Queen for a Day

Apparently Queen Victoria had a small copy of a larger crown made, with a mere 1000 of the world’s finest diamonds.   It was not a display of modesty, or a statement of humility, rather the larger crown was just too heavy to wear comfortably.

The opportunity to wear an oversized and not necessarily comfortable crown came to American popular culture in the form of a radio and TV show called “Queen for a Day”.  It was broadcast from 1956 to 1964. While the concept or “gimmick” was to pick a supposedly poor and pitiful woman to reign in Hollywood glory for a day, it was in fact a thinly veiled opportunity to sell products.  To watch it now is to see a long commercial punctuated by minimal reference to the women competing for the crown.  

To watch it as a child, for me at least, was to feel both envy and confusion.  For one thing there was a meter to enable the audience to pick the most pitiful of the poor contestants.  And once that was accomplished, the stage curtains would part and magically there would be the crutches for little Johnny and more fundamentally, there was the maytag washer and dryer that would transform the “Queen”s life into one of ease and leisure.

The meter and the instantly set stage were to me suspicious.  On the other hand, the crown, the mink stole, the fanfare, bouquets and attention, were very enticing.  Most of my peers very much wanted to be princesses if not queens. 

My work for 50-50 is not an attempt to respond politically to the disastrous implications of “Queen for a Day”, or to the current issues facing women.  Rather I saw it as an opportunity to play with the concept.  Few of the women I’ve portrayed have anything approaching a genuine crown or resemble anyone’s concept of royalty.   Perhaps they are just queens of silliness, or queens of their own lives, and that is accomplishment enough.