20:13):

She did. Yes, Vanessa Williams, hero.

Jessica Bennett (20:16):

Also, who needs Miss America anyway?

Susie Banikarim (20:17):

Yeah. She really didn’t need Miss America. In fact, she rose from those ashes and was able to never look back. Right?

Jessica Bennett (20:24):

Well, okay, kind of, except that she does go back many years later. Basically, as Vanessa’s career rises, Miss America’s currency, stock, whatever you want to call it, plummets-

Susie Banikarim (20:37):

Oh, interesting.

Jessica Bennett (20:38):

… not surprisingly. Recently, 32 years after her crowning and dethroning, in 2015, Miss america actually invites her to be a judge.

Susie Banikarim (20:48):

Oh, my God. Isn’t that funny? It’s so funny, and also that must have felt so good.

Jessica Bennett (20:54):

I wonder what was going through her mind when she was deciding whether or not to accept.

Susie Banikarim (20:58):

Right.

Jessica Bennett (20:58):

Actually, it ended up causing like its own mini-scandal because the question was whether she would apologize to them, no, or if the organization would apologize to her and how that would play out.

Susie Banikarim (21:10):

Oh, my God.

Jessica Bennett (21:11):

When she does finally get up on stage at the 2015 pageant, it must have been so validating. Sam Haskell, who then was the pageant CEO, apologizes to her and to her mother who is in the audience.

Clips (21:24):

You have lived your life in grace and dignity, and never was it more evident than during the events of 1984 when you resigned. Though none of us currently in the organization were involved then, on behalf of today’s organization, I want to apologize to you and to your mother, Ms. Helen Williams.

Susie Banikarim (21:54):

I really am so happy right now. I love it.

Jessica Bennett (21:56):

I know.

Susie Banikarim (21:57):

I didn’t know anything about this, and I love it.

Jessica Bennett (21:59):

It’s like the ultimate vindication a little bit.

Susie Banikarim (22:02):

Yes, she gets her revenge. You’ve been to Miss America. Right? Was that the year you went?

Jessica Bennett (22:21):

Yes, I have been to Miss America.

Susie Banikarim (22:22):

I love it.

Jessica Bennett (22:23):

Actually, it’s one of the most fun things I’ve ever done.

Susie Banikarim (22:26):

I would go.

Jessica Bennett (22:26):

Sometimes, you just get to go on a reporting trip and it’s like, “Ah, this is why I do this,” and Miss America was that for me.

Susie Banikarim (22:32):

Yeah, I love a weird reporting trip.

Jessica Bennett (22:34):

It was not the year that Vanessa Williams came back. It was a couple of years later, but it was interesting because she appears and then a year or so later is when the Me Too movement begins, and so by the time I’m going is when this really complex conversation is happening in the culture about what is appropriate and what is appropriate when it comes to even something as seemingly silly as a beauty pageant. There’s all this discussion around whether beauty pageants should exist at all, if swimsuits should be allowed. Is that objectification? Then, actually, that year that I went, Gretchen Carlson, she is the woman who successfully sued Fox News for sexual harassment, the former newscaster-

Susie Banikarim (23:19):

Yes, and a former Miss America. Yeah.

Jessica Bennett (23:19):

… and also Miss America, had taken over for that guy I mentioned earlier, Sam Haskell, who had gotten in trouble for sending lewd emails about the contestants, naturally.

Susie Banikarim (23:30):

But, of course, there’s always a bad man somewhere in the shadows whenever we’re talking about anything.

Jessica Bennett (23:35):

Right? I know. I know.

Susie Banikarim (23:35):

What was it like? Tell me everything.

Jessica Bennett (23:38):

It’s on the Atlantic City Boardwalk. It’s in this huge stadium, and I’m expecting it to be glitzy and glam, and it is not that. It’s pretty dark, literally dark, and also feels dark. There’s not very many people there. At one point, I’m poking around, trying to get a sense of the place, and I go down this long hallway that’s the backstage area of any stadium, and I come across the actual office to the Miss America headquarters. It has a sad piece of paper identifying it as such.

Susie Banikarim (24:10):

Oh, God.

Jessica Bennett (24:10):

It’s like this dark, dingy office with gray, dirty carpets. It’s all pretty rundown. Atlantic City has had financial trouble and is pretty rundown, too. They were so desperate for people to come to the event itself that people were handing out flyers to random passer-bys on the street-

Susie Banikarim (24:31):

Like to go for free?

Jessica Bennett (24:32):

… offering free tickets to fill empty seats. The flyer said, “All you need to do is get dressed up really nice and show up to Boardwalk Hall.”

Susie Banikarim (24:40):

Oh, yeah, I mean its time has passed. I think it might be time to accept that Miss America’s time has passed.

Jessica Bennett (24:46):

It really is. Right? I mean, that was really why I was there in the first place. It was like they were attempting to rebrand for the modern era, and so what did that mean? Well, for starters, there was a lot of linguistic terminology change happening. It was no longer being called a pageant this year. It was being called a competition. The participants were no longer participants or contestants. They were candidates as if they were running-

Susie Banikarim (25:11):

Oh, as if they were running for office?

Jessica Bennett (25:14):

… for office, yeah, and they were interviewing for the job of Miss America.

Susie Banikarim (25:17):

I see. Yes.

Jessica Bennett (25:17):

It was really framed as a job.

Susie Banikarim (25:19):

Because I’m always interviewing with Vaseline on my teeth and a sash.

Jessica Bennett (25:22):

Right? Exactly. They had gotten rid of the runway, and the word “miss” had actually been stripped from the sashes. Normally, it’s like Miss Washington, Miss New York. It would just say New York, but each sash did also still have a little pocket for your lipstick, too.

Susie Banikarim (25:37):

Oh, I never knew the sashes had that. That’s actually very functional.

Jessica Bennett (25:41):

Then, of course, as I mentioned, there were no swimsuits. That was really the big change, and so when Gretchen Carlson, who was then the head of the organization, would talk about it, she’d be like, “This is a place where we can highlight diverse and inclusive and empowered candidates and leaders. They’re beautiful inside and out.” It was like all this euphemism.

Susie Banikarim (26:00):

Yes, they’re beautiful inside and out, but we’re still going to pick the most beautiful.

Jessica Bennett (26:04):

Right? No. I do. I mean, I feel like I went in with a lot of stereotypes about Miss America, many of which we’ve probably expressed here on this podcast, but these women were really impressive I must say. They were impressive not just because they were, literally, neuroscientists. They were Harvard software developers who worked for Microsoft, a woman who worked in STEM. One of them had started a cancer organization. They talked about growing up with incarcerated parents and had developed non-profit organizations to deal with campus sexual assault, all of those really impressive things, but then, on top of that, they could dance and do ventriloquism and play the harmonica.

Susie Banikarim (26:46):

Isn’t one of the talents you mentioned clogging? Did some of them do clogging?

Jessica Bennett (26:51):

Oh, my God, yes. I have some amazing videos from this that I wish we could show, but, yes, there was a clogging episode. There was one. How do I even describe this? It was like an interpretive dance with a ghost.

Susie Banikarim (27:06):

That does not clarify anything for me.

Jessica Bennett (27:08):

She was performing with a ghost. I don’t know, but it was all just incredible.

Susie Banikarim (27:12):

I also feel like the only reason I know about baton twirling is pageants. I’m always envisioning someone up there with a baton. I mean it is really interesting that such fascinating women are choosing to do this. Is it for the scholarship money? It’s interesting that these women who are going to Harvard or are neuroscientists are drawn to this still in some way.

Jessica Bennett (27:33):

I mean, I think a lot of them are doing it for the scholarship money and for visibility for their non-profit organizations to cure… Insert specific kind of cancer or other bad thing. They really were very mission-driven.

Susie Banikarim (27:46):

Really fascinating.

Jessica Bennett (27:48):

I don’t know. Maybe all of these women had really interesting paths and they just weren’t able to express them during the time when Miss America was popular or maybe they’ve gone out of their way to recruit people who have interesting paths. I don’t know, but what appeared to be much more progressive or what they were aiming to have to be much more progressive on the outside was having a full-fledge, as one woman described it to me, civil war-

Susie Banikarim (28:13):

Oh, wow.

Jessica Bennett (28:14):

… on the inside. All right. If you were to imagine going into a conference room in this giant stadium where all of these states and local enthusiasts, really strong enthusiasts who have a lot of feelings about Miss America, were gathering to essentially try to stage a coup to overthrow the president.

Susie Banikarim (28:41):

They were trying to overthrow Gretchen Carlson.

Jessica Bennett (28:44):

I think it was just a culture war happening on a micro level inside this organization. They did not want it to change. There was a real division about whether they wanted it to change or not, whether she was the right leader for it. In the week leading up to the pageant, there were posters hung around town in Atlantic City with giant letters calling Gretchen Carlson “so fake”.

Susie Banikarim (29:06):

Amazing.

Jessica Bennett (29:07):

It’s like fully middle school.

Susie Banikarim (29:08):

I love a dark underbelly. I like it.

Jessica Bennett (29:11):

There was a blue sash with the words “Gretchen sucks” that was placed on this statue of Miss America that’s perched outside the hall, because it’s been taking place here for so many years, so people would go and pose in front of that statue and it would have the sash on it that said, “Gretchen sucks.”

Susie Banikarim (29:26):

I just want to say that I would watch a scripted series about the war inside Miss America because I bet you it would be hilarious.

Jessica Bennett (29:33):

I mean maybe we need to do that.

Susie Banikarim (29:34):

I’m in. Let’s do it.

Jessica Bennett (29:36):

I wish I had recordings that we could play, but, basically, I snuck into this secret meeting of the local leaders where they were plotting this overthrow. It was so interesting because it was happening at the same time that Miss America was just grasping for relevance and, at this time, viewership was basically at an all-time low. They tried moving it to different stations. They tried all these different things, but nobody wanted to watch Miss America. They couldn’t even fill the literal seats in the stadium we were in. I don’t know. Maybe it was a bit of a last gasp, but I just happened to be lucky enough to witness it.

Susie Banikarim (30:13):

Yeah. I do feel like that’s lucky. I wish I had been there with you. I can’t believe you didn’t invite me. Where is Miss America today? Is it totally off the air now?

Jessica Bennett (30:23):

I’m sure if you were to ask a Miss America enthusiast this question, they would say something really different, but it’s pretty much irrelevant. It’s only livestreamed on their website now. People are not watching it. It did not air on TV last year. I’m not sure what the state of it is, and I don’t think people are talking about it really.

Susie Banikarim (30:42):

It reminds me of when we talk about soap operas. There’s always going to be fans. There’s always going to be people who feel a real connection, but there are just some things that don’t maintain the same cultural relevance.

Jessica Bennett (30:54):

Even things with long, interesting, albeit problematic, the word we hate and don’t like to use on the show, histories sometimes have to get retired. The good news here is Vanessa Williams doesn’t need Miss America. She is way past that. She is thriving.

Susie Banikarim (31:13):

I know. Vanessa Williams is thriving. That is the message of this podcast. What’s she been doing lately?

Jessica Bennett (31:20):

She has been a judge on RuPaul’s Queen of the Universe, which is the drag queen singing competition which is very fun.

Susie Banikarim (31:26):

Very fun.

Jessica Bennett (31:27):

She is in a Broadway show, a recent Broadway show called POTUS where she actually plays the first lady. It’s an all-female cast. It was described as, I haven’t seen it, but like “bridesmaids in the White House who are trying to keep the president alive”. It sounds very fun. She recently turned 60 and, as she told Jennifer Hudson on her talk show-

Clips (31:47):

There is a sense of ease. The older you get, the less you care about what everybody else has to say.

Susie Banikarim (31:53):

This is the best. I love a comeback story. This has been one of my favorites, so I feel like this is a great place to end it.

Jessica Bennett (32:01):

As they put it in Miss Congeniality, she is beauty, she is grace, she is Miss United States, but I guess, in this case, Miss America, and also screw Miss America.

(32:14):

Before we go, I wanted to give a quick shoutout to two authors whose books were instrumental in our research of this episode. The first is Margot Mifflin whose book is Looking for Miss America, A Pageant’s 100-Year Quest to Define Womanhood, and the second is Amy Argetsinger whose book is There She Was, The Secret History of Miss America. They’re both fascinating reads, and you can find links to them in our show notes.

Susie Banikarim (32:42):

Jess, we talked about some fun reporting you did on Miss America in this episode, but, all week long, you’ve been asking me about stories from my past. Next week, we’re going to reveal some fun behind-the-scenes experiences we’ve both had. Right?

Jessica Bennett (32:56):

Like the time you booked Jessica Simpson for Katie Couric’s show?

Susie Banikarim (32:59):

Yes. I’m finally going to talk about Jessica Simpson, which I know you’ve been dying to hear about.

Jessica Bennett (33:05):

I have, so tune in next week and you’ll hear all about it.

Susie Banikarim (33:08):

This is In retrospect. Thanks for listening. Is there a pop culture moment you can’t stop thinking about and want us to explore in a future episode? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram @inretropod.

Jessica Bennett (33:26):

If you love this podcast, please rate and review us on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram, which we may or may not delete.

Susie Banikarim (33:36):

You can also find this on Instagram @jessicabennett and at @susiebnyc. Also, check out Jessica’s books, Feminist Fight Club and This Is 18.

Jessica Bennett (33:45):

In Retrospect is a production of iHeart Podcasts and The Meteor. Lauren Hansen is our supervising producer. Derrick Clements is our engineer and sound designer. Emily Marinoff is our producer. Sharon Attia is our researcher and associate producer.

Susie Banikarim (33:59):

Our executive producer from The Meteor is Cindi Leive. Our executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stumpf and Katrina Norvell. Our artwork is from Pentagram. Our mixing engineer is Amanda Rose Smith, additional editing help from Mary Dooe. We are your hosts, Susie Banikarim-

Jessica Bennett (34:17):

… and Jessica Bennett. We’re also executive producers. For even more, check out inretropod.com. See you next week.

EPISODE 34 – VANESSA WILLIAMS V MISS AMERICA: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE FIRST BLACK WINNER (PT 1)

Please note: This transcript has been automatically generated.

Clips (00:00):

You were the first black woman to be Miss America.

(00:02):

1983.

(00:03):

Yeah. Was there a downside to being first?

(00:06):

Of course, the downside is you get the brunt of all the anger.

Jessica Bennett (00:12):

Most people know Vanessa Williams, the Grammy-nominated singer, or Vanessa Williams, the Emmy and Tony-nominated actress. But in September of 1983, a twenty-year-old Vanessa Williams became the first-ever black woman to be crowned Miss America.

Clips (00:26):

And our New Miss America is Vanessa Williams, Miss New York.

Jessica Bennett (00:31):

To see a black woman take that perch to represent, as the song claimed, the beauty ideal, the dreams of a million girls. For some, it felt as big as when Jackie Robinson desegregated Major League baseball. But Williams’ historic victory would be short-lived. Before she could complete her term, she was dethroned in a nude photo scandal and one that raised all sorts of questions about race, gender, and what it really means to make progress in America. I’m Jessica Bennett.

Susie Banikarim (01:05):

And I’m Susie Banikarim.

Jessica Bennett (01:07):

This is In Retrospect, where, each week, we revisit a cultural moment from the past that shaped us.

Susie Banikarim (01:12):

And that we just can’t stop thinking about.

Jessica Bennett (01:14):

Today, we’re talking about Vanessa Williams, who made history as the first Black Miss America but whose win was overshadowed by a scandal that stripped her of her crown. We’re also talking about Miss America, the beauty pageant that, for more than a century, sent a particular message about what womanhood was supposed to look like, young, thin, unmarried, and white.

Susie Banikarim (01:37):

So, Jess, I’m very excited to talk about Vanessa Williams and Miss America today. I feel like I know a little bit about both topics, but you’re going to teach me so much. Why did you pick this topic?

Jessica Bennett (01:49):

I was a big Vanessa Williams fan in the, I guess, early 90s, but it was only years later that I learned she’d actually been Miss America. And then it was years after that that I learned she was the first Black Miss America. And then it was only a few years ago, as I was actually doing some research around Miss America, that I learned she’d, in fact, been stripped of her crown.

Susie Banikarim (02:11):

Yeah, I didn’t actually know the Miss America thing either. I obviously knew who Vanessa Williams was. She was a singer. And I liked her music. And then she was on that show, Ugly Betty, but I had no idea that this was part of her history. Why was she dethroned?

Jessica Bennett (02:27):

Yeah. I mean, I guess dethrone may not be the technical term for it, but she was given 72 hours to resign from Miss America and hand back her crown. And this came after a series of nude photos of her that she had taken with another woman were leaked. These were modeling shots. She was super young. She never thought they would see the light of day. She did not consent to them being released, and they were sold to Penthouse Magazine and made public.

Susie Banikarim (02:53):

Oh, wow.

Jessica Bennett (02:53):

So, there’s many layers to this story, and we’ll talk about a lot of them, but it’s also one of those cases where racism, and sexism, and homophobia all coalesced around her story and created this perfect scandal.

Susie Banikarim (03:06):

Okay. And why Miss America? Because you don’t seem to me like someone who’d be super interested in beauty pageants.

Jessica Bennett (03:12):

I don’t strike you as a Miss American fan? What?

Susie Banikarim (03:15):

Well, that’s not my natural inclination.

Jessica Bennett (03:17):

Yeah. Actually, I’m trying to think. No, I did not grow up watching Miss America. That was certainly not something my parents would’ve condoned as we, I think, have talked about at length. Seattle, no cable television, really not into anything perpetuating that kind of thing. Did you watch it?

Susie Banikarim (03:32):

I did. Yeah. I mean, I just assumed that every kid in America or every girl certainly, at some point, watched Miss America. Right?

Jessica Bennett (03:40):

Not in crunchy Seattle, we didn’t.

Susie Banikarim (03:42):

Not in crunchy Seattle. I mean, I think, as I’ve mentioned, also did not have a TV for a couple of years, but in the years that we did have TV, it turned me into an absolute addict. They had taken away a drug, and I was jonesing for more. And I think also, as an immigrant, Miss America feels very much like a thing that helps you understand the culture you’ve entered. Right?

Jessica Bennett (04:01):

Yeah. Sort of like Baywatch-esque in that way.

Susie Banikarim (04:04):

Yeah. It helped me understand the concept of what it meant to be beautiful in America, for better or for worse. Right? [inaudible 00:04:11]

Jessica Bennett (04:10):

We’re going to get into all of that. It’s so disturbing. But so I ended up, when I was reporting at the Times, covering Miss America at length, and I’m trying to think of why I got first interested in it. I think it’s because, in 1968, there was this famous protest-

Clips (04:28):

Step right up. How much am I offered for this number one piece of prime American property?

Jessica Bennett (04:35):

… where feminists went, and they threw bras, and girdles, and false eyelashes, and anything else that represented unfair beauty standards into this trash can at the Miss America pageant.

Clips (04:52):

She’s going to be Miss America. She’s going to be Miss America.

Susie Banikarim (04:54):

I mean, that sounds amazing. Let’s go to that protest now.

Jessica Bennett (04:57):

It is amazing. It’s a famous protest. And actually, have you ever heard the term bra burning used to refer to feminists?

Susie Banikarim (05:04):

Oh, of course. Yeah. I mean, bra burning seems like it was like what everyone defined as the 70s feminist.

Jessica Bennett (05:10):

Right. First of all, bra burning is a myth. No one ever burned bras, but-

Susie Banikarim (05:13):

Oh, really?

Jessica Bennett (05:13):

… where it originated is actually at this pageant in the late 60s when the women, they planned to burn their bras in this trash can that they threw everything into, but they couldn’t get the right permits.

Susie Banikarim (05:25):

Oh, my God.

Jessica Bennett (05:25):

And so they didn’t. They just threw them into the trash can, and they called it a freedom trash can. And the press covered it, but one reporter was not able to make it to see that they didn’t really burn anything, but went with the bra burning headline, and thus bra burning was born.

Susie Banikarim (05:40):

Oh, wow. I didn’t realize that nobody burned bras. Did they eventually burn bras because they thought it was a thing?

Jessica Bennett (05:45):

No, nobody ever burned bras, I don’t think.

Susie Banikarim (05:47):

Wow.

Jessica Bennett (05:48):

I mean, I don’t know, maybe in life, people have burned their bras, but no, it’s fully a myth that emerged out of the Miss America protest.

Susie Banikarim (05:55):

Wow, okay. That is a piece of history.

Jessica Bennett (06:01):

And then in 2018, the height of the Me Too movement, I learned and ended up reporting on that Miss America was trying to remodel itself to be woker and more inclusive, and less gross.

Susie Banikarim (06:19):

It seems like that ship sailed a long time ago.

Jessica Bennett (06:22):

Yeah. So, I ended up covering a lot of the changes to the pageant.

Susie Banikarim (06:26):

I see. And so, if I remember correctly, one of the changes was swimsuits, right? Because I remember that they used to have to do a section that was swimsuits.

Jessica Bennett (06:35):

Yeah, that’s what made Miss America, Miss America, right? The swimsuit competition.

Clips (06:38):

Now, ladies and gentlemen, in the swimsuit category, first, Miss Georgia.

Susie Banikarim (06:46):

And now they don’t do that anymore?

Jessica Bennett (06:48):

So, in 2018, they had a new president take over, and yes, they got rid of the swimsuit competition.

Susie Banikarim (06:55):

And then there was always the Q&A section, which I don’t want to insult beauty pageant girls, but occasionally, a clip would go viral where it just didn’t make any sense.

Clips (07:05):

I believe that our education, such as in South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere, such as, and-

Jessica Bennett (07:12):

Yes, and actually, this is maybe a good place to point out that Miss America is different from the Miss USA/Universe pageant. That’s the Donald Trump one.

Susie Banikarim (07:22):

Right, right.

Jessica Bennett (07:22):

But I think Miss America was, and maybe is, I don’t know, considered the more sophisticated of the two.

Susie Banikarim (07:27):

Right. It’s like the gold standard of pageants. It’s the classy one, for lack of a better way of distinguishing them.

Jessica Bennett (07:34):

Yeah, it’s been around the longest. Miss Congeniality was not made about the Miss USA pageant. It was made about Miss America.

Clips (07:40):

Describe your perfect date.

(07:42):

I’d have to say April 25th because it’s not too hot, not too cold. All you need is a light jacket.

Susie Banikarim (07:53):

I mean, truly a great film, by the way.

Jessica Bennett (07:55):

It’s so good.

Susie Banikarim (07:56):

I mean, maybe film is pushing it. A very fun movie is what I’ll say about Ms. Congeniality. Okay. So, before we get into Vanessa Williams and her historic victory, is there anything more we need to know about the history of Miss America?

Jessica Bennett (08:09):

Yeah, I think there’s a few things. I mean, it does have a really fascinating history. So, it began in 1921 in Atlantic City. That’s always where it’s taken place, save for a few years when it moved to Vegas, but that’s really been its home. So, 1921, this is a year after women’s suffrage passes when women were granted the right to vote, and it was conceived of as a way to extend the summer tourist season past Labor Day. Atlantic City is a tourist destination.

Clips (08:36):

A beauty parade in the famous American watering place, Atlantic City. Who shall hold the title Miss America? Each state in the union has sent a representative to compete for the crown of girlhood beauty.

Jessica Bennett (08:46):

But one of the really interesting things, and I actually learned this in Rebecca Traister’s book, All the Single Ladies, is that the sashes, the iconic sashes that Miss Americas wear, we can all picture them-

Susie Banikarim (08:58):

Yeah, I can picture it. Yeah.

Jessica Bennett (08:58):

… were actually based on or modeled on the votes for women’s sashes that the suffragists wore.

Susie Banikarim (09:04):

Wow!

Jessica Bennett (09:05):

Isn’t that a fun piece of history?

Susie Banikarim (09:06):

Yeah. That is actually shocking.

Jessica Bennett (09:09):

Another interesting thing is that, at this time, women were barred from wearing revealing swimwear in public or beachwear in public. So, the original Atlantic City event actually had to get a temporary suspension of this ban so that they could do the swimsuit competition.

Susie Banikarim (09:23):

Am I remembering correctly that they weren’t even allowed to wear bikinis for the swimsuit competition? It had to be one-pieces because it had to be dignified. Right?

Jessica Bennett (09:32):

Oh, that’s interesting. I’m not sure when the pageant allowed it or not, but they weren’t a thing back in the 1920s when it got started.

Susie Banikarim (09:39):

That makes sense.

Jessica Bennett (09:40):

So, the vintage images are all these very cute one-pieces with low-cut legs. Another interesting thing is that you hear the origins of Miss America, and you think like, “Okay, so which men decided to dream this thing up, get the ladies on the boardwalk, put them in some swimsuits, extend the tourist season?” And that was true in the beginning, but it was actually a woman, Lenora Slaughter, who becomes pretty famous, who really makes Miss America into what, I think, we remember it as. She introduces the talent portion-

Susie Banikarim (10:10):

Oh, wow.

Jessica Bennett (10:10):

… and she runs it for nearly three decades, starting in the 1930s.

Clips (10:12):

And it began with a briefing for all 52 contestants. Presiding, the pageant’s executive director, Lenora Slaughter.

Susie Banikarim (10:21):

Interesting. This is like the Barbie story. Right? People assume Barbie was a male invention, but it was a woman who invented it. Yeah.

Jessica Bennett (10:27):

And so what happens is, over the years, Miss America becomes this pretty major cultural event. At its height in the 1960s, three in four American households watched it. In an article that I was doing a few years ago, I actually interviewed a woman, an author, Alex Kate Shulman. She’s now in her 80s, and she was one of the organizers of that 1968 feminist protest.

Susie Banikarim (10:50):

Awesome.

Jessica Bennett (10:50):

And she said to me, “Everybody tuned into Miss America back then. It was like the Oscars.” And that was just so surprising to me as someone who hadn’t grown up in that era.

Susie Banikarim (10:58):

I mean, that’s not surprising to me. Obviously, I didn’t grow up in the 1960s, but even when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, I remember there just weren’t that many channels on television. So, if there was a big event, everybody watched. That was the vibe.

Jessica Bennett (11:12):

Right, right, appointment viewing. The other thing is that there’s long been this controversy about what Miss America does with scholarship money and how much of that money actually goes to contestants. But the organization itself has long touted itself as more than a beauty pageant, not just a pageant. They’re the largest provider, they say, of scholarship money to young women. And the women take part in community service. They try to at least frame it as more than just a pageant.

Clips (11:42):

Scholarships I received as Miss Minnesota of 1956 helped to pay my college expenses. I’m glad I chose a career that gives me the opportunity to help prepare these wonderful children for life in the 90s.

(11:53):

Thank you, Miss America.

Jessica Bennett (11:56):

Over the years, Miss America has been the subject of mockery and scorn. It’s been opposed by religious groups, and women’s rights activists love when those two groups come together.

Susie Banikarim (12:05):

Yeah, I love it when those two groups can come together on something.

Jessica Bennett (12:08):

And it’s also, I think, a reminder that we still live in a world today where women are judged on their bodies. John Oliver actually had a really funny segment on this a few years ago.

Clips (12:18):

Last Sunday was the Miss America Pageant. And through it all, the swimsuits, the dance numbers, the inexplicable ventriloquism, it was very difficult not to think how the f*** is this still happening?

Susie Banikarim (12:48):

This is this kind of arcane thing. What are the rules for Miss America? I remember that they’re very strict.

Jessica Bennett (12:56):

Yeah. Okay. How do you get to be a Miss America? Well, there are a lot of rules. And even today, the rules state that first, you must be a woman between 17 and 25 years of age. You cannot be married, previously married, or divorced. You must not have any children. You can’t have been previously pregnant. You can’t be the adoptive parent of any child.

Susie Banikarim (13:18):

Okay, wait, I have questions about this. How can they verify that you’ve never been pregnant? People have miscarriages and abortions. They’re not checking your health records. That’s a crazy rule.

Jessica Bennett (13:28):

Obviously, you can’t check. I guess they’re relying on the honor system.

Susie Banikarim (13:31):

Yeah, I’m sure a lot of Miss Americas have had that. Yeah.

Jessica Bennett (13:34):

You also can’t compete if you’ve ever been convicted of a criminal offense. I feel like that’s a little less shocking. But all of these things, to see them printed out on paper is pretty strange.

Susie Banikarim (13:45):

I can imagine. Are there any other crazy rules?

Jessica Bennett (13:47):

Yeah, so actually, the most infamous of these rules was known as rule number seven. And this rule stated in the early years, this was until about the 1940s, that contestants to Miss America had to be “of good health and of the white race.”

Susie Banikarim (14:04):

I’m sorry, what? I just made a comically shocked face.

Jessica Bennett (14:09):

Yeah, and it wasn’t enough that they just declared they were “of the white race.” Contestants actually had to provide a detailed accounting of their ancestry.

Susie Banikarim (14:18):

Oh, wow. So, not a great history all around.

Jessica Bennett (14:21):

So, not a great history. And the overt “of the white race” rule was dropped in the 1940s. And interestingly, in the 1960s, there was actually a separate Miss Black America contest that was also held in Atlantic City in direct protest of the pageant.

Susie Banikarim (14:37):

Oh, wow. Okay.

Jessica Bennett (14:38):

But it would be another decade before a black contestant would actually walk on the stage.

Clips (14:43):

Until this year, the Miss America pageant could have been called Miss White America.

Jessica Bennett (14:48):

But by 1983, which is Vanessa’s year, only about a dozen black women had ever walked the Miss America stage. So, history was really being made, not just in her, but in that there were four African-American contestants total, which was the most ever in a single year.

Susie Banikarim (15:04):

Okay. So, they’re making some progress. Set the scene for me. It’s 1983. Is there a lot of big hair? Are there shoulder pads? What’s Vanessa Williams’ year like?

Jessica Bennett (15:15):

Yeah, a lot of sequins, a lot of shoulder pads, big hair. And actually, we should probably note that while Miss America had reached its peak in the 60s, this is when three in four American households were watching, by the 80s, when Vanessa is there, it’s actually really struggling. It’s fallen out of step with the culture. I mean, you can imagine. It’s the 80s. It’s crazy that this thing is still going on.

Susie Banikarim (15:37):

Oh, that’s interesting because I associate it with the 80s when I watched it, but that’s interesting that it wasn’t actually such a cultural juggernaut at that point.

Jessica Bennett (15:45):

Yeah.

Susie Banikarim (15:45):

I know from Pageant Moms and Toddlers and Tiaras and Honey Boo Boo that many girls get started at a very young age. Was Vanessa a pageant girl?

Jessica Bennett (15:56):

Oh, that’s a good question because you’re right. So many of these pageant people do this their whole lives. They get started really young. The parents are really involved. They work their way up from locals to state to whatever. And Vanessa was actually pretty unique in that she wasn’t that, except for one thing that is hilarious and would come up later after she won. Her parents, when she was born, had put on her birth announcement, “Here she is, Miss America.”

Susie Banikarim (16:23):

Oh, my God, that’s so cute, actually.

Jessica Bennett (16:25):

Isn’t that funny? It’s pretty adorable. And I should, at this point, I should cite Margot Mifflin, the author of a really amazing book on Miss America that has so much of this great history. So, we have read through that and some of these references, I am taking from her.

Susie Banikarim (16:38):

Okay. So, they put this on her birth announcement, but she’s not like a pageant girl. She doesn’t compete in pageants when she’s a child.

Jessica Bennett (16:43):

No. From everything that I’ve read, including her memoir, she has a pretty normal upbringing. She’s born in 1963 in a pretty small town called Millwood, New York. It’s a suburb of New York City. Her parents were music teachers, which is pretty cool and gives you a sense of how she became so artistic. She became a singer, ultimately. She wanted to be an actress, and they were really supportive of that. So, she sang in her high school choir, and she played the French horn in her band, which I love.

Susie Banikarim (17:09):

So cute.

Jessica Bennett (17:10):

And then, she went on to be a musical theater major at Syracuse University. She writes in her memoir, which came out in 2012, she actually co-authored it with her mom, that she didn’t have any desire to be a beauty queen, let alone Miss America, but she wanted a scholarship. She could use a little money to help her fund her junior year semester abroad.

Susie Banikarim (17:33):

I mean, fair.

Jessica Bennett (17:34):

And so that’s how this whole thing had started.

Susie Banikarim (17:37):

I don’t know how I know this, but I think she was scouted. Right?

Jessica Bennett (17:38):

Yes.

Susie Banikarim (17:39):

She was actually approached to enter.

Jessica Bennett (17:40):

You know so many facts about things. Yes, you’re right. So, she basically, she gets discovered singing in her college. She’s in the choir. Someone sees her, and this person encourages her to enter what was the Miss Greater Syracuse, which was a local competition that feeds into Miss New York, which then feeds into Miss America. So, she does. She enters it and she works her way up all in a matter of a few months. And of course, she starts getting noticed in the press, who begin asking her questions like:

Clips (18:10):

Now, you are a young black woman. Do you think the country is ready for a black Miss America?

(18:14):

Well, I certainly would be a first, and I wouldn’t mind that. I wouldn’t mind setting a trend, making waves.

Susie Banikarim (18:22):

It’s really a testament to her talent that it happened so quickly because there are girls who grow up trying to do this their whole lives. So, she does get to Miss America. What happens next?

Jessica Bennett (18:32):

Okay. So, it’s Miss America 1984, but it actually happens in 1983.

Clips (18:36):

Live from Convention Hall in Atlantic City, the Miss America Pageant,

Jessica Bennett (18:43):

And she gets there, and it’s like she’s a natural-born star. It’s clear that she’s meant to be on stage. She wows the judges. She’s gorgeous. She impresses them with how smart and confident she is.

Clips (18:58):

I think that it is important for education to be endowed with a good financial backing. I believe that-

Jessica Bennett (19:06):

She competes in this beautiful but very 80s pale pink sequined sparkly gown that has this gauzy bulb that looks like a shower puff. I don’t know how else to describe it, like a giant shower-

Susie Banikarim (19:18):

Yeah, that is a good way to describe it-

Jessica Bennett (19:18):

… that’s on the shoulder.

Susie Banikarim (19:19):

… as this lacy pouf on her shoulder.

Jessica Bennett (19:25):

Yes, yes, that she could hardly see over. Anyway, and her hair is very 80s, teased bangs. She actually writes in her memoir that she really only needed help from a coach for one of the questions, and that was why the pageant contestants had to compete in swimsuits because maybe she didn’t agree with that.

Susie Banikarim (19:44):

Yeah, what is the answer to that?

Clips (19:45):

Now, our Miss America finalists in swimsuit, Miss New York, Vanessa Williams.

Jessica Bennett (19:51):

She was told to say a fit body reflects a fit mind.

Susie Banikarim (19:55):

That’s very, very true.

Jessica Bennett (19:57):

And so this all leads to her victory. On September 17th, 1983, she is crowned Miss America,

Clips (20:05):

And our new Miss America is Vanessa Williams, Miss New York.

Susie Banikarim (20:10):

What’s crazy is that I know it’s ridiculous and it’s going to end badly for her, but I still feel a swell of pride for her when they make that announcement. It’s like Pavlovian on my part. What is wrong with my brain?

Jessica Bennett (20:21):

And that music is so evocative in a way. And watching the winning moment, she’s clearly excited. She’s beaming. She does the walk down the stage doing the iconic wave. She’s wearing her crown. She looks every bit the part. And notably, she says this at the First press conference after her win.

Clips (20:41):

I hope to do the best that I can to well represent America, to represent every person in America, no matter what race, or creed, or color they are.

Jessica Bennett (20:51):

So, what happens next? The coverage of the event is actually pretty interesting. For years, newspapers and magazines, I think, had sent multiple reporters to cover the Miss America pageant, and especially during the 60s protest years when there was big feminist uprisings.

Susie Banikarim (21:07):

Right.

Jessica Bennett (21:07):

Everyone was covering it. There was tons of coverage. But by this time, as we mentioned, it’s fallen out of favor.

Susie Banikarim (21:14):

I wonder, is that because of the women’s lib, working-girl vibe of the times?

Jessica Bennett (21:19):

I mean, maybe. I’m not sure the answer. But what ends up happening is that a lot of outlets, as a result, are really caught off guard in terms of just how historic this thing is.

Susie Banikarim (21:30):

Oh, that’s interesting.

Jessica Bennett (21:31):

So, the Washington Post, the year prior, has decided that nobody cares about Miss America anymore, and so they opted not to send a reporter. The New York Times doesn’t have anyone there either, and they run a wire story, which oddly doesn’t have a photo of Vanessa but only pictures her runner-up. That was a weird detail that I didn’t understand.

Susie Banikarim (21:48):

It’s very weird.

Jessica Bennett (21:49):

And then there’s other just funny details that give you a sense of how people covered these events. There’s this whole debate about whether or not she cried as she went on her inaugural walk to get her crown. The Chicago Tribune said she didn’t cry. The New York Times said she did cry. And anyway-

Susie Banikarim (22:06):

And God forbid.

Jessica Bennett (22:06):

Right? God forbid.

Susie Banikarim (22:06):

We love to police a woman’s crying.

Jessica Bennett (22:08):

The point is, it becomes clear pretty quickly that this is a big deal, and so the media is playing catch-up.

Susie Banikarim (22:28):

Okay. So, we have this historic victory, and reporters are scrambling to catch up. What is the impact of this? I imagine this becomes a huge news event.

Jessica Bennett (22:37):

Yeah, it does. I mean, it really does go down as one of the biggest news events of the year, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that she is the first. So, some liken her win to Jackie Robinson actually integrating baseball. Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress, weighs in. She says of the victory at the time, “Thank God I’ve lived long enough that this nation has been able to select the beautiful young woman of color to be Miss America.” And Vanessa actually talks about this too. Here she is in a press junket, post-victory.

Clips (23:07):

Being able to say that you are the first and being in history books and making so many people proud of something that never happened and probably they never thought they would see it in their lifetime and having it happen, I think, is a tremendous honor.

Susie Banikarim (23:19):

Yeah, I mean, you can see why this would feel really significant. Right? I mean, if you’re a young black girl in America, you’ve never seen yourself represented in this thing that’s held up as the epitome of what it means to be beautiful in America.

Jessica Bennett (23:32):

I think that’s, too, what made it feel so important, even though by that point, a lot of people dismissed Miss America. The other thing that was happening at the time is that this is occurring right around the same time that there’s this major backlash to affirmative action happening. So, this is when the Reagan administration was trying to roll back workforce diversity measures, and pundits were on the air talking about reverse discrimination.

Clips (23:55):

We’re all aware that recent opinion polls have indicated that while a very large majority of the American public support affirmative action, over 80% are also opposed to reverse discrimination.

Susie Banikarim (24:10):

I mean, that is wild because it feels like we’ve just come full circle, and everyone’s doing that … that same conversation is happening again right now. It’s wild.

Jessica Bennett (24:18):

I know. But so, it is coming amid this political moment too, and you can see this in what happens in the press coverage after, where she’s doing all of these interviews, and she keeps being asked things along the lines of, “So, are you a token? Was this affirmative action?”

Clips (24:34):

Don’t you consider yourself too, a de facto spokesman for black America now?

(24:40):

I think so, but that’s something that I knew that was going to happen, and I was prepared for it.

Jessica Bennett (24:46):

Her responses are actually so moving and telling because she really has to emphasize her qualifications. So, at a certain point, she says, “I was chosen because I was qualified for the position,” as if we’re talking about a job position. “The fact that I was black was not a factor. I’ve always had to try harder in my life to achieve things. So, this is regular.” At another point, she really emphasizes the importance of education and her character and hard work. She says quite bluntly, “I’m ambitious. I have a lot of drive, and I work hard to get somewhere.” And the thing that’s nice before this all comes crashing down is that the Miss America organization actually really backs her up. This guy, Albert Marx, who was the chairman of the board back then, says repeatedly, “I can assure you that this young lady got here on her merits.”

Susie Banikarim (25:38):

I mean, I believe that because did Miss America even care enough about inclusion for it to be affirmative action? I mean, it doesn’t seem like they were very worried about being inclusive. I mean, it’s interesting because when she says being black isn’t a factor, it is a factor. She had to work harder to get there.

Jessica Bennett (25:56):

Exactly, exactly.

Susie Banikarim (25:58):

It’s an interesting dichotomy. So, what’s it actually like for her to be Miss America? Being the first black Miss America must have been a really interesting experience.

Jessica Bennett (26:07):

Yeah, I mean, I think it’s pretty crazy. Miss Americas traditionally get to do things like ride on floats at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Clips (26:16):

I’m going to be singing New York, New York on the Big Apple float.

Jessica Bennett (26:19):

And they meet important people, and they act as ambassadors to their communities, but hers was really on a different level. She sits next to President Reagan at the White House at this state dinner for West Germany.

Clips (26:32):

I don’t think it’s a coincidence, for one thing, that you had a call of congratulations from President Reagan. He’s never called a winning Miss America before, that I’m aware of.

Jessica Bennett (26:40):

That year, there’s a Martin Luther King Jr. birthday rally in Atlanta, and she stands there and attends alongside Coretta Scott King and the first black astronaut. So, she’s standing with heroic figures.

Susie Banikarim (26:54):

It’s interesting because she’s taken something that’s genuinely pretty silly, and she’s imbued it with a kind of significance. Right? And there is-

Jessica Bennett (27:01):

Yeah, and a seriousness, I think.

Susie Banikarim (27:02):

… there is something interesting about that. Yeah, it’s like this thing can be silly but also meaningful, and she really proves that.

Jessica Bennett (27:08):

Yeah, and I think that, aside from that, I mean, she just had a huge number of fans. At one point in one of the articles about it, a reporter notes that people approached her with a frenzy once reserved for Mick Jagger and just departed with ecstatic smiles associated with religious experience. So, people really love her.

Susie Banikarim (27:26):

I mean, that makes sense. She really was so stunning. When you see the pictures and the videos of the time, you can see why she has this charisma that really draws people to her.

Jessica Bennett (27:35):

And yet, at the same time, though, it’s not all celebration. There are real racist undertones to a lot of what happens in the aftermath.

Susie Banikarim (27:42):

What does that look like? Is the backlash immediate?

Jessica Bennett (27:45):

Some of it is more overt than other parts of it, but it does begin pretty immediately. The very night that she’s crowned, one of the other attendees of the pageant, who is a former Miss America, makes some crack to someone that she’s with about how she must be “heading back to Harlem now.”

Susie Banikarim (28:00):

Gross.

Jessica Bennett (28:01):

Then, later in the week, Johnny Carson, on his late night show, makes this joke. I’m putting joke in quotations because it’s not funny. But he says, “Did you hear we have a black Miss America? I bet you didn’t know that Mr. T was one of the judges.”

Susie Banikarim (28:14):

I mean, that joke is just dumb, racist, and dumb.

Jessica Bennett (28:17):

And it’s interesting too, because she says at this time that she hadn’t really experienced bald-faced bigotry at this point. And so her parents say something to the effect of like, “Look, you are a public figure now, and we can’t shelter you anymore.” And it gets really nasty. There are racist, threatening letters sent to her parents’ house, just awful, awful things written and said. She has to have extra security wherever she goes. Armed guards are posted outside her hotel room. She talks, at one point, about how they were actual sharpshooters placed on the tops of buildings when she had her first parade in the South. Just wild, wild. This is the 80s, and there are sharpshooters to protect this Miss America.

Susie Banikarim (29:00):

I imagine there were so many death threats, really.

Jessica Bennett (29:03):

I’m sure we don’t even know the half of it, but I think it was just awful. There’s even another detail that she said, where usually when you have Miss America going to some town or for a parade, they ride in a convertible. That’s a thing. But she could not ride in a convertible because she was too exposed.

Susie Banikarim (29:20):

God, that’s really sad. It just really makes me sad for her that she had to have all these security measures that weren’t required for other people.

Jessica Bennett (29:27):

Well, and her family too. So, her mother, Helen Williams, co-authored Vanessa’s memoir with her, and she writes in that book that we had no idea that her Miss America reign would quickly become a reign of terror for us. That’s how she describes it, a reign of terror. And it’s interesting too, because at the time, you’re assuming that a lot of this is coming from white folks, but she was also being criticized by black people as well, who, I think, dismissed the notion that her crowning was a racial breakthrough. She was pretty light-skinned. She had these beautiful green eyes. It was later revealed that her longtime boyfriend was white. And so she received these really vicious letters that called her a race traitor as well.

Susie Banikarim (30:08):

Yeah, because it’s this idea that you are embraced by your community in one way but also rejected in another.

Jessica Bennett (30:15):

Exactly.

Susie Banikarim (30:16):

You’re never quite good enough for any of the people who feel invested in your win.

Jessica Bennett (30:20):

Yeah. And Vanessa talked about this a bit in an interview she did in 1991.

Clips (30:24):

I mean, I had racial problems when I first won. I got death threats from the Klan because I was black. I got people from-

(30:30):

For winning Miss America?

(30:30):

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I had black people in America who said, “She doesn’t look black enough.”

Susie Banikarim (30:34):

It’s interesting. It reminds me of Robin Givens, who is not celebrated as being black enough, and that must also be really a complicated history for Vanessa to have to navigate. But this is happening over the course of the year. She almost completes the full term as Miss America.

Jessica Bennett (30:54):

Yes. It’s been many months now. And it’s interesting to hear her, in later years, talk about this time because she sounds a bit torn. On the one hand, she’s what, 20, 21 years old. She’s getting to travel the country. She’s meeting all these incredible people. It’s an entree in a lot of ways to what she really wants, which is to be in the entertainment business. But at the same time, there’s this racism, and everywhere she goes, people are asking her about the political issues or the racial politics of the day. And actually, in fairness to her, at one point, she answers that question by saying, “Hey, I’m only 20 years old. What qualifies me to answer that?” Which fairly-

Susie Banikarim (31:32):

I mean, that is really fair. Why is she suddenly being thrust into this position as a leader on racial politics? That’s really a strange position for her to have been forced into.

Jessica Bennett (31:44):

And I think that’s one of the things about being a first of anything too. It’s like you are expected to answer for the whole group, and then if something bad happens, you are again expected to answer for the whole group.

Susie Banikarim (31:58):

Okay. So, we do know that eventually, something bad does happen, and she gets dethroned. What happened?

Jessica Bennett (32:05):

So, what happens is, nine weeks from the end of her reign, so she’s really very close to this year post being over, she learns that nude photos that she had taken when she was 19 years old were going to appear in Penthouse. And the kicker: the nude photos were with another woman.

Susie Banikarim (32:25):

And she hadn’t consented to these photos being released in any way, right?

Jessica Bennett (32:29):

No. The photographer sold these images to the magazine without her permission or her knowledge. And so the way she finds out about them is actually during an interview with a reporter. This is happening on the phone, and the reporter drops it in at the very end of the interview, essentially saying, “By the way, a source mentioned that there would be these nude photos of you appearing in Penthouse. Can you confirm that this is true?”

Susie Banikarim (32:54):

Oh, my God. She must have been so blindsided. She had no idea it was coming?

Jessica Bennett (32:58):

No, no idea. And obviously, she’s extremely rattled when the reporter asks her this. So, she denies it and quickly hangs up, but she also knows that these photos are out there. And so, before she can even figure out what to do, Miss America gets wind of the photos. They see them, and they give her a public ultimatum.

Clips (33:17):

Miss America, Vanessa Williams took off her clothes, and now she’s being asked to give up her crown within 72 hours.

Susie Banikarim (33:24):

That’s Tom Brokaw, right?

Jessica Bennett (33:25):

Yep.

Susie Banikarim (33:25):

I would recognize his voice anywhere. And he really delivers that line. So, she’s given 72 hours to decide what to do.

Jessica Bennett (33:33):

Yes. And she spends that time holed up in her childhood home. She’s with her parents. She’s told them at this point. Her lawyer is there. Her publicist is there, and they’re essentially debating what she should do.

Susie Banikarim (33:44):

And what does she decide to do?

Jessica Bennett (33:46):

Well, Susie, I’m going to tell you all about that, as well as Vanessa’s remarkable comeback in part two.

(33:53):

Before we go, I wanted to give a quick shout-out to two authors whose books were instrumental in our research of this episode. The first is Margo Mifflin, whose book is Looking for Miss America: A Pageant’s 100-Year Quest to Define Womanhood. And the second is Amy Argetsinger, whose book is There She Was: The Secret History of Miss America. They’re both fascinating reads, and you can find links to them in our show notes.

Susie Banikarim (34:23):

This is In Retrospect. Thanks for listening. Is there a pop culture moment you can’t stop thinking about and want us to explore in a future episode? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram @inretropod.

Jessica Bennett (34:36):

If you love this podcast, please rate and review us on Apple, or Spotify, or wherever you listen. If you hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram, which we may or may not delete.

Susie Banikarim (34:46):

You can also find us on Instagram @jessicabennett and @susiebnyc. Also, check out Jessica’s books, Feminist Fight Club and This is 18.

Jessica Bennett (34:55):

In Retrospect is a production of iHeart Podcasts and the Meteor. Lauren Hanson is our supervising producer. Derrick Clements is our engineer and sound designer. Emily Marinoff is our producer. Sharon Attia is our researcher and associate producer.

Susie Banikarim (35:10):

Our executive producer from the Meteor is Cindi Leive. Our executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stumpf and Katrina Norvell. Our artwork is from Pentagram. Our mixing engineer is Amanda Rose Smith. Additional editing help from Mary Dooe. We are your hosts, Susie Banikarim-

Jessica Bennett (35:27):

… and Jessica Bennett. We’re also executive producers. For even more, check out Inretropod.com. See you next week.

EPISODE 33 – GROWING UP WITH SALLY FIELD’S ‘NOT WITHOUT MY DAUGHTER’

Please note: This transcript has been automatically generated.

Porochista Khakpour (00:05):

Occasionally people would ask me, “Have you seen it?” And I’d be like, “Yeah, yeah, of course.” And then sometimes they would watch it and then they’d be like, “Wow, this is such a terrible movie. Why doesn’t everyone just ignore it?” Except the era made it so that we couldn’t forget it.

Susie Banikarim (00:19):

I’m Susie Banikarim.

Jessica Bennett (00:21):

And I’m Jessica Bennett.

Susie Banikarim (00:22):

And this is in Retrospect where each week we revisit a cultural moment from the past that shaped us.

Jessica Bennett (00:28):

And that we just can’t stop thinking about.

Susie Banikarim (00:30):

Today we’re talking to bestselling author Porochista Khakpour who is a friend and fellow Iranian. We’re going to talk about the movie Not Without My Daughter. When we were growing up, this was really the only mainstream representation of Iranians and it had a pretty big impact on us.

(00:47):

Porochista, thank you so much for joining us on In Retrospect. I’m so happy to get to have this conversation with you.

Porochista Khakpour (00:53):

Thank you so much for having me. I’m honored.

Susie Banikarim (00:55):

Well, so you and I have been talking about this movie, Not Without My Daughter. I reached out to you because I was like, “Hey, do you have thoughts about this movie? Because I definitely do.” And you were like, “Susie, yes, and I’ve written about it.”

Porochista Khakpour (01:10):

Yeah.

Susie Banikarim (01:10):

So since then I have read the thing you wrote about it for the LA Times many years ago, but this is a movie that looms very large in the Iranian experience because as you wrote, we were pretty invisible in culture. I’d say we’re probably still somewhat invisible in culture.

Porochista Khakpour (01:29):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (01:29):

But growing up this was the only representation I remember seeing of Iranian people in pop culture. Is that your memory too?

Porochista Khakpour (01:39):

Yeah, there was very little because I remember the commercial, the day that it aired on television. Because our TV was always on. We had one of those households where the TV was always blaring, so I vividly remember the first commercial I saw for it.

Clips (01:53):

In 1984, Betty Mahmoody’s husband took her and her daughter to Iran to meet his family.

Porochista Khakpour (02:01):

I just remember in our household, we were very excited at first. “Okay, wow, this is clearly something taking place in Iran. This is amazing.” And then halfway through the trailer we were like, “Oh.”

Susie Banikarim (02:13):

Yeah, the trailer is dark.

Clips (02:14):

I don’t know how to say this to you. We’re not going back. We’re staying here. I want us to live in Iran.

Clips (02:19):

What are you crazy? We’re Americans, your daughter’s an American.

Porochista Khakpour (02:25):

Mainly we were excited because of Sally Field.

Susie Banikarim (02:28):

Same.

Porochista Khakpour (02:29):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (02:29):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (02:29):

I don’t know, she must’ve been huge in Iran because my parents told me a lot about her. I mean she was obviously of a different era than our era, but Sally Field just seemed like the perfect America’s darling. This was shortly after she’d been in Steel Magnolias.

Clips (02:43):

Yes, which is also-

Porochista Khakpour (02:43):

This is like the height-

Susie Banikarim (02:43):

A great movie.

Porochista Khakpour (02:45):

Amazing movie. Sally Field has just had hits mainly, other than Not Without My Daughter. So it’s like she was at the height of her power and so of course we were going to pay attention, first and foremost to a Sally Field movie being on television. And then it was like, “Oh, whoa, Iran.” And I remember for a second we thought she was playing an Iranian woman.

Susie Banikarim (03:06):

Right, because you didn’t know the book.

Porochista Khakpour (03:07):

No.

Susie Banikarim (03:07):

That’s so interesting because I don’t think we were familiar with the book either. And I also was a huge Sally Field fan. I loved Gidget and we should mention we both grew up in California.

Porochista Khakpour (03:17):

Yeah.

Susie Banikarim (03:17):

Although you grew up in LA which is more typical of an Iranian family. My family very consciously decided to live in Northern California. My parents were a little afraid that we would be subsumed by the kind of, I don’t even know how to describe it for people who don’t know it, but there’s this Iranian culture in LA that’s very focused on money and plastic surgery. Which, no shade, I’ve dabbled in all those things, but they were really afraid we would become these stereotypical Iranian girls.

(03:47):

And so I grew up off in the wilderness. Northern California is not the wilderness, but for Iranian people, it kind of felt that way. We didn’t have this huge Iranian community. We had some friends and whatever, but as a result, when the movie came out, I certainly was not aware of the book and so I don’t remember the way you do when I first became aware of it or when I saw it for the first time even. I watched it this week just to remind myself and I don’t know that I had ever seen it from start to finish.

Porochista Khakpour (04:18):

Oh, wow, right.

Susie Banikarim (04:19):

I think I just always caught it on reruns.

Porochista Khakpour (04:21):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (04:21):

But I was aware that it existed from a pretty young age and I was aware that everyone was appalled by it.

Porochista Khakpour (04:30):

Yeah. And not just Iranians we should say. I mean it was a flop.

Susie Banikarim (04:34):

It was a flop.

Porochista Khakpour (04:34):

It didn’t do well in the box office at all.

Susie Banikarim (04:36):

It did not do well. Okay, we should describe the movie for people who don’t know what we’re talking about.

(04:43):

This movie is the story of a woman named Betty Mahmoody who is married to a man named Sayyed Mahmoody, who goes by Moody. That’s a little confusing.

Porochista Khakpour (04:52):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (04:53):

Their last name is Mahmoody, but his nickname is Moody. So just FYI.

Porochista Khakpour (04:57):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (04:57):

And it is based on a true story. And we should say that because what we’re talking about here is not whether or not the story she told was true.

Porochista Khakpour (05:05):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (05:06):

I don’t have any way of knowing that and I think there’s some evidence that in fact the story she told was true.

Porochista Khakpour (05:11):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (05:12):

But it’s the movie that really had this cultural impact on Iranians in a different way. The book was really popular. It was a bestseller.

Porochista Khakpour (05:19):

I think we were just too young because if we were probably in our 20s or 30s we would’ve probably noticed that it was an international bestseller, but instead like kids, we noticed the movie more.

Susie Banikarim (05:28):

Yeah.

Porochista Khakpour (05:29):

But it was huge and the book was, I think, pretty critically acclaimed even.

Susie Banikarim (05:33):

Yeah, I mean it came out in 1987. The movie doesn’t come out until 1991, so there’s a little bit of a break in between it. And it’s probably worth noting that this period in American history was really the most anti-Iranian period.

Porochista Khakpour (05:45):

Yes, definitely.

Susie Banikarim (05:45):

Anti-Iranian sentiment was very high. For people who don’t know the history, when the Iranian Revolution happens, it starts in ’78 and ends in ’79. Some Iranian students barricade the American Embassy and take hostages. And this becomes a huge national story.

Clips (06:04):

United States Marine Corps guards used tear gas to try to disperse the mob of Islamic students, but that wasn’t enough.

Clips (06:11):

They stormed the embassy, fought the Marine guards for three hours, overpowered them, and took dozens of American hostages.

Clips (06:17):

The hostages, men and women, were blindfolded and herded into the embassy’s basement.

Susie Banikarim (06:22):

These hostages are kept for 444 days while they’re negotiating with America on whether or not they’re going to release these American Embassy workers. And it was such a big story that I actually read that Walter Cronkite would end every show by saying how many days they had been in captivity.

Clips (06:39):

And that’s the way it is. Tuesday, February 19th, 1980, the 108th day of captivity. The 222nd day of captivity. The 285th day of captivity. The 377th day of captivity for American hostages in Iran.

Susie Banikarim (06:54):

And I think for a lot of Americans, it was the first time they’d ever really thought about Iran. I mean Iran was not in the popular culture in the way it became after the axis of evil comments by George Bush.

Porochista Khakpour (07:03):

Right, right.

Susie Banikarim (07:03):

So it was their first exposure to Iran and the idea was that it was this really primitive country and there was a lot of protests in America.

Porochista Khakpour (07:12):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (07:12):

And there was a lot of anti-Iranian racism that people experienced. So this movie arrives on the scene when Iranians have kind of been turned into the latest boogieman. America has to have someone.

Porochista Khakpour (07:25):

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Susie Banikarim (07:26):

The Cold War was kind of waning. I feel like they needed someone new.

Porochista Khakpour (07:29):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (07:30):

And the Iranians took that mantle.

Porochista Khakpour (07:31):

The timing was, I think that’s a big part of this. I’ve noticed younger people don’t even know. So much of your experience of the US when you’re Iranian has to do with when you arrived.

Susie Banikarim (07:42):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (07:42):

There were pockets where it was a little easier.

Susie Banikarim (07:45):

Yeah.

Porochista Khakpour (07:45):

Like when I came, where things like that, and then there’s pockets that it got worse. It always ebbs and flows and it has a lot to do with the news cycle and it has a lot to do with US foreign policy and who’s our president and all that stuff.

Susie Banikarim (07:55):

I was a bit oblivious as a child. I don’t know that I even really realized people didn’t like Iranians. I did arrive in this country right after the revolution, so it would’ve been at this height, but we lived in this small town in Northern California. There weren’t a lot of us. And our parents taught us that it was cool that we were Iranian. They were kind of like, “Well, you’re better than these Americans.”

Porochista Khakpour (08:17):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (08:17):

“You’re Iranian. That’s something to be proud of.” And I feel really lucky about that because it took a long time for me to realize what I was was supposed to be bad in some way.

Porochista Khakpour (08:26):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (08:27):

And then to actually experience discrimination, which obviously eventually I did because I live in America.

Porochista Khakpour (08:33):

But I think I’ve had this experience with a lot of people who lived in Northern California and I think Northern California really could be another state. I mean it to me always seems way more educated, way more culturally sensitive. I wish my parents had decided to go to Northern California first. They didn’t because my aunt was there, my grandma was in Long Beach.

Susie Banikarim (08:50):

Yeah.

Porochista Khakpour (08:50):

Which I mean we weren’t in the Tehrangeles part of LA, so I was still one of very few Iranians in our community. We were in the San Gabriel Valley. But we were still close enough to the real LA Iranian experience that the reason we heard so much anti-Iranianist because people were very aware of Iranians.

Susie Banikarim (09:13):

We should explain, because I feel like you and I just assume everybody knows what Tehrangeles is.

Porochista Khakpour (09:18):

Oh, yeah.

Susie Banikarim (09:19):

But that’s not the case. Will you tell people what that is and then later on we’re going to talk about your new book, which is called Tehrangeles.

Porochista Khakpour (09:27):

Which mistakenly people keep thinking I invented that word, which is amazing. I’m like, “Wow.”

Susie Banikarim (09:31):

You’re like, “Whoa.”

Porochista Khakpour (09:32):

I can’t take credit for that. It’s a portmanteau for just Tehran and Los Angeles and it refers to a part of the west side of LA. It’s very specific. People would probably fight over exactly what areas, but certainly it includes Beverly Hills, parts of Bel Air, parts of Brentwood, even parts of Santa Monica, Westwood.

Susie Banikarim (09:52):

Yes, I was going to say Westwood is what I always remember.

Porochista Khakpour (09:54):

Yeah.

Susie Banikarim (09:54):

And it’s where there are a lot of Iranian shops and Iranian restaurants.

Porochista Khakpour (09:57):

Exactly. There’s a Little Persia plaque now.

Susie Banikarim (10:00):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (10:00):

Which wasn’t there when I was a kid. So it’s very much this particular area and then there’s a whole culture that comes with it and it’s very much what you were describing earlier. It is this culture of very flashy moneyed Iranians. It’s all like upper class or upper middle class and people that are pretending to be very upper class.

Susie Banikarim (10:17):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (10:18):

I often think of it very much like this one scene in Clueless where Alicia Silverstone’s Cher character points out to her friend. She goes, “And that’s the Persian mafia.”

Clips (10:26):

And that’s the Persian mafia. You can’t hang with them unless you own a BMW.

Susie Banikarim (10:29):

That actually by the way is the second time I remember Iranians being mentioned in a movie was in Clueless and being like, “Oh my God.” But it is of course that kind of thing that eventually becomes what I think a lot of people associate with Iranians now in pop culture, Shahs of Sunset, which was a reality show on Bravo for a while.

Clips (10:45):

This season on Shahs of Sunset.

Susie Banikarim (10:48):

It’s like very flashy, lots of gold, very ostentatious, is the vibe.

Clips (10:54):

Yes.

Susie Banikarim (10:54):

And I think in Iranian culture it’s complicated because on the one hand I don’t want to talk shit about other Iranians, but it is also true that when you grow up Iranian, you have a point of view about what that vibe is.

Clips (11:07):

Yeah.

Susie Banikarim (11:07):

Like that Persian American princess thing.

Clips (11:10):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (11:11):

And you and I were both really very much not of that and I think that makes us kind of unusual.

Clips (11:16):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (11:16):

But it makes sense that we’re friends.

Porochista Khakpour (11:18):

Totally. Exactly. It also makes sense that we love New York. This place and it’s Iranians are so the antithesis of that energy I feel like, which is still thriving. We should mention too.

Susie Banikarim (11:29):

Yeah.

Porochista Khakpour (11:29):

There’s TikToks that are all about that. They don’t always use the word Tehrangeles but they’re very much referring to that kind of culture and now they’re doing the Gen Z version of that with their Lamborghinis and their makeup.

Susie Banikarim (11:42):

It’s so funny that that’s what’s so associated with Iranian culture because in my mind, Iranian culture is so many other things.

Porochista Khakpour (11:48):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (11:49):

That have nothing to do with money. Not everyone from Iran is rich.

Porochista Khakpour (11:52):

Exactly.

Susie Banikarim (11:52):

That’s just a wild stereotype that makes no sense to me.

(12:10):

Let’s go back to the movie and what was happening. This book comes out, then the movie doesn’t come out until a bit later, ’91, but it takes place in ’84.

Porochista Khakpour (12:21):

Yes.

Susie Banikarim (12:22):

It’s really soon after the revolution. The Iran-Iraq War is raging and for people who don’t know what that is, that was a conflict between Iraq and Iran that went on for many years. And the Iraqi side was very much funded by American intervention, because of the hostage crisis, but also they just felt at that time that Iraq was a more friendly nation.

Porochista Khakpour (12:46):

Yes.

Susie Banikarim (12:46):

That would not go on to be the case.

Porochista Khakpour (12:48):

Right, right.

Susie Banikarim (12:48):

But when the movie comes out is when that is shifting a bit, because Iraq has just invaded Kuwait. And there’s about to be Operation Desert Storm, which was a short-lived war when we were kids, and that is literally happening right as the movie is coming out. The movie comes out in January on January 11th and less than a week later, the invasion begins.

Clips (13:22):

The skies over Baghdad have been illuminated. We’re seeing bright flashes going off all over the sky.

Susie Banikarim (13:22):

So it’s in that context that we are introduced to the Mahmoody family. And I’m going to just walk us through it and you can tell me your impressions of these scenes as well. But the way the movie starts is that these two have the most idyllic marriage, like the most adorable couple with the most adorable child.

Clips (13:44):

I want to sit on Daddy’s lap.

Clips (13:46):

Well, it’s my turn. You always sit on Daddy lap.

Clips (13:48):

Don’t fight over me girls.

Susie Banikarim (13:49):

This beautiful lush green landscape and he’s a doctor and she’s a stay-at-home mom. And there’s just one little hint that not everything is paradise and it’s that one day they show him at the hospital and other doctors are saying nasty things about Iranians in front of him.

Clips (14:11):

About the Iranians pray themselves right back into the Stone Age.

Clips (14:15):

Soldier gets wounded in the field, just let him die. He’s going to go to paradise anyway, right?

Susie Banikarim (14:18):

And he gets very upset. But even in that he’s presented in this very erudite way. He goes home and listens to classical music to recover from his discrimination. And she’s like, “It’s not okay. I stand with you.”

Clips (14:33):

We moved here to get away from all of that. God, it’s just so awful.

Clips (14:37):

Oh, honey, forget it.

Susie Banikarim (14:39):

And then there is this scene where he’s with his daughter and she tells him that she’s been discriminated against also.

Clips (14:46):

Lucille says I hate Americans because you’re from Iran.

Susie Banikarim (14:49):

And he says to in this infamous line-

Clips (14:53):

I’ve lived in America for 20 years. I’m as American as apple pie. And so are you.

Susie Banikarim (15:01):

So that’s the beginning of the movie. We are presented to this family and this man, he’s American, he’s Iranian, but it’s almost incidental to who he is. And while he is American, he is the perfect husband.

Porochista Khakpour (15:12):

One thing that struck me this time watching it again that kind of cracked me up is the dad is played by Alfred Molina.

Susie Banikarim (15:18):

Right, because they couldn’t find an Iranian actor in LA apparently.

Porochista Khakpour (15:20):

Because they do have other Iranian actors in the film.

Susie Banikarim (15:22):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (15:22):

So it’s just sort of weird it goes to Alfred Molina, who’s I think of Spanish and Italian descent.

Susie Banikarim (15:27):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (15:27):

It struck me this time as so funny because I think of the name of the daughter, which Mahtob. Mahtob is one of the easiest names to say.

Susie Banikarim (15:34):

Yeah.

Porochista Khakpour (15:35):

I’ve heard many, many white Americans be able to say Mahtob very easily.

Susie Banikarim (15:39):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (15:39):

But from the beginning it struck me that they’re just saying the daughter’s name even weird. They’re like “Mahtob, Mahtob.” And I was just like they couldn’t get that right?

Susie Banikarim (15:48):

The other thing I want to say here is that there’s a lot of Farsi spoken in this movie.

Porochista Khakpour (15:51):

Yes.

Susie Banikarim (15:52):

My Farsi’s not great, but it’s better than this. This is the worst Farsi you’ve ever heard. And it is never translated. It is just presented as this gobbledygook going on in the background.

Porochista Khakpour (16:02):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (16:03):

But there’s no captions on screen. It’s just like, “Oh, they speak this foreign scary tongue.”

Clips (16:08):

[foreign language 00:16:10]

Porochista Khakpour (16:13):

I guess they just realized it wouldn’t make a difference because it’s not like they were conveying anything that shows their humanity through the Persian anyway, so they just don’t do it.

Susie Banikarim (16:22):

They clearly had Iranian people working on the film.

Porochista Khakpour (16:24):

Yes.

Susie Banikarim (16:24):

Someone had to teach him the Farsi he does speak.

Porochista Khakpour (16:27):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (16:27):

And if you’re going to go through the trouble of teaching him Farsi and having him say things, I don’t know why you wouldn’t translate them. I mean that part’s so weird to me.

Porochista Khakpour (16:33):

So weird.

Susie Banikarim (16:34):

And they’re living this idyllic life. And then he says to her, “I haven’t been to Iran in 10 years. I would really like to go home.”

Clips (16:43):

Honey, I want to go more than anything. I miss them so much. You’re always talking about how important family is. All I want to do is go for two weeks with you and Mahtob and visit my family.

Susie Banikarim (16:57):

And she’s horrified by the idea that they would go to Iran.

Clips (17:00):

Horrified.

Susie Banikarim (17:00):

Which I guess is fair. I mean there was a war raging there, so that does make sense. But it’s just like the absolute horror with which she responds that I find kind of funny

Clips (17:10):

I can’t go to Iran.

Clips (17:11):

Why not?

Clips (17:11):

I’m not about to take Mahtob to Iran. It’s much too violent.

Clips (17:18):

We’re not going to go sightseeing to the Persian Gulf or anything crazy. We’re going to spend two weeks on vacation with my family.

Clips (17:25):

Moody, there’s too much going on over there.

Susie Banikarim (17:27):

And he swears to her with his hand on the Holy Quran that they will be back in two weeks.

Clips (17:33):

I swear to you on the sacred Quran that you won’t be in any danger.

Susie Banikarim (17:41):

Which I find also weird because if you’re only going for a two-week vacation.

Clips (17:44):

Yeah, right.

Susie Banikarim (17:44):

Why is there so much of a question about whether or not you’re going to come back?

Clips (17:46):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (17:47):

You own your home. You have a job.

Porochista Khakpour (17:49):

Yeah, exactly.=

Susie Banikarim (17:50):

But then we get into this thing that you have talked about, which is that essentially this is a horror movie about Iranians.

Porochista Khakpour (17:56):

It really has that structure because Betty Mahmoody’s nightmare in this is that she’s being told that she’s going to go to Iran for two weeks.

Susie Banikarim (18:03):

Right.

Porochista Khakpour (18:04):

Shortly after she gets there, he turns into an absolute villain.

Clips (18:10):

You listen to me. You’re in my country now. You are my wife. You do as I say, you understand me?

Porochista Khakpour (18:15):

And we realize he’s kidnapped her.

Clips (18:16):

Yes, he’s kidnapped her.

Porochista Khakpour (18:16):

This is a movie about a kidnapping. And so she’s not going to be able to go back to the US and so she’s just stuck now in Iran. He becomes like a demon. He’s an abuser suddenly

Clips (18:33):

We went for a walk.

Clips (18:33):

You try anything like this again, I’ll kill you.

Porochista Khakpour (18:37):

There’s all these scenes of her praying with her daughter to the Lord because she’s very Christian. She wears a cross.

Clips (18:41):

Lord, hear our prayer.

Clips (18:43):

Dear Lord, hear our prayer.

Clips (18:45):

Please help us leave Iran and get back to America.

Susie Banikarim (18:48):

It really does follow this horror film structure like you’re talking about. It starts with this ominous music. Then there’s the calm before the storm. And now they’re in Iran and it is the storm. Even from the moment they land. Do you remember that scene? I was blown away by re-watching the scene. When they get to the airport, which is represented as a dirt field. They’re never in a structure of any kind. I’m like, “Why is there no airport? I’ve been to the airport.”

Clips (19:12):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (19:12):

And then there’s just this huge group, like 100 people all cloaked in black and they’re surrounding her and he immediately starts laughing maniacally. I’m like, “What’s happening in this scene?”

Porochista Khakpour (19:27):

It’s so wild that scene, because of course we know as Iranians, people often come to the airport to see us, some family members, but it’s not 30 family members or a whole village. It’s so weird. And they’re screaming and yelling. They like mob the family, and she’s like, “Oh my gosh, this must be how Iranians are.”

Susie Banikarim (19:45):

At this point they’ve been married for seven years. Their daughter is four. Presumably they have met other Iranian people.

Porochista Khakpour (19:50):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (19:51):

I mean, in fact, they reference that some of this family has come to stay with them before.

Porochista Khakpour (19:56):

Right, right.

Susie Banikarim (19:56):

So it’s this bizarre moment that they’re like mauling this poor child who looks terrified off the bat. And then there is the scene that truly scarred me so much as a child. And I need to know how you reacted to the scene. But eventually they get in a car and they go to where they are staying, I guess, where his sister lives. And when they get out of the car, someone is slitting a goat’s throat.

Porochista Khakpour (20:21):

Oh yeah.

Susie Banikarim (20:21):

And blood is gushing. Genuinely, I remember as a child being like, “What is happening? Do people slit goat’s throats in the streets of Tehran?” I remember asking my parents, “Is this a thing that happens?” And of course Betty and her daughter are horrified by this animal being slaughtered in front of them.

Clips (20:41):

Mommy, they’re hurting him, Mommy. They’re hurting him.

Clips (20:44):

Their way of saying welcome. It’s a great honor. They give the meat to the poor. Honey, honey, we have to step over it.

Susie Banikarim (20:49):

Is that something you’ve ever heard of happening in any Iranian family?

Porochista Khakpour (20:53):

No.

Susie Banikarim (20:54):

It’s so crazy.

Porochista Khakpour (20:55):

I think they were trying so hard. There’s several early scenes where it seems like they’re trying to really establish the otherness of Islam in a very concrete way and so they’re really stretching. I kind of feel like the filmmakers got this project and they were like, “Oh, Iran is more Westernized than we realized. Shoot. Let’s amplify these things that will make it look really other to regular Americans.” And there are villages in Iran where they will slaughter an animal in a sort of sacrificial thing, but this thing exists all over the world. I mean, the idea of animals being sacrificed as a homecoming meal or something, sure. In my family, certainly not. And I’m sure-

Susie Banikarim (21:34):

No, nobody slaughtered any goats when they entertained me in Iran.

(21:42):

I’ve been to Iran a number of times. Have you been back since the revolution?

Porochista Khakpour (21:45):

I actually haven’t been back. I was only there for the first few years of my life, but I haven’t been able to go back.

Susie Banikarim (21:50):

I was 18 when I went back the first time. And then I went back again after grad school. And then I wasn’t able to go back because once I became a journalist, it became essentially impossible.

Porochista Khakpour (21:59):

Yeah.

Susie Banikarim (21:59):

But my mom lived there up until recently. She had moved back when I was in college and lived there for 20 years. And it’s not such a backwards country.

Porochista Khakpour (22:07):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (22:08):

I mean, of course there are pockets of it that are backwards and it is ruled by an Islamic government so there are some things that feel very backward when you’re there. You have to wear a headscarf and you have to cover up. What’s interesting is I think even though I lived in an Iranian family, and we live nothing like these people, to some degree even when I went at 18, I expected the country to be this very dark, primitive, backwards place because those were the only images I had seen also.

Porochista Khakpour (22:35):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (22:36):

But that’s what media had taught me about what my country was. And I remember just being so shocked because a friend of my mom’s had a daughter about my age and she came to pick me up to drive me around. And I got in her car and she had a Guns N’ Roses bumper sticker on the inside of her car. And I just remember being so shocked by that. I was like, “Oh, these are just kids like us.”

Porochista Khakpour (22:56):

Yeah.

Susie Banikarim (22:56):

“These are just normal people.” And then you would go to parties and everyone takes their scarves off and everybody drinks, even though it’s not allowed.

Porochista Khakpour (23:02):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (23:03):

It’s actually a pretty sophisticated country. And before the revolution, it was actually considered this very cool place to visit. It was very urban. It is weird to see it depicted in this way, now having been to Iran, but I think the first time I saw it, I had never been so I was like, “Maybe this is what happens.”

Porochista Khakpour (23:22):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (23:23):

So we get through this scarring scene about the goat and then it becomes clear that they’re not going back. He tells her that he’s been fired actually from his job, which now that we know he’s an abusive psycho kind of makes sense.

Porochista Khakpour (23:38):

Yeah, right, right.

Susie Banikarim (23:39):

I’m a little curious about what his bedside manner might’ve been like.

Porochista Khakpour (23:42):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (23:42):

He takes her and Mahtob’s passports and they are not allowed to leave the apartment. And there are these really weird details about the family. Do you remember that they have no furniture?

Porochista Khakpour (23:54):

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Susie Banikarim (23:55):

Why don’t they have any furniture? I’ve never been in an Iranian house with literally no furniture of any kind.

Porochista Khakpour (24:01):

Yeah.

Susie Banikarim (24:01):

Sometimes you eat picnic style, but you don’t get rid of all the furniture. They all sleep in the living room together.

Porochista Khakpour (24:06):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (24:06):

As far as I can tell. It’s very weird.

Porochista Khakpour (24:08):

The word primitive comes up a lot in this film.

Susie Banikarim (24:10):

So many times.

Clips (24:12):

It just seems so primitive sometimes.

(24:14):

But we can’t stay here. This is a backward primitive country.

Susie Banikarim (24:19):

To be clear, there are things about the way Iranians force women to live that I also think are backwards.

Porochista Khakpour (24:24):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (24:24):

But it’s not such a primitive country, and we’re not going to go through all the back and forth with this because there’s many more scenes that indicate that Iranians are terrible people and this country is just a cesspool.

Porochista Khakpour (24:34):

Yes.

Susie Banikarim (24:35):

And eventually she realizes that the way she’s going to be able to survive this is that she’s going to have to pretend that she’s bought in and that she wants to stay.

Porochista Khakpour (24:43):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (24:44):

And there’s this whole section of the film where she’s essentially convincing him that she’s decided she is into it. He continues to be emotionally and physically abusive. There’s a particularly ugly scene where he beats her in the hallway of his daughter’s school and also hits the daughter. And an important detail here is that part of the reason she cannot leave without her daughter, Not Without My Daughter, is that in Iranian culture, in a divorce the man gets custody. She has no rights to her own daughter in Iran.

Porochista Khakpour (25:15):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (25:16):

So she starts to hatch a plan. She’s constantly trying to reach the Swiss Embassy where there’s an American interest division, and eventually she does make friends with a couple Iranians. And that’s also interesting because here are these two Iranian men in this movie that are presented as kind people, but they are both people who love America. “We love America. We’re not real Iranians. We love America.”

Clips (25:42):

You are American?

Clips (25:43):

Yes.

Clips (25:46):

I like America very much. My son was with University of Texas.

Porochista Khakpour (25:52):

Yeah, they’re supposed to be representing a minority. They’re the antithesis of all the regular Iranians who are primitive. They’re very well-educated. They have libraries.

Susie Banikarim (26:01):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (26:01):

They’re talking about gardens and ancient Persia.

Clips (26:04):

Whenever I think of what’s happening to my country, I try to remember its gardens. In fact, the word paradise is a Persian word.

Porochista Khakpour (26:11):

They’re very affluent and very well-dressed. And it doesn’t seem like they’re Muslim or else they don’t have a close relationship.

Susie Banikarim (26:17):

They’re certainly not outwardly Muslim in any way.

Porochista Khakpour (26:20):

Yes, yes. And so they’re the good Westernized Iranians who are going to rescue her.

Susie Banikarim (26:25):

And they do. They rescue her. And at their own expense.

Porochista Khakpour (26:28):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (26:28):

I can’t really tell if he’s a smuggler, but if he is a smuggler, he decides to give her a free ride.

Clips (26:33):

How much will it cost?

(26:35):

When you and your daughter are safely back in America, then if you can, perhaps you will reimburse me.

Susie Banikarim (26:40):

He arranges for her to leave the country and then she makes this really treacherous trip over the hills into Turkey, which I just want to say is actually pretty insane that she does this with what is at that point, I think like a five or 6-year-old child.

Porochista Khakpour (26:54):

Yeah.

Susie Banikarim (26:55):

It is remarkable that they got out of there safely. That is an incredibly dangerous trip. And it is true that the people who are smuggling people out of Iran are not often good characters. They’re not good people.

Porochista Khakpour (27:09):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (27:09):

So it is actually remarkable that they make it out safely. And then the final scene of the movie is she is in Turkey, but she sees the American Embassy and there is literally an American flag waving in the wind and she’s like, “Oh my God. USA.” Like, “We’re here.”

Clips (27:29):

We’re home, baby.

Susie Banikarim (27:33):

And that’s how the movie ends.

Clips (27:34):

We’re home.

Clips (27:34):

Mommy?

Susie Banikarim (27:45):

I should mention here, I don’t think you know this about me. But my dad went back to Iran in ’85. And my dad had been the president of Chase Tehran when the revolution happened. So he had been blacklisted. And his best friend had become the Minister of Economics for this short period. So he was put under house arrest. And when my parents left Iran, they made it out through the airport but it was because there just wasn’t any organization yet. And so when I was 10 years old, he decided he wanted to go back to Iran. Really in a way that’s similar to this story, which is he hadn’t been home for a long time. He missed his family. He felt some draw. I mean, in the end, this idea that you can leave your country behind, like if I said to you, “You have to leave New York today and never come back.” You do feel this pull.

Porochista Khakpour (28:37):

Sure.

Susie Banikarim (28:38):

And in the movie, that pull is presented as insane. But it really made sense to me. I mean, my dad really wanted to go home and see his mom and see his family. And I was very scared as a child. I was 10 when he went. I was really, really scared. And when it came time to leave, he had a perfectly good experience while he was there, but when it came time to leave, they wouldn’t let him leave through the airport. They were basically like, “You have to stay here.” And he ultimately decided to make the trek out of Iran by foot into Pakistan.

Porochista Khakpour (29:11):

Oh wow.

Susie Banikarim (29:12):

There have been times when people have doubted her story, and I just know that that is a real thing that happens pretty regularly because my dad did it. And it’s why I know how dangerous it is. He kept notes through the trip. He had to sew his money into his clothes so that if they searched him, they couldn’t find it so that he would have some money when he arrived in Pakistan. And he was not a citizen, we weren’t citizens, but my dad had always kept his green card because he was concerned he wouldn’t be able to go back if he was a citizen. And he got to the American Embassy in Pakistan, and we were living in England at the time, and he was not allowed to come see us because anti-Iranian sentiment was so great. They were not giving visas to Iranian citizens, even if they had a green card, because of all the hijackings. So we actually had to meet him in Switzerland.

Porochista Khakpour (30:02):

Oh wow.

Susie Banikarim (30:03):

So in many ways, this movie mirrors aspects of my own life, but in a weird, twisted, fun house mirror kind of way. We were on the other side of this, which is he was Iranian, but he was trapped, and he was experiencing the anti-Iranian sentiment that Moody talks about in the film.

(30:23):

And so it is so odd for me to watch it. It’s not that I don’t believe that there’s truth in this version of events. It’s just presented in a way that’s so objectionable to me.

Porochista Khakpour (30:37):

Yes.

Susie Banikarim (30:38):

And I think wouldn’t matter so much if it wasn’t the only representation.

Porochista Khakpour (30:42):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (30:42):

If there was lots of art about Iran, if there was lots of films and TV shows and then there was this one in the mix, I’d be like, “Okay, well that’s one woman’s experience, whatever.”

Porochista Khakpour (30:49):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (30:50):

But it’s like for most Americans, that’s the only representation they saw of Iranians their whole life until Shahs of Sunset came on TV.

Porochista Khakpour (30:59):

Yes, yes. It’s so true. Yeah, I think that’s the thing is no one is questioning the validity of the story. Or I guess some people are, but not a lot of people. But I am rooting for her on some level.

Susie Banikarim (31:09):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (31:09):

To get away from your abusive husband. That’s great. Maybe if this was made in a different era, I always wonder, could it have been good? Could they have done a good job of it. I’ve watched it a few times now and every time I watch it, I just have a lot of questions about her own character because we don’t actually learn that much about her. It was only in the aftermath of watching it at some point, I realized that she became evangelical.

Susie Banikarim (31:30):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (31:30):

I mean, her Christianity is a very big part of her identity.

Susie Banikarim (31:34):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (31:34):

And so I wonder if the movie entirely from her POV, where she is even more fanatical than a lot of the Iranians that she’s pointing to here.

Susie Banikarim (31:42):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (31:43):

And so maybe that’s why she sees them as primitive savages perhaps?

Susie Banikarim (31:46):

Right.

Porochista Khakpour (31:46):

Because we know that that is part of a type of Christian rhetoric.

Susie Banikarim (31:50):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (31:50):

So maybe if she had felt like she could save these Iranians and convert them to Christianity, could they have had potential in her eyes?

Susie Banikarim (31:57):

So there are a couple things that happened in the aftermath of this movie that I looked into and I am curious if you know about. So one is Mahtob, the daughter, actually wrote her own book.

Porochista Khakpour (32:09):

Yes, I heard about this.

Susie Banikarim (32:10):

Many years later. She wrote her own book in 2015. And she is also very Christian. She talks a lot about her faith. I didn’t read the book, but in the book and in her interviews around that time, she talks a lot about how her faith saved her, how it made it possible for her to forgive her father, although they never had contact again.

(32:29):

And again, I don’t want to be seen in any way like I am doubting the veracity of the events here. But one thing that’s odd is she writes about her time in Iran like she remembers clearly.

Porochista Khakpour (32:39):

Oh.

Susie Banikarim (32:40):

And she was five years old.

Porochista Khakpour (32:42):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (32:43):

So I do find that weird. I left Iran when I was three.

Porochista Khakpour (32:46):

Yeah.

Susie Banikarim (32:46):

And then lived in Paris and came to America when I was four or five. I have very few memories of that time in my life.

Porochista Khakpour (32:53):

Same, same.

Susie Banikarim (32:53):

Like glimpses kind of, right?

Porochista Khakpour (32:55):

Yeah.

Susie Banikarim (32:55):

So there’s a weird thing about that book where it’s like she writes, again based on interviews because I didn’t read the book, she writes sort of extensively about what happened in Iran, seeing her dad hit her mom, about intervening, very detailed descriptions of their time there. So I thought that was a bit odd. But the crazier thing I have to tell you is that there was a documentary made about the father, about Moody.

Porochista Khakpour (33:22):

Oh. I did not know this.

Susie Banikarim (33:24):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (33:24):

Whoa.

Susie Banikarim (33:24):

Okay, so there’s a documentary that was made in 2003, made by an Iranian Finnish director, and it’s called Without My Daughter. Right?

Porochista Khakpour (33:38):

Perfect. Of course it is.

Susie Banikarim (33:40):

And so it’s actually quite hard to find, but I did find some links to it on YouTube and I was like, “I’ll just watch a couple minutes of this. I’m not going to watch this whole documentary that clearly has some weird agenda.” And I ended up watching the whole thing. The whole thing, in parts, in all six parts.

Clips (34:00):

I have been portrayed as a liar, a woman beater, and a kidnapper. I have been denied the right to see my daughter for 15 years or even to talk to her. My sin, my only sin, was that I love my only child, my daughter, Mahtob Mahmoody.

Susie Banikarim (34:21):

It was deranged. It is based on extensive interviews with him, but the action of this documentary is him essentially stalking his daughter.

Porochista Khakpour (34:35):

Oh, no.

Susie Banikarim (34:36):

The premise of the movie is that he is trying to get in touch with Mahtob, who he has not seen since they left Iran. And he is calling her over and over again. So there’s multiple scenes of him being like, “Pick up, pick up. Mahtob, it’s your father. I want to talk to you. Pick up.” There’s one scene where someone answers and he gets off and he’s like, “That was Betty. I know that was Betty.” It is literally you’re watching this very uncomfortable person.

(35:04):

I will say that this movie did not persuade me of his innocence.

Porochista Khakpour (35:08):

Wow.

Susie Banikarim (35:08):

He does not come off well in this movie. And he is repeatedly reaching out to them. I can’t even imagine how terrifying this must have been for Betty and her daughter to get these messages. There’s a bananas scene where he screens the movie, not his own movie, but Not Without My Daughter to a class of people. And when that scene comes up of him beating his wife in the hallway, he makes a joke about it and laughs. Again, not persuading me that these things did not happen.

Porochista Khakpour (35:38):

Oh my God.

Susie Banikarim (35:38):

You are making me feel like you are a monster.

Porochista Khakpour (35:40):

Oh my God.

Susie Banikarim (35:41):

It is the strangest movie you will ever see. Of course he does not get in touch with her. Oh, there’s another crazy thing I cannot fail to tell you, which is there is a scene where the filmmaker goes to her university where she is currently enrolled and asks someone at that university to give her a videotape of her father besieging her to make contact with him.

Porochista Khakpour (36:04):

Oh, wow.

Susie Banikarim (36:04):

They are literally stalking this girl on camera.

Porochista Khakpour (36:08):

Oh my God. That’s wild.

Susie Banikarim (36:09):

It is actually pretty upsetting. I was like, “Who made this movie and why did they think this was a good idea?” The only thing in this movie that’s actually a little bit upsetting from a more normal standpoint is that they interviewed the judge that gave Betty custody and granted her divorce with him in absentia. He was not a party to his own divorce. And that judge turns out to be a virulent racist and anti-Semite who says that if he was in charge of the country, there’d be a lot fewer Iranians on Earth. He would basically kill them all. And then said something really anti-Semitic. So that’s not great. So I don’t know that he would’ve gotten a fair shake even if he hadn’t been a troubled person, but I’m like, “That does not actually persuade me in the context of the fact that this is a movie made entirely about harassing your child who’s made it pretty clear she doesn’t want to have contact with you.”

Porochista Khakpour (37:04):

Oh my God. That’s crazy.

Susie Banikarim (37:07):

So that’s is the aftermath

Porochista Khakpour (37:08):

This movie, it just would’ve been better off if no one talked about it, but I even remember on the 25th anniversary of the film, there was all these articles quoting Iranian Americans.

Susie Banikarim (37:16):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (37:17):

And it might’ve been even around when Mahtob’s book came out. But there were these attempts to revive interest in this film.

Susie Banikarim (37:23):

Yeah.

Porochista Khakpour (37:24):

And so occasionally people would ask me, “Have you seen it? ” And I’d be like, “Yeah, yeah, of course.” And then sometimes they would watch it and then they’d be like, “Wow, this is such a terrible movie. Why doesn’t everyone just ignore it?” Which is a question that makes sense in a way, but except what we’re saying, it’s like the era made it so that we couldn’t forget it.

Susie Banikarim (37:41):

Yeah.

Porochista Khakpour (37:41):

Like this badly made film ended up having a much bigger position in the psyche of our culture than people think because it was the only one really.

Susie Banikarim (37:51):

Honestly, this should have been a Lifetime movie.

Porochista Khakpour (37:52):

Yes.

Susie Banikarim (37:53):

That’s what it would be now.

Porochista Khakpour (37:54):

Yes, yes.

Susie Banikarim (37:55):

But it just ended up being this significant cultural moment. For Iranians, I don’t know that it was this larger, significant cultural moment. The movie did flop and it was critically panned and it didn’t make much money.

Porochista Khakpour (38:05):

Yeah, thank goodness.

Susie Banikarim (38:06):

Luckily for all of us, it was a flop because I don’t know if I would’ve been able to take it if it was an Oscar movie on top of everything else.

Porochista Khakpour (38:12):

Right. Oh my gosh.

Susie Banikarim (38:15):

Okay. Well, Porochista, I feel like we have really had a moment here about this movie. Thank you so much for talking to me about it. But before you go, I want to spend some time talking about your new book, which I just finished reading last night. It is amazing. It’s so funny and clever and it’s this really sharp satire about a family of Iranian Americans living in, where else but Tehrangeles, which is the name of the book. The book comes out in June, but it’s available for pre-order now. Tell people a little bit about it.

Porochista Khakpour (38:47):

So I have been working on this book for a really long time. It sort of sat with me for a while. When I started it, there wasn’t Shahs of Sunset. It was actually right before.

Susie Banikarim (38:56):

Yeah.

Porochista Khakpour (38:56):

It was in my head about an Iranian American family, the first Iranian American reality TV family at a time of war with Iran, which has always been my big nightmare and continues to be.

Susie Banikarim (39:06):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (39:06):

It’s just a thing that goes in and out of our psyche every few years with geopolitical landscape always being so unstable in regards to the Middle East. So that was all I had at one point, and it was supposed to be my second novel actually. I was having trouble selling my second novel and all these editors were telling me what they wanted my book to be, and they wanted it to be more like these essays I was just churning out at a rapid point at that period. Between 2008 to 2012, I was writing a lot of essays about Iranian American experience for the New York Times and things like that.

Susie Banikarim (39:37):

It was during the personal essay industrial complex era.

Porochista Khakpour (39:40):

Yes. I was just hoping it would help my first book’s book sales. I was much more interested in journalism and then fiction, but not this other thing. So I started writing just for myself a parody of some of the requests the publishers were making, which was just like, “We just want lots of women. Just make it about Iranian American women.” But I also didn’t want to write the trauma porn that is Not Without My Daughter.

Susie Banikarim (39:59):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (39:59):

I was very allergic to that. So I thought, “What about writing about something that I’ve never been able to escape as an LA-based Iranian?” I thought, “Why don’t I write about Tehrangeles?” And so I did write this book with an all-female cast and just like a dad and a cat and a boyfriend that kind of hovers. And then I started getting interested in it. It became this satire, but I was kind of approaching it like a weird experiment for myself.

(40:26):

And so then my second novel got published and then I wrote all these nonfiction books. And so it’s been something I’ve worked on for years, but it wasn’t until the pandemic where I felt like, “Oh wait, this is actually a pandemic story. If I et it during the pandemic, I have a really good structure for it,” especially because just before the pandemic Iranians, always remember this, January 2020, it looked very likely that we were going to go to war with Iran.

Susie Banikarim (40:50):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (40:51):

And it almost felt like the pandemic provided a pause on that plan.

Susie Banikarim (40:55):

It did, yeah.

Porochista Khakpour (40:56):

So that was to me a very perfect setting for it. And during the early pandemic, I was also reading Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians series.

Susie Banikarim (41:02):

Oh, yeah.

Porochista Khakpour (41:03):

“I really want this to be a crazy Rich West Asians.” Because what I liked about those books was the satire, and I felt like some people would miss the satire and just think it’s an advertisement for wild rich people.

Susie Banikarim (41:15):

No, it definitely comes through that it’s satire.

Porochista Khakpour (41:16):

Good, yeah.

Susie Banikarim (41:17):

I want to say this because I feel like some people have this too. I’m not someone who’s dying to read a lot of pandemic stuff just because I feel like I just lived it.

Porochista Khakpour (41:25):

Yeah, yeah.

Susie Banikarim (41:25):

But this felt very relatable to me. The pandemic stuff felt very natural to the story. I didn’t feel like I was reliving it in this terrible way.

Porochista Khakpour (41:33):

Right, right.

Susie Banikarim (41:33):

It was a really important plot device. So I can’t recommend the book enough. I also want to say that for people who haven’t read your other books, your nonfiction books are amazing.

(41:43):

I think the thing that you do really well in this book is that even though it’s satire and the characters are in some ways awful, I found myself rooting for them. I sort of love these girls.

Porochista Khakpour (41:53):

Yes.

Susie Banikarim (41:54):

And I relate it to them. And a thing that I think really comes out in the book is that even in these families where they try so hard to escape their Iranian-ness?

Porochista Khakpour (42:05):

Yes.

Susie Banikarim (42:05):

There is a generational trauma that is just a current in the family and handed down to each of them. And that is a reality that I think doesn’t get expressed in this way.

Porochista Khakpour (42:17):

Yeah.

Susie Banikarim (42:17):

Because it is so often either trauma porn or maudlin. And to do it in this very comedic way I felt like was really effective and really good.

Porochista Khakpour (42:25):

Thank God.

Susie Banikarim (42:26):

I love this book so much.

Porochista Khakpour (42:27):

Thank you so much because I had to really come to the characters. That was really important for me. So that was when I really felt like it was finally done, where I started to have some affection for them even when they did some of the most horrible things imaginable. That was the challenge. And I feel like it brought to me a sense of peace about some of the aspects of the diaspora that drive me nuts.

Susie Banikarim (42:45):

Yes.

Porochista Khakpour (42:46):

I didn’t want it to just be like another book making fun of Iranians or hating on Iranians. I just wanted it to be like, “Let’s talk about this thing that we all feel weird about a little bit.” It also helped me to imagine it like a film or a TV series.

Susie Banikarim (42:59):

I really feel like it could be, by the way. That’s one of the things I was thinking when I was reading it. It’s really cinematic in the way you present it. I feel like it could be a really good like HBO series.

Porochista Khakpour (43:07):

It would be really fun if that happened.

Susie Banikarim (43:08):

So if anyone’s listening who is looking to pick up a series, I really think it’s great. And I should mention, I didn’t mention this at the top, that it is one of the Time most anticipated books, it’s getting rave early attention, so everybody should go out and get it. And thank you so much for doing this with me today.

Porochista Khakpour (43:27):

Thank you.

Susie Banikarim (43:27):

I loved this.

Porochista Khakpour (43:27):

This was so fun.

Susie Banikarim (43:27):

It was so fun.

Porochista Khakpour (43:27):

Anytime.

Susie Banikarim (43:34):

Jess, I want to set up our next episode, and I must admit I learned something about you when we were recording this, which is that you in fact attended a Miss America Pageant.

Jessica Bennett (43:45):

Yes. Attended, to be clear, not competed in. But this episode is actually about Vanessa Williams who made history in the 1980s as the first Black Miss America. And we’ll look at everything that came after that.

Clips (43:57):

I hope to do the best job I can, to well represent America, to represent every person in America, no matter what race or creed or color they are.

Susie Banikarim (44:11):

This is In Retrospect. Thanks for listening. Is there a pop culture moment you can’t stop thinking about and want us to explore in a future episode? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram @InRetroPod.

Jessica Bennett (44:24):

If you love this podcast, please rate and review us on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram, which we may or may not delete.

Susie Banikarim (44:34):

You can also find us on Instagram, @Jessica Bennett and, #SusieBNYC. Also check out Jessica’s books, Feminist Fight Club, and This Is 18.

Jessica Bennett (44:43):

In Retrospect is a production of iHeart Podcasts and The Meteor. Lauren Hansen is our supervising producer. Derrick Clements is our engineer and sound designer. Emily Marinoff is our producer. Sharon Attia is our researcher and associate producer.

Susie Banikarim (44:58):

Our executive producer from the Meteor is Cindi Leive. Our executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stumpf and Katrina Norvell. Our artwork is from Pentagram. Our mixing engineer is Amanda Rose Smith. Additional editing help from Mary Dooe. We are your hosts, Susie Banikarim.

Jessica Bennett (45:15):

And Jessica Bennett. We’re also executive producers. For even more check out InRetropod.com. See you next week.

EPISODE 32 – THE RUTGERS WOMEN FIGHTS BACK (PT 2)

Please note: This transcript has been automatically generated.

[00:00:00] Susie Banikarim: Hey everyone, this is part two of our episode about the 2007 Rutgers women’s basketball team. If you haven’t listened to part one yet, I recommend starting there. And just a note that we discussed racist and sexist language in this episode. In April 2007, Don Imus, a popular and prominent radio host, callously dragged a group of young female college athletes into a press storm.

[00:00:26] Essence Carson: I was blown away by what was said, although I was no stranger to racism and the nuances of it. I didn’t necessarily think it would be possible, and especially towards a group of young women like ourselves. 

[00:00:39] Susie Banikarim: But Don Imus was about to get caught in his own storm. 

[00:00:43] Jemele Hill: He had done it before, and there was a track record of him particularly saying and espousing some pretty dangerous tropes about Black women and, finally, I think a lot of people said enough is enough. 

[00:00:57] Susie Banikarim: After a week of silence, the team was finally ready [00:01:00] to respond, to take control of the narrative. I’m Susie Banikarim. 

[00:01:06] Jessica Bennett: And I’m Jessica Bennett. 

[00:01:07] Susie Banikarim: And this is In Retrospect, where each week we revisit a cultural moment from the past that shaped us.

[00:01:13] Jessica Bennett: And that we just can’t stop thinking about. 

[00:01:15] Susie Banikarim: Today, we’re talking about a college basketball team that was thrown into the national spotlight against their will. But we are also talking about who is allowed to respond in anger when they are publicly targeted, and who gets centered when these stories get told.

This is part two. 

[00:01:31] Jessica Bennett: Okay, to recap: so, the Rutgers women’s basketball team has just been to the national championships. And shock jock radio host Don Imus goes on his show and calls them an offensive slur on the air. 

[00:01:43] CLIPS: That’s some nappy headed hoes there, I’m gonna tell you that now. 

[00:01:47] Jessica Bennett: The backlash is growing quickly at this point, with people like Al Sharpton and Barack Obama calling for his resignation.

This all happens inside of a week, is that right? 

[00:01:56] Susie Banikarim: Yeah, the Rutgers team initially stays quiet. They take [00:02:00] time to think about how they want to respond and to let it play out a little bit. And then they decide the best way to do this is with a press conference. 

[00:02:08] Jessica Bennett: What happens at the press conference? 

[00:02:10] Susie Banikarim: So, exactly a week after the comments, they have this really emotional news conference.

Coach Vivian Stringer, who I’ll remind you was this very famous Hall of Fame coach, decided that the way to best approach this was to really emphasize the humanity of the girls beside her. 

[00:02:27] Jessica Bennett: Okay. 

[00:02:27] Susie Banikarim: So here’s what she said. 

[00:02:29] CLIPS: These young ladies that you have seated before you, before you are valedictorians of their class — future doctors, musical prodigies, and yes, even Girl Scouts. These young ladies are the best this nation has to offer. And we are so very fortunate to have them here at Rutgers University. They are young ladies of class, [00:03:00] distinction. They are are articulate. They are brilliant. They are gifted. 

[00:03:07] Susie Banikarim: She also didn’t shy away from clearly calling out what Don Imus had said as unacceptable slurs. 

[00:03:13] CLIPS: We had to experience racist and sexist remarks that are deplorable, despicable, and abominable and unconscionable. And it hurts me. 

[00:03:25] Susie Banikarim: And then a couple players spoke, and Essence was one of them. She was introduced as a straight A student who could walk out here and play Moonlight Sonata on the piano without looking at the notes, which I know is true because I watched a video of her playing piano. And she expressed the team’s great hurt, anger, and disgust.

[00:03:45] CLIPS: Not only has Mr. Imus stolen a moment of pure grace from us. But he has brought us to the harsh reality that behind the faces of the networks that have worked so hard to convey a message of empowerment to young adults, that [00:04:00] somehow some way the door has been left open to attack your leaders of tomorrow.

[00:04:06] Jessica Bennett: Wow, you can hear how young she is there. 

[00:04:08] Susie Banikarim: Yeah, I mean, a lot of the commentators who were watching that day noted how young and vulnerable the team appeared. And this press conference was terrible for Don Imus. The Wall Street Journal would call it devastating for him. But the Rutgers team did say at the end they had agreed to meet with him.

[00:04:26] Jessica Bennett: So, we just heard Vivian Stringer as being very composed and super gracious in that press conference, but has she ever talked about how she reacted privately? Because I imagine she was pretty pissed. 

[00:04:38] Susie Banikarim: Yes. Her private reaction was very different. Years later she recalled in a 2018 profile that in the days afterward, and I’ll read this. I kept reading those words and I was so upset. I kept thinking, why would he say that? He doesn’t know us. I remember busting my hand on the wall and I was crying because it was bleeding. 

[00:04:58] Jessica Bennett: Hearing all this, [00:05:00] it like honestly makes me so sad because she’s just like, he doesn’t even know us. Like there’s so much bias coursing underneath the surface to what they’re saying, even in the press conference when they’re having to reiterate that these are brilliant, articulate young women. And it’s like, trying to object or subvert the tropes while responding to the thing. 

[00:05:24] Susie Banikarim: Yeah, that’s really is what’s happening. I mean, she has to put on this professional face and she has to prepare her team for a meeting with this man who’s caused them so much pain because she knows that’s what’s expected of her. I mean, she doesn’t really have a choice. 

[00:05:38] Jessica Bennett: And then of course she doesn’t really have the luxury of getting publicly angry, right? Like of course she has to slam a wall behind closed doors because what would they possibly say if she showed anger in public? 

[00:05:51] Susie Banikarim: Right. Then she’d become an angry black woman. That’s another trope that they have to make sure they’re not feeding into. And I think intrinsically they understood that [00:06:00] they had to appeal to people by laying bare their humanity, which is just not right, right? We shouldn’t have to lay ourselves bare to convince people we are worthy of not being treated terribly. And I was really struck by that too. So I asked Essence if they were conscious of that. 

[00:06:16] Essence Carson: I think it’s Black women, you know, we have to somehow figure out how to navigate this place. How to navigate life in a way where you are able to show how strong and powerful you are, how intelligent you are, but at the same time do it in a way where you don’t ruffle any feathers, where you don’t intimidate people.

You know, we should just take what’s given to us. Or, you know, the more we fight for ourselves and for others, as we often do, it’s almost just like, “Hey, you, you right there, yes, you, you specifically, be quiet.” What you grow to understand is that what [00:07:00] happens in sports, it’s like a microcosm of what society is.

[00:07:07] Jessica Bennett: What she’s talking about here is the double bind, right? Like, that these women, these young women had to grapple with the isms of both race and gender. And so, like, God forbid they would be labeled as angry. We saw how that played out when Serena Williams yelled at that ref. Even though research actually shows, and I will just point this out to clarify the record, that black women are in fact less likely to show anger when criticized or disrespected.

[00:07:36] Susie Banikarim: Because they know that this is a Catch 22, right? Especially in sports. In sports, you’re supposed to be aggressive. How are you also going to be docile? Like, it’s this insane thing where Serena Williams gets, you know, weeks of headlines about how she was unsportsmanlike. But in tennis, I mean, think about John McEnroe. Those guys were crazy and they never got dinged in the way she did. 

[00:07:58] Jessica Bennett: That’s the thing too, right? Like when [00:08:00] men express anger, they’re viewed as passionate, and their status actually increases, whereas when a woman expresses anger, she’s just crazy and nuts. 

[00:08:09] Susie Banikarim: Right. So as women, you know, right? You know that you have to kind of make yourself softer in some way to be considered professional. You have to put a bunch of exclamation points in your emails, and you have to be likable. 

[00:08:20] Jessica Bennett: Yeah. And in fact, they did come off as very likable. It seems like they effectively threaded that needle in this press conference? Is that what the response was? 

[00:08:30] Susie Banikarim: Yes, they definitely did, and it was an extremely successful press conference, and Essence really credits Vivian Stringer for that. She really was a pro, so she knew how to frame this in a way that would be effective. But one thing that’s interesting about the response to it is that a lot of the coverage remarked about how graceful they were, their dignity, their poise, and pundits repeatedly marveled at how articulate and gracious they were.

[00:08:58] Jessica Bennett: They actually used the [00:09:00] word articulate? 

[00:09:00] Susie Banikarim: Yes, yes. 

[00:09:01] Jessica Bennett: Okay. 

[00:09:01] Susie Banikarim: And, you know, the subtext of that is that it’s surprising that they were those things, which feels racist in a less obvious way. So, I want to bring back Jemele Hill to talk about this. As you know, Jemele is an acclaimed sports journalist, and she wrote about this story for ESPN at the time.

[00:09:18] Jemele Hill: Well, there’s the indignity that you suffer of being dehumanized, and then you have the extra indignity of having to react to it politely, because you’re always aware of the fact that your reactions are scrutinized and judged a lot differently. For them to be angry in that moment, for them to express any rage, it says everything about race in America that that would have been considered to be a classless reaction, but not what he said.

Their reaction would have been considered, had they chosen to be angry, and chosen to exhibit a more forceful emotion, would have been considered to be more egregious than the actual offense. I would have loved for them to be able to express however [00:10:00] they feel. But it’s unfortunately the burden and the responsibility that a lot of Black people have had to live with a long time.

Because not only are we often the victims of racism and institutional racism and white supremacy, we’re also not only tasked with being kind and polite to it, we’re also tasked with fixing it too. 

[00:10:17] Jessica Bennett: It’s so interesting because it’s like what they had to do there was predict the racist undertones or tropes that were going to be used against them and then like preemptively combat them.

[00:10:32] Susie Banikarim: Yes, they definitely had to go into this with the understanding that It was their responsibility to somehow make this better while also making it clear how unacceptable it was to them. 

[00:10:48] Jessica Bennett: Right. And how do you do that if you can’t be firm because firm might be interpreted as angry. 

[00:10:56] Susie Banikarim: I think that is actually the brilliance of Vivian Stringer. She is really [00:11:00] firm here, but she’s doing it in a way that really engenders empathy.

And you can tell this isn’t her first rodeo, right? 

[00:11:08] Jessica Bennett: Right, right. 

[00:11:08] Susie Banikarim: She knows what she’s doing. 

[00:11:10] Jessica Bennett: It’s just like there’s so many layers to this that you have to peel back and constantly be aware of. 

[00:11:16] Susie Banikarim: Right. Because you have to experience the racism, but then you also have to respond in a way that’s not going to create more racism, that’s not going to make you more of a target.

It’s really complex. And I think it’s also worth noting here that there was this kind of deep historical and cultural significance to the way that Don Imus chose to be offensive, right, by calling them names that were tied to their sexuality and to their hair, it was tapping into this long standing cultural baggage around Black women’s hair in this country.

It’s been stereotyped and stigmatized for so long, as we mentioned earlier, and Jemele was really interesting on this topic. 

[00:11:56] Jemele Hill: Hair is very central to the identity of Black women. Back during [00:12:00] the times of slavery, they used to make Black women bind their hair in various cloths basically so it wouldn’t publicly be seen.

And the reason they did it, it was because it was this crazy sort of thesis that if because Black women were elaborately styling their hair and that was part of their expression, there was this crazy idea that that would lure white men. And so when you call a group of Black women nappy headed hoes, you’re not only trying to dehumanize them, you’re also trying to make sure that you are sending the message that their beauty is not respected, regarded, or even wanted.

You’re trying to make them feel undesirable. That is the whole point of this, right? And so that’s something that Black women have also faced throughout the history of our lives is that we have been made to feel not only as if we don’t matter, but that we’re just not even beautiful or desirable enough to even be considered in the same way and [00:13:00] regarded in the same scope of femininity that everybody else is.

And so by planting the image that we are hoes, it makes it seem as if, historically, that the type of sexual abuse and sexual trauma that Black women have suffered is really their fault because they’re hoes and they’re loose. And that is another stereotype in a narrative. that we have had to fight throughout the course of our beings.

[00:13:34] Jessica Bennett: Susie, let’s go back to the fallout for Imus. Did he end up facing any consequences? 

[00:13:39] Susie Banikarim: He did. After the press conference, general outrage grew because it had been really effective, right? It had really emphasized that the Rutgers players were just kids for the most part and they weren’t, So 

[00:13:51] Jessica Bennett: It did what they wanted it to do.

[00:13:52] Susie Banikarim: Yeah. And they weren’t journalists or politicians who were choosing to go on Imus’s platform and mix it up with him to sell books or whatever, [00:14:00] right? These were just hardworking girls who had done nothing but dare to play basketball while being black. So it really, was a critical moment in this story. He did try to continue to spin things afterwards.

He did talk a lot about how he’d done all this charitable work, which is true. He had done a lot of charitable work with children with cancer, and he felt the need to mention that some of them were Black, which it’s like, oh, well thank God you didn’t weed out the Black kids from your cancer and illness ranch. Like, it just was kind of a crazy. 

[00:14:32] Jessica Bennett: And so it’s basically like that, but I have a Black friend. 

Susie Banikarim:  Yeah, it was a version of that, but almost worse because he was using these sick children as a way to defend himself, which it’s hard not to see that as a cynical way to try and change the conversation. He launched a telethon to benefit three children’s charities while all of this was happening, which just does feel a bit like a stunt.

He also defended himself by saying that the Black community had [00:15:00] used the word and said horrible things about Black women. And he argued that because rappers routinely, and this is a quote from him, defame and demean Black women and call them, in quotes, worse names than I ever did. Like how was he supposed to know that this was offensive?

And You know, that conversation is also, to me, just ridiculous, like, what that has to do with his decision to go after these girls for no reason, I don’t know, but it worked as a distraction. 

Jessica Bennett: It did? 

[00:15:31] Susie Banikarim: Yeah, a lot of conversation at the time around hip hop and whether it was a double standard, that Black rappers 

[00:15:38] Jessica Bennett: Oh, interesting. So that actually became a story. 

[00:15:40] Susie Banikarim: Yeah. Time did a story at the time. Oprah Winfrey did a town hall with Black leaders about whether or not hip hop needed to be held accountable for calling women bitches and hoes. 

[00:15:51] Jessica Bennett: Huh. Okay. 

[00:15:51] Susie Banikarim: So it is this crazy sideshow that happens. In fairness, Oprah, she had also done an episode with the girls from Rutgers, but still, [00:16:00] okay.

Jamele said when I spoke to her that this whole thing was just a way to continue to avoid accountability. 

[00:16:04] Jemele Hill: It was a way to let Don Imus and other people who think like them off the hook because I can tell you I can’t think of a single Jay Z lyric where he said the Rutgers women’s basketball team are nappy headed hoes.

Not one. Often what we see unfortunately in conversations about race is that at some point in these conversations, the people who don’t want to be accountable, want to then blame the people that they have either insulted, demean or dehumanize for their own treatment. So it’s not about Don Imus saying this about the Rutgers women’s basketball team.

It then becomes, Oh no, Black people deserve this because that’s ultimately what he was saying. They deserve to be called nappy headed hoes because of something that Tupac said. That’s basically what he says. 

[00:16:55] Susie Banikarim: It’s just a diversionary tactic, essentially, and it becomes such a big part of [00:17:00] the story that Snoop Dogg ends up responding to it.

[00:17:03] Jessica Bennett: Oh my gosh, he did? Yeah. I don’t remember this. Okay. 

[00:17:05] Susie Banikarim: He said in an interview with MTV News, which was still a thing then, that we’re not, as he puts it, old ass white men sitting on MSNBC going hard on Black girls. We’re rappers. This comes from our own experience, and it’s relevant to what we feel, and we’re not going to let people say we’re in the same league as this man.

[00:17:22] Jessica Bennett: That’s interesting. Yeah, I mean, that’s true. Like, he’s not a news person on major news programs who is supposed to have some sort of journalistic standards, even though we know that he didn’t. 

[00:17:34] Susie Banikarim: Right. It’s just a totally different thing. And also, as is well established now, but I guess wasn’t as well established at the time, being part of a group does give you license to have different kinds of conversations about them.

That is just a fact. And to pretend like that’s not a fact and clutch your pearls and be like, well, why do they get to say this, but not Don Imus? It’s like, we know why. We don’t need to pretend we don’t know why. 

So the [00:18:00] pressure continues on CBS and MSNBC, particularly to fire him, particularly from Black leaders, Al Sharpton, who I already mentioned, who’s a well known civil rights leader, and also Jesse Jackson, who’s also a well known civil rights reader, and women’s groups continue to also put a lot of pressure on. I think the thing that this really highlights is that while Imus’s audience had gotten used to his antics, the larger public wasn’t so familiar with them. So this clip ends up being really shocking to a broad audience, and then all these previous clips that we mentioned come in.

And others that we didn’t mention because there were so many of them. So advertisers begin to bail. And as you and I both know, when the money goes is when the pressure really comes on. And once advertisers start pulling out, CBS and MSNBC realize that the suspension isn’t going to be enough. And MSNBC cancels his television simulcast, right, because they don’t actually produce the show they just, air it. 

And [00:19:00] eight days after he made the comments, Don Imus is finally fired by CBS. 

[00:19:05] Jessica Bennett: Okay. 

[00:19:06] Susie Banikarim: And in a, In Retrospect, cameo, twist, as per usual, the person who fires Don Imus is Les Moonves, because no matter what a list of bad men always crops up in every story. 

[00:19:20] Jessica Bennett: Les Moonves to remind people the former head of CBS who was then pushed out over egregious sexual harassment.

[00:19:27] Susie Banikarim: Yes. Yes. It’s just a reminder that the bad men are everywhere. So one other thing I just want to mention here because I think it is wild is that when I was researching this story I found that it had become such a huge story at the time that it inspired not one, but two Harvard Business School cases. 

[00:19:50] Jessica Bennett: Oh, really?

[00:19:50] Susie Banikarim: About how as a leader you should handle a crisis like this. So, 

[00:19:54] Jessica Bennett: oh, fascinating. 

[00:19:55] Susie Banikarim: This really did capture the national attention far beyond [00:20:00] the local New York story that it might have been in a different world.

[00:20:19] Jessica Bennett: It’s so interesting because this is the kind of stuff that now plays out all the time. 

[00:20:23] Susie Banikarim: Yes. 

[00:20:24] Jessica Bennett: And is probably tackled much more quickly. So it’s interesting to think about how that has shifted. It’s just so much more common, I think, now for Big companies to be put under pressure by the public and then advertisers to make a decision about a thing that happened.

[00:20:42] Susie Banikarim: It’s interesting because on the one hand, I think that’s true, but then I think about like a Joe Rogan on Spotify and how Spotify has basically just kind of let Joe Rogan do whatever he wants. And I think the other way in which the landscape has shifted is that there’s an expectation that certain people are going to be who they [00:21:00] are.

And so we don’t. Get as much backlash if a Joe Rogan says something, but obviously if a mainstream network TV person says something, that’s going to have a different impact. But there are different rules for different people now in a way that I don’t think existed then because they’re just 

[00:21:17] Jessica Bennett: how many listeners are yours? How many listeners are you bringing in for the platform? I mean, that was the whole thing with Joe Rogan, right? 

[00:21:23] Susie Banikarim: Right. Well, with Joe Rogan, Spotify doesn’t rely on advertising, right? So they make their own decision about what happens on their platform. 

[00:21:29] Jessica Bennett: It’s hard to pressure them. Yeah. 

[00:21:30] Susie Banikarim: Yeah. So it’s interesting. And look, I think you can look at even Tucker Carlson. Advertisers left Tucker Carlson in droves when he was at Fox News, but that’s not what finally got him fired, right? What finally got him fired is that, by all accounts, Rupert Murdoch finally got sick of him pushing conspiracy theories.

[00:21:48] Jessica Bennett: OK, so, you mentioned that the team did agree to meet with Don Imus. I imagine that must have been crazy. Did that happen? What exactly happened [00:22:00] at that meeting and what do we know about it? 

[00:22:01] Susie Banikarim: So the meeting did happen. Coincidentally, the meeting was scheduled for the evening of the day he ends up getting fired.

So the meeting happens also eight days after he made the initial comments and it’s a pre arranged meeting with the coach, Vivian Stringer, and the whole team at the New Jersey governor’s mansion. 

[00:22:22] Jessica Bennett: Oh, wow. It’s at the governor’s mansion? 

[00:22:23] Susie Banikarim: It’s at the governor’s mansion, but strangely, the governor never makes it to the meeting. As a weird aside, he gets in a car accident on the way and is like injured, so they have the meeting without him. So he’s not involved, but it’s at the governor’s mansion. 

[00:22:38] Jessica Bennett: But that is interesting that this has made it to the highest level of state politics. Yeah. 

[00:22:42] Susie Banikarim: Yes, definitely. And I think also New Jersey really rallied around this team. Like they felt real pride in them as they were making their way up to the Final Four. So I think they felt protective of them, right? So it became a New Jersey story in that way. So the meeting lasts about three to four [00:23:00] hours. 

[00:23:00] Jessica Bennett: That’s long. 

[00:23:01] Susie Banikarim: Yeah. It’s a long meeting. And I think a lot of people on the team talk. And afterwards, Imus leaves without commenting, but Stringer does say that the meeting went well, and that Imus apologized, and that they accepted his apology because he came to the meeting in spite of the fact that he’d lost his job. So, they give him credit for that, or at least Coach Stringer gives him credit for that.

And she also makes the point that That the basketball team had not called for Imus to be fired. 

[00:23:31] Jessica Bennett: Yeah, that’s pretty interesting. 

[00:23:33] Susie Banikarim: Right. I think that is interesting and worth noting because you get the sense that even as all of this is playing out, she’s conscious of not wanting the team to be blamed. She doesn’t want to be responsible for whatever happened to him, again, because I think they’re conscious of this possibility that there will be backlash, that somehow this will kind of push back on them. 

[00:23:55] Jessica Bennett: Well, and also at the end of the day, probably she’s just trying to stay in her lane.

Like this [00:24:00] is a team, this is an athletic team, these are girls, they never wanted to be weighing in on national racial politics in the first place. 

[00:24:08] Susie Banikarim: That’s correct. I think that is definitely part of it. She’s just like, I’m just protecting my team, and I don’t want to be blamed for whatever decisions other people need to make about this.

The team has not talked about this meeting very much. They’ve never really spoken about what happened, but I did ask Essence what the meeting was like from her perspective, and this is what she told me. 

[00:24:30] Essence Carson: I felt like we got what we needed to say off of our chests, each and every one of us. We shared what we needed to share, what we wanted to share about how we were feeling, about what it caused, and really allow him to put a face to those characters, because essentially he diminished us and, and, It made us characters, right?

So I think that at that time we were able to kind of humanize ourselves [00:25:00] as much as we could, right? As much as he cared.

[00:25:08] Jessica Bennett: It’s so interesting to think of them all there together. And what Essence is saying is, still pretty graceful and giving this guy a lot of grace in going to this meeting and, you know, wanting to show that they’re real people, not going in and being like, fuck you. Yeah. 

[00:25:25] Susie Banikarim: Well, we don’t really know what happened in the meeting.

[00:25:29] Jessica Bennett: True. 

[00:25:29] Susie Banikarim: Imus did eventually talk a bit about this meeting, and he did say that one of the player’s moms really was very mad at him and really expressed to him in ways that made it clear to him that what he had done wasn’t okay and wasn’t funny. And he said, it was good that I lost my job before this meeting, because it didn’t feel like I was just there to try and save my job.

I was really there to apologize. And I was grateful that they accepted it. 

[00:25:59] Jessica Bennett: I [00:26:00] mean, I guess to his credit, he could have canceled the meeting. 

[00:26:02] Susie Banikarim: I think he genuinely … He did feel very shamed by this chapter. And he said afterwards, he made a promise to them that he would not make them regret forgiving him because they had accepted his apology.

And I think for the most part, he did try and live up to that. But whatever his regrets, it did not stop him from suing CBS for 40 million claiming wrongful termination. So his regrets did not last very long. 

[00:26:32] Jessica Bennett: Did he get that money? 

[00:26:33] Susie Banikarim: He got a lot of it. CVS announced a settlement with him for an undisclosed amount in August, so this happened in April, so not that many months later, and the reporting at the time was that he got 10 to 20 million dollars.

[00:26:45] Jessica Bennett: Okay. 

[00:26:46] Susie Banikarim: That same day, one of the Rutgers basketball players, Kia Vaughn, who went on to play for the WNBA, filed a suit against Imus, his executive producer and all the media companies involved citing slander and libel and defamation of [00:27:00] character. 

[00:27:00] Jessica Bennett: Okay. 

[00:27:01] Susie Banikarim: And she was the only one to pursue legal damages, but you get the sense that they did really just want to move on. So, a month later, she drops the lawsuit saying she just wants to concentrate on her studies and basketball training. And I think they do just move on from this and try not to talk about it much afterwards. 

[00:27:19] Jessica Bennett: And so where does Don Imus go from here? 

[00:27:22] Susie Banikarim: Well, Jessica, you might be surprised to know that Imus was back on the air at another network, WABC, by the end of that same year.

[00:27:31] Jessica Bennett: Okay. 

[00:27:32] Susie Banikarim: In a deal that was reportedly worth five to eight billion dollars a year. It may also surprise you to know that his first guest included Pulitzer Prize winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and Senator John McCain. So, it really didn’t last long, the backlash, and on his first show back, he described that meeting with the team and said the things that I just mentioned about how it made him realize that it wasn’t funny.

He diversified his show, he [00:28:00] added some black comedians to his existing crew, and to give you an idea of how much he did or didn’t change, he ended his opening monologue by saying this. 

[00:28:13] CLIPS: But other than that not much has changed. Dick Cheney is still a war criminal. Hillary Clinton is still Satan. And I’m back on the radio.

[00:28:29] Jessica Bennett: Okay, so he’s clearly signaling to his audience that sure, he may have changed in this one realm, but he’s still the same guy who calls Hillary Clinton Satan. 

[00:28:39] Susie Banikarim: Yes. 

[00:28:40] Jessica Bennett: I mean, it is interesting because it’s like, okay, can people make, in his case, racist mistakes, apologize, do the work, as we like to say, and move forward, or can they not?

Like, it is an interesting question. Should he have been [00:29:00] kept off the air forever? This seems pretty quick. 

[00:29:03] Susie Banikarim: It’s just indicative of the fact that while he did get his hand slapped, he didn’t really lose that much. Much. Right? In the end, maybe he lost Some amount of money. But in the numbers we’re talking about here, tens of millions of dollars, whatever that money was, didn’t make a dent in his overall wealth.

And honestly, I think the thing that’s More interesting is that it didn’t take long for him to fully rehabilitate his image. Almost a year to the date of the original comments, Jesse Jackson, who had literally been one of the people leading protests and calling for his firing, appeared on his show. 

[00:29:41] Jessica Bennett: Okay.

[00:29:42] Susie Banikarim: To discuss the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., which you may know that Jesse Jackson was there when MLK Jr. was assassinated. And that booking would have seemed impossible a year before. So it is an interesting question of how long does it take to [00:30:00] Rehabilitate or what is considered rehabilitation, but frankly, this feels like it wasn’t much within a year he was already sort of buddying up with the people who had been calling for accountability. 

[00:30:12] Jessica Bennett: Did Jesse Jackson ever talk about why he made the decision to go back on? 

[00:30:16] Susie Banikarim: I think the honest answer is people wanted access to his platform. It’s why people went on before knowing exactly who he was. You know, in the end, access to power is extremely seductive.

And I think that’s what the Imus story is in a lot of ways. People really tolerated a lot from Don Imus. Things they knew weren’t okay even before these comments because they wanted access to his platform. And I assume for Jesse Jackson, whatever he may have said at the time, that was essentially the same reason he decided it was okay to move forward with this guy.

[00:30:50] Jessica Bennett: Okay, so this is all interesting, but what, to what extent do you think he actually did mean it when he told the players, I am not going to make you [00:31:00] regret having accepted my apology? 

[00:31:02] Susie Banikarim: I mean, I think to some degree he did. I actually asked Essence about this and she was like, I don’t know, man, I did not continue to follow this man’s career.

When this was over, I put this chapter away and like, I just didn’t care to track him. And I think that’s very fair on her part. I think he made an effort not to use really racially charged language. What was in his heart, I mean, I think we just don’t know. There were a couple smaller incidents where he denied the kind of racial undertones that other people saw in them. So I do think he was under scrutiny. 

[00:31:39] Jessica Bennett: And did he ever talk about it again?

[00:31:41] Susie Banikarim: He did address the comments again in 2018. So Imus past in 2019, but he retired from his show in 2018. So that gives you a sense of how much longer he was on the air. He went back on the air in 2007 and stayed on for 11 more years.

And he gave an interview to CBS Sunday morning when he retired, which [00:32:00] also just gives you an idea of how much his image was rehabilitated, right? That CBS Sunday morning ran this glowing profile of him upon his retirement. And when the correspondent asked him if he had any regrets, he said that the Rutgers thing, that’s how he framed it, the Rutgers thing, I regret.

The correspondent asked, what do you regret about it? And he just said, because I know better. And he also added that it was because it changed thinking about making fun of some people who didn’t necessarily have a mechanism to defend themselves. I mean, I don’t know if it’s the kind of deep regret I might have expressed in this scenario.

[00:32:38] Jessica Bennett: Well, it’s interesting when he says, because he knew better, which sort of hints at, He knew it was bad at the time. 

[00:32:46] Susie Banikarim: Well, and I think also he just genuinely always resisted the idea that he was racist in any way, that the things he did had racist implications. Like so much of the way he defended himself at the time [00:33:00] was to be like, I am not a racist.

And, you know, that doesn’t really inspire the sense that he did a lot of self reflection. Because obviously a man who feels comfortable saying the N word and also just like spewing out this kind of casual racism all the time does have some racism to contend with. I just think that this idea that when you’re confronted with something about yourself, you get to just say, that’s not true about me.

I just said a bad thing, but it doesn’t mean anything about what I actually believe or who I actually am. That kind of does feel like a cop out. So I don’t know that he ever fully came to understand what this episode meant for him. I don’t know if narcissists are capable of that.

[00:33:52] Jessica Bennett: Okay, I’m sick of Imus. Yeah, fair. Let’s go back to the players. I want to know what became of these players. Where are [00:34:00] they now? 

[00:34:00] Susie Banikarim: Well, Jess, unlike a lot of stories we tell here, I’m happy to report that this story does have a happy ending. So Vivian Stringer would go on to become one of the most successful college basketball coaches of all time.

She was the first coach in men’s or women’s basketball history to take three different schools to the final four. 

[00:34:19] Jessica Bennett: Okay. 

[00:34:19] Susie Banikarim: She was the fifth women’s basketball coach to reach a thousand career wins, and she was the first Black coach to achieve that goal. So, 

[00:34:26] Jessica Bennett: Amazing. 

[00:34:27] Susie Banikarim: She is an icon in college sports and just an icon in women’s sports. And I think is retired now from Rutgers, but is a beloved figure there. So she had a great career. Essence had an amazing career also. She was drafted by the New York Liberty when she graduated from Rutgers. She went on to have a long and successful basketball career, has played for a number of other WNBA teams and the U. S. national team, and she played overseas for some time. And now she’s a music executive. So she’s doing great. Kia Vaughn, who you may remember as the [00:35:00] student who did try and sue him briefly. She would go on to be drafted by the New York Liberty when she graduated. 

[00:35:06] Jessica Bennett: I didn’t realize so many of these original Rutgers players were on the Liberty.

[00:35:10] Susie Banikarim: Yeah, well a lot of them just went on to the WNBA. Kia eventually would go on to other WNBA teams and play internationally and she helped win championships for some of the teams she played on in Europe. She retired in 2022, so not that long ago, and she works for the Atlanta Dream 

[00:35:26] Jessica Bennett: Oh, I love that. 

[00:35:27] Susie Banikarim: There were other players who joined the WNBA, Epiphany Prince who was one of the players won the WNBA championship in 2020 with the Seattle Storm.

[00:35:35] Jessica Bennett: My hometown team. That’s so interesting. I didn’t realize. 

[00:35:38] Susie Banikarim: This was a powerhouse team. 

[00:35:40] Jessica Bennett: Like the Liberty our team in New York. Yeah. And the Storm, my hometown team. 

[00:35:43] Susie Banikarim: Yeah. I mean, I think that’s the thing, right? Is that this was a truly remarkable team. You know, that is the story that sometimes got lost in the coverage of this at the time.

And others went on to have other careers, finance, healthcare, hospitality, whatever, but they had the lives they [00:36:00] always were meant to have, and they didn’t let this chapter derail them. And I think that is a really nice way to end it. And you know, I want to let Essence have the last word here about what she took away from this experience.

[00:36:13] Essence Carson: It showed that you can have a voice. No matter how small you are, even if it’s just you yourself, you can have a voice and you don’t have to be the subject of anyone’s jokes. You don’t have to be labeled that angry black woman. You can speak with eloquence. You can convey your thoughts in a way, in a manner, in which hits home with people.

You can focus on the similarities between individuals to bring people together rather than focus on the differences in order to drive them further apart. You can be great in your own right, no matter what it is that you do. And if you are given [00:37:00] talent that you’re born with, right, please make sure that you use it for good.

I think it just kind of changed what my outlook on life moving forward would be, a part of the purpose. It changed all those things and it happened at an early age. Would I rewrite the story? No, I wouldn’t because then I wouldn’t be who I am today and I wouldn’t have the effect on people. The way that I do, just from learned experiences.

If I can use what I went through to help someone else, definitely would. That’s just a part of who I am now.

[00:37:38] Susie Banikarim: That feels like a really nice place to end it. Yeah, it does feel like a good place to end it. And I just want to thank Essence again for talking to me. I know that this is not a subject she loves talking about, and I really feel like we learned so much from her. 

[00:37:53] Jessica Bennett: Susie, you have a pretty personal episode coming up next week. What are we talking about? 

[00:37:57] Susie Banikarim: So next week, I’m going to talk to my friend and fellow [00:38:00] Iranian, Porochista Khakpour, who is a bestselling author, and we’re going to talk about the movie Not Without My Daughter, which was really one of the only representations of Iranians in popular culture when we were growing up.

And so we have a lot of opinions about it. 

[00:38:16] CLIPS: Occasionally people would ask me, have you seen it? I’d be like, yeah, yeah, of course. And then sometimes they would watch it and then they’d be like, wow, this is such a terrible movie. Why doesn’t everyone just ignore it? Except the era made it so that we couldn’t forget it.

[00:38:32] Susie Banikarim: This is in retrospect. Thanks for listening. Is there a pop culture moment you can’t stop thinking about and want us to explore in a future episode? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram at In Retro Pod. 

[00:38:46] Jessica Bennett: If you love this podcast, please rate and review us on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you hate it you can post nasty comments on our Instagram, which we may or may not delete. 

[00:38:55] Susie Banikarim: You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett and at Suzy B [00:39:00] NYC. Also check out Jessica’s books, Feminist Fight Club, and This is 18. 

[00:39:04] Jessica Bennett: In Retrospect is a production of iHeart Podcasts and The Meteor. Lauren Hansen is our supervising producer.

Derrick Clements is our engineer and sound designer. Emily Marinoff is our producer. Sharon Attia is our researcher and associate producer. 

[00:39:19] Susie Banikarim: Our executive producer from The Meteor is Cindi Leive. Our executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stumpf and Katrina Norvell. Our artwork is from Pentagram. Our mixing engineer is Amanda Rose Smith.

Additional editing help from Mary Dooe. We are your hosts, Susie Banikarim 

[00:39:36] Jessica Bennett: and Jessica Bennett. We are also executive producers. For even more, check out Inretropod.com. See you next week!

EPISODE 31 – RUTGERS WOMEN’S BASKETBALL & THE RACIST RADIO HOST (PT 1)

Please note: This transcript has been automatically generated.

Susie Banikarim (00:01):

Hey everyone, just a note that we discuss offensive, racist and sexist language in this episode.

(00:08):

In 2007, the Rutgers College women’s basketball team had a Cinderella season. Despite a rocky start and relative inexperience, they fought their way to the Final Four.

Clips (00:20):

You have to be so impressed with what Rutgers has done in this tournament. They have just been sensational.

Susie Banikarim (00:28):

Ultimately, they would lose the championship game to a powerhouse Tennessee team, but the Rutgers women had still achieved the unthinkable.

Essence Carson (00:35):

When we returned to New Jersey, it was almost as if we won. Our fans were so supportive, they were so welcoming.

Susie Banikarim (00:48):

And then the morning after the game, a hugely popular shock jock named Don Imus got on the air.

Clips (00:56):

So I watched the basketball game last night between a little bit of Rutgers in Tennessee, the Women’s Final.

Susie Banikarim (01:03):

And with a string of racist and sexist comments about the predominantly black team, Imus diminished their remarkable achievement and threw them into a national firestorm.

(01:17):

I am Susie Banikarim.

Jessica Bennett (01:19):

And I’m Jessica Bennett.

Susie Banikarim (01:20):

And this is In Retrospect where each week we revisit a cultural moment from the past that shaped us.

Jessica Bennett (01:26):

And that we just can’t stop thinking about.

Susie Banikarim (01:28):

Today, we’re talking about a college basketball team that was thrown into the national spotlight against their will, but we are also talking about who is allowed to respond in anger when they are publicly targeted and who gets centered when these stories get told. This is part one.

(01:44):

Jess, do you remember this story? Do you remember when this all happened?

Jessica Bennett (01:48):

Yeah. I actually have quite a vivid memory of it because I was at Newsweek at the time as a young reporter and Newsweek, who would do the story of the week every week on the cover of their magazine, put this on the cover. I remember the headline was Race Power in the Media and it had an image of the basketball team against Imus looking sort of stern and forlorn, and it was a huge deal.

Susie Banikarim (02:14):

Yeah, I was at ABC when this happened and it was kind of an unavoidable story for a few weeks, right? It just completely dominated national headlines, so much so that I think there was a poll at the time where people said they felt like it was getting too much coverage-

Jessica Bennett (02:28):

Oh, that’s interesting.

Susie Banikarim (02:29):

… Which is something we experience a lot in media. I think stories become red-hot-

Jessica Bennett (02:33):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (02:33):

… And then they’re sort of obsessed over and then people kind of move on.

Jessica Bennett (02:37):

And it’s interesting too because I guess Don Imus was huge. That’s what I learned when this story came out, but I had never heard of him. I don’t know if that was kind of an elite East Coast thing to know about him or maybe I wasn’t running in those circles. I remember, didn’t he famously wear cowboy boots?

Susie Banikarim (02:54):

Yeah.

Jessica Bennett (02:54):

He had this essence to him. He was hugely popular, but I at the time was, “Who the hell is this guy?”

Susie Banikarim (03:00):

Yeah. We weren’t his demographic. And I think also, Jess, we didn’t commute to work in a car, so we weren’t as likely to be into talk radio.

Jessica Bennett (03:07):

Right. Well, okay. And so I remember him being a shock jock. I remember this stir was a huge deal, but I don’t really understand sports.

Susie Banikarim (03:17):

I’m not a big sports person either, as you know.

Jessica Bennett (03:20):

I’m kidding. Yeah, I understand them enough, but I’m not a huge sports person either. And so what exactly does he say and why?

Susie Banikarim (03:26):

So we didn’t play the Don Imus comments in the introduction because I have to say they’re quite jarring. I remember hearing them all the time when it happened, but for some reason, going back and listening to them again feels really strange. They’re so offensive, and I’m going to play them for you now because I do think it’s important to hear them for yourself. But let me give you a little context. The Rutgers women’s basketball team has made it to the Final Four. They’ve had this crazy season where they were not expected to be a powerhouse team. They are having this amazing moment and the next morning, Don Imus gets on his radio show that he does every morning.

Jessica Bennett (04:10):

Wait, and quickly, how many people are tuning in to Imus at this point?

Susie Banikarim (04:14):

Oh, millions. He has millions of daily listeners across the country. He’s available on more than 70 stations and in addition to that, his show is actually simulcast on cable, on MSNBC. So he wasn’t just a radio show, he was also a morning show on television where they literally just filmed him and his crew at the mics in the studio.

Jessica Bennett (04:33):

Oh, okay, just talking? It’s like very early podcast.

Susie Banikarim (04:36):

Yeah, very early podcast and roughly an additional 300,000 people are watching on TV. It’s a sizable audience, and he has a lot of influence.

Jessica Bennett (04:46):

Okay, so back to the comments.

Susie Banikarim (04:48):

So the comments come on April 4th, 2007, the same day the team has returned home from the championship game and at the end of this historic season, and Don Imus has this exchange with his executive producer on the show.

Clips (05:03):

So I watched the basketball game last night between a little bit of Rutgers and Tennessee, the Women’s Final. Had some rough girls from Rutgers, man, they got tattoos. Some hardcore hos. That’s some nappy-headed hos.

Jessica Bennett (05:18):

Jesus, it’s like, you know how they talk about bystander intervention? It’s like these are these guys who are just egging each other on and there’s no sane person in the room to be like, “Whoa, hey, it’s not funny and what you’re saying is deeply offensive.”

Susie Banikarim (05:33):

Yeah, it’s just disgusting and there’s something so stark about how casually he’s talking about this group of college girls. And also something that really bothers me about it is the way they’re giggling like they just love how funny they’re being.

Jessica Bennett (05:47):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (05:47):

The other thing I think is interesting is that he often would say, Don Imus, that it was like a locker room.

Jessica Bennett (05:53):

He would say that his show was like a locker room?

Susie Banikarim (05:56):

Yeah, like this is a locker room.

Jessica Bennett (05:57):

Oh, wow. That is much more meaningful now in the Trump era.

Susie Banikarim (06:01):

Yes. It makes me think of that whole thing when Donald Trump was like, “Oh, I said, I grabbed women by the pussy, and it was just locker room talk.”

Jessica Bennett (06:09):

Right. It was just locker room talk. So this is Don Imus’ personal locker room.

Susie Banikarim (06:12):

And I think what’s hard to listen to here, the idea that this is just what a group of white men say to each other when they think no one’s listening or-

Jessica Bennett (06:23):

Except when they think people are listening,

Susie Banikarim (06:26):

… Even when they think people are listening, listening. Right, like they felt right. Totally comfortable saying this. They did not feel like this was wrong in any way. They don’t seem even a little hesitant about it.

Jessica Bennett (06:36):

And you actually cut some of this. This isn’t even the full clip. Correct?

Susie Banikarim (06:40):

Yes. There’s a longer version of this. We did not include all of it because everything they say is really offensive. And the part that really got the most attention at the time was when, and I just want to say even repeating this makes me uncomfortable, but when he called them nappy-headed hos.

Jessica Bennett (06:59):

Right. I remember that as being the headline.

Susie Banikarim (07:01):

Yeah and that’s a really complicated insult. We’ll get into why that has cultural and racial underpinnings that make it even more offensive than you might initially realize. But again, these are kids, these are girls, and he’s calling them whores.

Jessica Bennett (07:27):

This is the kind of trash that Don Imus was known for, correct? But who was Imus? Can you tell me more about him?

Susie Banikarim (07:35):

Yeah, so he was kind of an odd character. He was this really tall, lanky man who always wore a cowboy hat and he carried a gun for protection. He had this very famous ranch in New Mexico he would go to a lot of the time when he wasn’t recording. And in the ’80s, he actually had a pretty serious alcohol and cocaine problem-

Jessica Bennett (07:56):

Wow.

Susie Banikarim (07:56):

… And admitted later that he was often drunk or high during the show. So even though he was really popular, he was very erratic. He missed a 100 days of work in one year-

Jessica Bennett (08:08):

Oh wow.

Susie Banikarim (08:08):

… He would sleep on park benches, he would show up barefoot, but he was the number one DJ in the country, so he got away with a lot of that. And then eventually, they had to cut him loose and he cleaned up his act and he went and did a radio show somewhere else in the country and eventually made his way back to New York. So he wasn’t under-the-influence when he made these comments. And he had, at this stage, established himself as a very mainstream figure in politics and journalism despite this crazy past.

Jessica Bennett (08:47):

I’m assuming he was a Conservative.

Susie Banikarim (08:49):

No, actually he wasn’t conservative. In fact, he had endorsed Bill Clinton in his first run. So what’s interesting is he was kind of equal opportunity. He disdained all politicians and railed against them and said they were all phonies, but he did occasionally endorse some and Bill Clinton was one of those. But what’s interesting is that the audience was most likely Republican than Conservative because Republicans and Conservatives were about twice as likely to listen to talk radio at that time. And I think the thing about Don Imus is his audience was very varied, meaning a lot of Washington elites listened to him and also just random Joe Blow in the country. But his fan base was very attached to him, I think partially because he was on the air for so many hours, it felt like you were kind of part of this-

Jessica Bennett (09:36):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (09:37):

… Party, I guess, for lack of another way of saying it.

Jessica Bennett (09:38):

Club, locker room.

Susie Banikarim (09:39):

This locker room.

Jessica Bennett (09:40):

Part of his locker room.

Susie Banikarim (09:41):

This locker room.

Jessica Bennett (09:42):

Okay, and so Imus was considered a shock jock, which it sounds very like ’80s when we say it now, what does that mean exactly, other than doing wild antics, I think?

Clips (09:53):

Imus in the Morning. Here now is America’s original old timer, Crazy Bob with a little…

Susie Banikarim (10:01):

Yeah. So this was a term that was first used in the ’80s. It’s essentially a radio personality who is deliberately provocative and inflammatory and says really offensive things. So that was kind of Imus’ shtick anyway, but it was a term most associated with Howard Stern. I don’t know if you know Howard Stern.

Clips (10:19):

Okay.

Susie Banikarim (10:20):

… He’s a radio personality. He’s still on the air now, and he’s the person who gave rise to the concept.

Jessica Bennett (10:28):

Oh, he’s the original shock jock?

Susie Banikarim (10:30):

He’s not the original shock jock, but he’s the one most people think of when you say the word.

Jessica Bennett (10:34):

Okay. I’m looking at examples of what shock jocks [inaudible 00:10:38], like attempting to sneak toy weapons onto a plane at an airport, blocking off traffic lanes in San Francisco during rush hour while his sidekick got a haircut. I don’t know what the point of that would be. I do remember Howard Stern always doing creepy gross sex things like having women mud-wrestle or other things of that nature.

Susie Banikarim (10:58):

In his studio.

Jessica Bennett (10:59):

But I guess I just didn’t realize they were just doing dumb shit.

Susie Banikarim (11:03):

Yeah, it was incredibly juvenile. It was just silly. But occasionally, because there was this undercurrent of sexism and racism in a lot of these environments, sometimes the jokes crossed the line into things that were pretty unpleasant. Most shock jocks didn’t have the kind of platform Imus did, right?

Jessica Bennett (11:22):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (11:23):

Imus went from being this kind of thing, this kind of jokester who was just crank-calling a politician to ask if he wanted to join showbiz or calling a phone operator and asking her if she wanted to mess around. He went from that to being a more national figure because he actually was kind of intellectual. So he started to ask people whose books he read and whose ideas he was interested in to join the show. And over time, that became a really big part of the show. So Bill Clinton, who I mentioned he endorsed, appeared on his show regularly during his Presidential campaign, senators regularly appeared on the show and Joe Biden was one of those senators, John McCain, John Kerry, and really famous journalists at the time, Tim Russert, who was the host of Meet the Press for a long time, Tom Brokaw, who was a very famous… It was a common place to go for journalists who wanted to mix it up and show that they weren’t as stiff or staid as they appeared on the air.

(12:22):

And interestingly, Barack Obama had once been on the show and I think that just was because he had a lot of power. He was on the air for many hours a day, five days a week and as I said, millions and millions of people were watching and his influence was very broad. He was reportedly making almost 10 million a year when this happened, which sounds like a lot, but his employers at CBS were actually making $50 million a year off his show. So he had the kind of power you have for making that kind of money also.

Jessica Bennett (12:58):

Right. I imagine even someone like Charlamagne tha God or Joe Rogan would probably be the modern equivalent of that, right?

Susie Banikarim (13:06):

Yes, probably the closest thing we have, but to be honest, it’s just not the same because you still make the choice to listen to those guys in a way that if they were on your radio for four hours a day or on national television four hours a day-

Jessica Bennett (13:18):

And you didn’t have another option.

Susie Banikarim (13:19):

… And you didn’t have as many options as we do now, you would just happen upon them a lot. And because there’s no obvious modern equivalent, I actually called Jemele Hill, who you and I both know. She’s an Emmy award-winning sports journalist, who in 2007 was actually an ESPN columnist and she covered this story as it unfolded.

Jemele Hill (13:38):

Don Imus at the time was considered to be probably the most powerful radio personality in America. He had an enormous, massive platform. So if he says something on that show, it’s not hitting with a whisper. It’s hitting like a thunderclap.

Jessica Bennett (13:55):

That’s like the perfect quote. It’s just making me think back to this team. They’re basically kids. They’re at a school like Rutgers that’s not necessarily a national brand. They’re not in the spotlight in that way and then suddenly like, bam, this guy is weighing in on them and it’s reaching a million listeners.

Susie Banikarim (14:14):

Yeah and Jemele talked about that too.

Jemele Hill (14:16):

These women had just played on the biggest stage in their sport. They had a phenomenal season. They were led by an incredible coach. And so in that moment, even with the disappointment of losing in the Final Four, it was still very much a celebratory achievement for them. And just upon hearing those comments and to see how it went from people celebrating them to them just being degraded in the next moment, it was disheartening to say the least. I just really felt for those young people because they had achieved something really, really spectacular and it just felt like the moment was stolen from them.

Susie Banikarim (14:58):

In a lot of ways, what Jemele is saying is why I wanted to look back at this, this idea of having the moment stolen from them because obviously we were both working in news when this happened, but I remember even at the time, it really struck me how young the team was. It was five freshmen. So we’re talking about genuinely 18 and 19-year-old girls. And as I said, they were a majority black team and these comments just felt so cruel and ugly at the time, and the headlines were so intense, right? It was as if they went from the end of their season, where they should have just been able to enjoy that and chill and finally have a moment to reflect, to being in the hottest spotlight you could possibly be put under.

Jessica Bennett (15:46):

Right. And the hottest news story of that moment.

Susie Banikarim (15:48):

And you and I know that when you get thrust into these really hot spotlights, we’ve worked on these kinds of stories-

Jessica Bennett (15:54):

Right.

Susie Banikarim (15:55):

… It can feel like it obliterates everything else in your life and that you’re just completely taking it in from all sides, trying to figure out how to navigate it. So I really wanted to understand that part of the story better. And I reached out to Essence Carson, who is a WNBA superstar. She played for the New York Liberty among others and is now a creative executive, but most relevant for this, she was the captain of the 2007 Rutgers women’s basketball team.

Jessica Bennett (16:23):

I just want to note that Essence Carson is a really big deal.

Susie Banikarim (16:45):

Yeah, she’s obviously had this amazing career and been able to put this in her rear view mirror. She doesn’t actually talk about this very often for obvious reasons. So I was really grateful that she agreed to talk to me, and she said to really understand how deeply these comments cut at the time, you have to go back and understand what the team had gone through just to get to the championships.

Essence Carson (17:05):

Just that group that was at Rutgers in 2007, it was a very unique group. We all come from all walks of life, but we all bought into the idea of that championship and how we weren’t going to allow the lack of experience be the one sole thing that keeps us away from that.

Jessica Bennett (17:25):

You’ve mentioned this a couple of times too, that they were inexperienced.

Susie Banikarim (17:28):

Yeah. The Rutgers team went into the season as underdogs because they were a very young team. There were no seniors.

Jessica Bennett (17:34):

Okay.

Susie Banikarim (17:34):

They had lost a lot of their really strong players that year before. So it was mostly made up of recent high school graduates now starting at the college level. So the beginning of the season was rough. They were losing games. There was a game early on that they lost by 40 points at home. That was pretty much unheard of at Rutgers.

Essence Carson (17:54):

It was a tough pill to swallow. It was embarrassing. No true competitor ever wants to lose in that fashion, but it happened, and that was the beginning of the wake-up call.

Jessica Bennett (18:08):

Okay, wow. So things were going really poorly, but then they turn it around. What does that?

Susie Banikarim (18:14):

Honestly, it seems like it was just sheer grit. They had an amazing coach, this Hall of Fame coach, Vivian Stringer, who was very famous in women’s college basketball, and Essence told me that she very aggressively pushed them to get their act together, and they did, really coming together as a team.

Essence Carson (18:29):

The road in the beginning was a bit bumpy, but what truly makes a great team is how you overcome adversity. And after overcoming a slow start, we were able to regroup and figure things out leading us to a Big East Championship and onto our historic run in the NCAA tournament.

Susie Banikarim (18:49):

Will you tell me what it felt like going back when you won that last game that meant you were going to the Final Four, and just did that feel amazing? I can’t imagine what that felt like.

Essence Carson (18:58):

I’m not sure if there are any words to describe that feeling, right? Imagine losing everything and getting it back and at that time, winning it all. You know when you’re looking at the Big East Tournament, that was just one step and then it was like, “Oh, we can keep going. We can keep this thing going.” There were just truly no words that can explain that. It was an unreal ride, for sure.

Jessica Bennett (19:24):

That’s interesting. I really hadn’t realized how up and down the season had been for them.

Susie Banikarim (19:29):

Yeah, it really had been a wild season, but sadly, like all good things, it does come to an end. So as I said in the introduction, they go up against this powerful top-seeded team in Tennessee for the championship and they lose, but there’s still a lot to celebrate.

Essence Carson (19:44):

It was definitely bittersweet. Of course, there were tears shed in the locker room after that loss ’cause it was like, “Oh, you were so close. You almost completed the Cinderella story. You were so close.” Of course, those feelings set in, but in the same breath, we were reminded that what we had done was amazing. When we returned to New Jersey, it was almost as if we won. Our fans were so supportive, they were so welcoming. The fanfare was amazing. Even the people at the airport, the firefighters, everyone, the entire state of New Jersey was so proud of us. It was like they went on that ride with us. It was like they climbed from the bottom with us. They wanted to remind us that, “Hey, good job.”

Jessica Bennett (20:33):

I love hearing her describe how they arrive home to this kind of hero’s welcome. But at what point then did they actually hear about these comments?

Susie Banikarim (20:41):

So Essence said she first heard about the comments right after they had a pep rally.

Essence Carson (20:47):

Immediately after it concluded, it was almost like it was still going on a bit until, I don’t remember what we had to do next, because this moment actually kind of just took over everything. I remember coming down and we were on the court and our SID at that time, Stacey Brann, she would handle the publicity, the media requests for the team. She came to me and asked me did I hear what was said or what happened, and I had no clue what she was talking about. And then she gave me what happened blow-by-blow and even had the transcript, and I was blown away by what was said, mainly because I couldn’t fathom anyone being able to say things of that sort live on air. Although I was no stranger to racism and the nuances of it, I didn’t necessarily think it would be possible, and especially towards a group of young women like ourselves.

Susie Banikarim (21:47):

Had you heard of Don Imus when this happened? Did you know who he was?

Essence Carson (21:51):

No. No, but I also don’t think I was his demographic.

Susie Banikarim (21:56):

Do you remember when you actually heard it for the first time?

Essence Carson (21:59):

I think I heard snippets at first. It was being played everywhere, so you would hear snippets. Even if you didn’t want to encounter it, you kind of just did.

Jessica Bennett (22:10):

It’s maybe hard to remember now because we don’t have radios and televisions on all the time and we’re always on our phones, but to describe just how saturated the news was with what she is talking about. Truly, I remember it was on every cable news channel. It was playing on the radio at all times. It was on the cover of the weekly magazines. It was in the paper, and every single article was repeating the comments over and over and over again. So you can just imagine, they get home and suddenly they’re just hit in the face with this statement.

Susie Banikarim (22:42):

Yeah, that really struck me too ’cause it’s just this idea that even if they had wanted to get away from it, they didn’t have that choice. Initially, they tried to ignore his comments. They chose to go home early. It was Easter. So they went home to spend Easter with their families, but they were being bombarded with requests for comment, and also just every time they turned on a TV or walked into a store where the radio was on, it was just being played everywhere.

Jessica Bennett (23:06):

I imagine too, the reporters are camping out at the school trying to get statements. It probably was a very tabloid-esque situation.

Susie Banikarim (23:15):

Yeah. She said they were being accosted even when they were just trying to go to class or go to the cafeteria-

Jessica Bennett (23:20):

Okay.

Susie Banikarim (23:20):

… But they were trying to see how the story played out before they decided what to do and the story just kept growing. What’s interesting about this is that it was an early example of something going viral. You can imagine if this happened today, it would be all over TikTok and Twitter immediately, but back then, that’s not really how a story grew.

Jessica Bennett (23:41):

Do we know how it initially took off, who noticed that this had occurred and how did it spiral from there?

Susie Banikarim (23:48):

It was actually a guy at Media Matters, which is a left-leaning media group who flagged the clip. He had gotten a tip and he dug it up and he sent it around to their newsletter and then it was posted on YouTube. And YouTube had launched in 2005, so it had just pretty recently become really huge. And for context, in one of the articles I read, they mentioned that it was such a huge story that this YouTube video had gotten a million hits, which is a lot of hits, but today it would get like 10 million hits.

Jessica Bennett (24:18):

Right. Right.

Susie Banikarim (24:19):

So, this might’ve been missed or ignored.

Jessica Bennett (24:22):

That’s so interesting because had this happened even a few years before, yes, he’s got this huge following on radio, but a thing happens on radio and then it’s over. You’re not recording the clip and sending it around.

Susie Banikarim (24:32):

Right, like you’re not with a cassette tape.

Jessica Bennett (24:34):

Right, exactly. So maybe some people would’ve been offended, but it would’ve just disappeared.

Susie Banikarim (24:39):

Yeah, and that’s the world Don Imus really knew, right? He’d been a radio host for a long time pre-internet. So when the internet changed the landscape, I think it was a real shift for him and this was the first time he really came to understand that. And CBS and MSNBC, who were his employers, CBS ran his radio show and MSNBC simulcasted on the air, I think they were both waiting to see if this would blow over-

Jessica Bennett (25:02):

Okay.

Susie Banikarim (25:03):

…Like the other things he had said because he did have a history of saying really awful things.

Jessica Bennett (25:08):

I guess I’m asking you to repeat all the awful things, but what are some of the awful things? Can you say the ones that aren’t that awful? What are the ones you can say on our air?

Susie Banikarim (25:18):

I can say them carefully, and yes, he and his merry band of idiots just had this horrible history of saying controversial or offensive things, and I literally cannot go over all of them ’cause there’s so many racist and sexist and antisemitic and homophobic things, Islamophobic-

Jessica Bennett (25:36):

Checking all the boxes.

Susie Banikarim (25:37):

Yeah, they checked all the boxes every day as far as I can tell. But the one that really stood out to me is that after the Rutgers slurs, Gwen Ifill, who was this groundbreaking and widely-admired journalist and relevant for this conversation, a black woman, wrote an op-ed for the New York Times about how Imus had once said about her when she was a reporter for The Times, “Isn’t the Times wonderful. It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House.”

Jessica Bennett (26:06):

Wow.

Susie Banikarim (26:07):

Right? It’s just disgusting.

Jessica Bennett (26:08):

He said that to her face?

Susie Banikarim (26:10):

No, he just said it on the air about her.

Jessica Bennett (26:11):

He said it on the air. Oh my God.

Susie Banikarim (26:13):

Yeah. He said it on the air about her, and she said she suspected it was because he had once or twice asked her to be on the air and she just hadn’t had time to go on. So he had held this grudge against her, but it’s just a really terrible way to talk about someone. And I mentioned Howard Stern. Interestingly, Howard Stern and Don Imus did work together briefly in the ’80s and then became bitter rivals. They hated each other for the rest of their careers. And despite his own history of controversy, Howard Stern came forward during this time and said that when they had worked together in the ’80s, he had heard Imus call a black female co-worker the N word, and Robin Quivers, who was one of Stern’s co-hosts, said that he had also called her the N-word to her face when they were working with him.

Jessica Bennett (27:00):

Wow.

Susie Banikarim (27:01):

And just to put a cap on that, Imus had also called Howard Stern a Jew bastard on the air in 1984 and suggested he should be put in an oven.

Jessica Bennett (27:12):

Wow. What is mind-boggling to me is that this is a man saying these things who then turns around and has all of these really prestigious people on his show.

Susie Banikarim (27:24):

Right, Howard Stern was also controversial, but he didn’t have Senator Biden and McCain on his show, so I think he just didn’t reach this level of scrutiny. Another example that comes out after all this is that in 1998, when Don Imus was doing an interview for 60 Minutes, he told one of the producers off camera that his executive producer was hired to perform N word jokes. And to be clear, he didn’t say the N word, he said the word.

Jessica Bennett (27:52):

None of these cases he’s saying N word.

Susie Banikarim (27:55):

Right, but he’s saying the word.

Jessica Bennett (27:57):

What does that even mean?

Susie Banikarim (27:59):

What it means is that he wants someone making those jokes and so he hired this man to be the racist on the show so he could be a little less racist, I guess.

Jessica Bennett (28:09):

Honestly, it’s shocking that he was still on air.

Susie Banikarim (28:11):

Yeah. 2007 doesn’t feel like that long ago, so it is shocking that he had gotten away with this blatant bigotry for so long, but the internet wasn’t the same as it is now, and Don Imus wasn’t used to being held accountable. So initially, in the day after he makes the comments, he goes on the air and he says he’s heard a few people are upset, but basically everyone needs to calm down because it’s just an idiot comment that was meant to be amusing. But pretty quickly it becomes clear that this time is going to be very different for Don Imus.

Jessica Bennett (28:55):

Susie, before the break, you were giving us a rundown of some of the terrible things that Don Imus has said about various people, but the comments he made about the Rutgers women’s basketball team really weren’t blowing over. So what happened next?

Susie Banikarim (29:08):

Actually, Jemele Hill, who, as I mentioned, was a columnist at ESPN at this time, played a role in making sure the comments were heard pretty broadly.

Jemele Hill (29:18):

It struck me because of his having that kind of platform, and for a lot of his listeners who maybe have never heard about this team or didn’t know anything about them and the very first thing that they hear about is them being called nappy-headed hos. He ridiculed them, he demeaned them, he denigrated them. And as a black woman in sports myself during that time, all of things resonated deeply inside of me. And so I felt like I had to speak out about it and make it known that this crossed so many lines for so many different reasons, from a gender perspective, a racial perspective and I thought it would be a disservice for somebody not to stand up for those women.

Jessica Bennett (30:00):

That’s so interesting what she’s saying in terms of all the different ways that it crossed these lines. How does Jemele make sure that the story gets national attention?

Susie Banikarim (30:08):

Well, what happens is the day after the comments, Jemele hears them and sends them to the e-mail list for the National Association of Black Journalists-

Jessica Bennett (30:19):

Oh, okay.

Susie Banikarim (30:20):

… And then they become really widely circulated among black journalists in general, and by the next day, the NABJ issues a statement saying that they’re outraged and disgusted and they demand an apology, but also they call for him to be immediately fired.

Jessica Bennett (30:37):

That’s so interesting too because with so many of these stories like this, it takes someone in some position of power to really raise the alarm on it. And so having someone like Jemele in a position of power who can then reach out to this whole association of black journalists like her who can put out this statement, goes to show why it matters so much to have media be representative.

Susie Banikarim (31:00):

And she actually explains why she thinks there was more of a reaction this time.

Jemele Hill (31:05):

It was different because we’re talking about college kids and we’re talking about young women, and I think it resonated a little bit differently. Sometimes when you have people like that who constantly say the same things or the same type of destructive things about people, it starts to become a little bit of white noise. Not that it was ever right with the other things that he said, but it was who he picked, he had done it before and there was a track record of him particularly saying and espousing some pretty dangerous tropes about black women. And finally, I think a lot of people said, “Enough is enough.”

Jessica Bennett (31:40):

I think what Jemele is saying about the tropes is such an important point. And I know that she’s going to talk to us about this a bit more later, but I think it’s worth noting that part of what she’s referring to, I presume, is the incessant conversation about black women’s hair texture, on how it has been used against them.

Susie Banikarim (31:58):

Yeah, I think this idea that black women’s natural hair is somehow unkempt or untidy or unclean, that is really a racist trope that black women have had to fight against for a really long time. So he is tapping into something with real historical context.

Jessica Bennett (32:19):

I want to take us back to the timeline. So okay, the team has returned, they’ve gone home for Easter, they are being bombarded by the press. As we just heard, Jemele say, the National Association for Black Journalists has now called for his firing, but Susie, does Don Imus ever finally apologize?

Susie Banikarim (32:37):

He does finally apologize.

Jessica Bennett (32:41):

A-ha.

Susie Banikarim (32:41):

So a few days later when it is obvious that it is not just going to blow over, he issues a formal apology on his show. Here’s what he said.

Clips (32:48):

I want to take a moment to apologize for an insensitive and ill-conceived remark we made the other morning referring to the Rutgers women’s basketball team. It was completely inappropriate and we can understand why people were offended. Our characterization was thoughtless and stupid, so, and we’re sorry.

Susie Banikarim (33:08):

Clearly a scripted apology, not his usual off-the-cuff remarks.

Jessica Bennett (33:14):

Right, right. Not how you expected Don Imus to issue an apology.

Susie Banikarim (33:18):

Exactly. It obviously wasn’t from the heart. It was clear that he was starting to feel some heat here, but it was too little too late and it did not stop the backlash, and more mainstream press started to pick up the story.

Jessica Bennett (33:32):

Okay.

Susie Banikarim (33:32):

And significantly, Al Sharpton, who as you know, is a long-time civil rights activist and who has a big media profile, especially at that time, enters the fray and also demands that Imus be fired. He says that he’s happy to accept his apology, but he wants his bosses to accept his resignation as well. So it’s not dying down, and Imus agrees to go on Al Sharpton’s show, who also has a radio show at this time-

Jessica Bennett (33:59):

Okay.

Susie Banikarim (34:00):

… As sort of a mea culpa and to deny that he’s a racist. And he says that he and his sidekicks were just trying to be funny and that he understands now why it wasn’t funny, but that he was never intending to be racist. I mean, okay-

Jessica Bennett (34:13):

Okay.

Susie Banikarim (34:15):

… Sure. Yeah. Ultimately though, it starts to get contentious and he makes things much worse because he says, at some point, to Al Sharpton and his black co-host, “I can’t get anywhere with you people.” It’s like if you’re trying to apologize, perhaps you don’t use another widely understood racial trope, which is to call black people you people.

Jessica Bennett (34:38):

You people. Wow. Okay. So I guess my next question then is what are his bosses doing while all of this is going on and he seems to be just digging himself deeper?

Susie Banikarim (34:50):

This is a great question. They are panicking. By all accounts, they are doing meetings with their internal staffs. Black employees are going to NBC bosses to be like, “What the hell?”

Jessica Bennett (35:02):

Okay.

Susie Banikarim (35:02):

CBS is trying to decide what to do, but remember, they’re making $50 million, so they are very reticent to fire him. So instead, they try to just suspend him for two weeks and hopes that that stops the damage and that is again not well received, no. And now we really see a cascade of media people, sports people, politicians, even Obama.

Jessica Bennett (35:25):

Okay, I was wondering. I had wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to mess up our flow.

Susie Banikarim (35:29):

Great question. So as I said, Obama had been on the show. He was a senator from Illinois at this time. He has already announced he’s running for President and so people are asking about it, and he does also demand that Imus be fired. He says, “He didn’t just cross the line, he fed into some of the worst stereotypes that my two daughters are having to deal with today in America,” which does again, really remind you that these are just kids.

Jessica Bennett (35:55):

So is this all happening over days or weeks? What is the timeframe here?

Susie Banikarim (35:59):

It’s really over the course of a week that we get to the apology and then the Sharpton show and all this backlash, and then finally the team decides that they have to respond. They can’t wait any longer because at this point, it’s really becoming untenable for them to just go to class-

Jessica Bennett (36:16):

These students.

Susie Banikarim (36:17):

Yeah.

Jessica Bennett (36:17):

Continue to play basketball.

Susie Banikarim (36:18):

So they decide to do a press conference and here’s Essence again on why they decided to do that.

Essence Carson (36:23):

The press conference. Well, the press conference was seen as the best way to move forward. Why? Because you have a group of young women somewhere in between the ages of 18 and 20 that aren’t only athletes, but they’re students. So when you’re trying to go to class or you’re trying to, I don’t know, go get some lunch at the caf, just basic things, you’re being chased by media outlets, you lose your privacy. And at the end of the day, we like to get our education. So Coach Stringer and the rest of the staff came up with the idea of a press conference ’cause then that way, you can address everyone at one time. So making sure that we were able to get together collectively and take a stand together and control our narrative ’cause it was already spinning out of control.

Susie Banikarim (37:17):

Jess, I think actually this is a pretty good place to end it with Essence having this last word because things are spinning out of control, but the team is about to take control of the situation, and there will be a turning point with this press conference. So please join us next week for part two, and we will tell you all about it.

(37:44):

This is In Retrospect. Thanks for listening. Is there a pop culture moment you can’t stop thinking about and want us to explore in a future episode? E-mail us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram @inretropod.

Jessica Bennett (37:58):

If you love this podcast, please rate and review us on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram, which we may or may not delete.

Susie Banikarim (38:08):

You can also find this on Instagram @jessicabennett and @susiebnyc. Also, check out Jessica’s books, Feminist Fight Club and This is 18.

Jessica Bennett (38:17):

In Retrospect is a production of iHeartPodcasts and The Meteor. Lauren Hansen is our supervising producer. Derrick Clements is our engineer and sound designer. Emily Marinoff is our producer. Sharon Attia is our researcher and associate producer.

Susie Banikarim (38:31):

Our executive producer from The Meteor is Cindi Leive. Our executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stumpf and Katrina Norvell. Our artwork is from Pentagram. Our mixing engineer is Amanda Rose Smith. Additional editing help from Mary Dooe. We are your hosts, Susie Banikarim.

Jessica Bennett (38:48):

And Jessica Bennett. We’re also executive producers. For even more, check out inretropod.com. See you next week.