The Tuscaloosa News called Queen for a Day “A daily blend of laughter and tears.” “That unspeakable horror,” said innocuous, “and an over-arching feeling of creepiness.” Critics all over the country registered their disgust with how the show exploited human misery to peddle consumer goods. It was sort of a cross between game show and soap opera.
Ripley’s said “American households with tvs were owned and watched by people with above-average incomes. This sparked the coining of a new phrase: poverty porn, the exploitation of poor people to sell consumer products.”
Would YOU Like to be Queen For a Day?
The result of all that legitimate criticism?
Thirteen million Americans watched the live afternoon program every day, making it the most-watched show on television and the one charging the highest ad rates. According to Nostalgia Central, producer Howard Blake recalled in an interview, “Sure, Queen for a Day was vulgar and sleazy and filled with bad taste. That was why it was so successful; it was exactly what the general public wanted.”
Contestants were women who hoped their tragic story would win the crown and all the wonderful prizes that went with it.
Thousands of women filled out what the studio called wish cards, hoping to be one of the final four contestants (sometimes three, sometimes five). The wish cards asked for a brief statement of their problem and what they thought would solve it.
Emcee Jack Bailey said “We try our level best to avoid candidates we suspect will be criers.”
“They slow up the show. We pick the candidates we think will play the best (with the audience).”
History com said “producers made sure to avoid selecting contestants with stories of rape, morally questionable stories of divorce or infidelity, or overt abuse.
Or stories of the widow who needed a new mattress because her husband died in the bed.
Viewers were middle-class housewives, home and with enough free time to watch daytime tv
So why did so many of them watch a show where poor contestants told their pitiful stories in the hope that they’d be Queen for a Day? One wag said if stay-at-home housewives were the contestants, I’m pretty sure “Our martini glasses don’t measure up to the bridge club’s standards and we’d like some real crystal” wouldn’t win, but it could be a Saturday Night Live skit.
Assistants narrowed the field to women whose problems could be solved by generous applications of sponsors’ products
The producer of Queen for a Day put it this way: “A candidate had to want something we could plug.”
UK’s Daily Mail said “The show pioneered the pairing between consumerism and ‘misery shows.’”
The only products plugged were those that paid for their television exposure. It’s no coincidence that today nearly all sites that recommend products recommend only those that pay for the privilege.
Queen for a Day was broadcast live five days a week from a swanky Hollywood nightclub.
The audience members sitting around the Moulin Rouge’s tables in the afternoon made the final decision. They had been instructed to applaud for each contestant in turn.
The winner was the the contestant who earned their loudest applause.
One at a time, contestants stood mutely as an applause meter was superimposed over their faces. As the audience clapped, the meter’s needle registered numbers from zero to 10. The woman and the story with the highest score won. The others were given piddling little gifts. Imagine pouring out your sob story and getting only a polite 2 out of ten.
People who study such things have some really interesting observations on “the underlying themes of pathos and insecurity, misery-for-merit, and consumerism gone mad.” You can find some good ones here on google books.
What do we make of it, then?
The favorite tv show of well-off women featured competition between women beneath their class (we’d later change that to socioeconomic status), below their rank in society, having problems only lower-class people have and shaming themselves by announcing them on television.
Here are the subjects of one episode’s contestant wish cards:
- Five electric blankets
- Muskrat traps
- Two tires,
- and my favorite, A hole in the ceiling.
The hole was the wish of the woman who explained there was no heat upstairs where their five kids slept. Cutting a hole in the ceiling would allow the downstairs to heat the upstairs.
The Number One rated show was bashed by critics because its unspoken but clear message was that the cure for sadness and misery was consumer products
The winner was wrapped in a cape, seated on a throne, crowned, and given an armful of roses. Right up front the Queen was dazzled by the limousines, theater tickets, Hollywood tours, nightclubs, and all that glamorous excitement.
Then Jack and his announcer reeled off prize after prize
Each of the many prizes was described in detail because they were all paid plugs. Portable tape recorder, canopy bed, place setting for eight, that’s not all. The Queen got all six fashion ensembles the spokesmodels wore during the daily fashion show.
For a moment, the Queen for a Day felt more like the princess in fairy tales.
She had been rescued by Prince Jack, who crowned more than 5,000 queens. Cinderella, anyone?
What about the women humbling themselves to the point of humiliation, very close to begging?
Can you imagine going through that for a couple of tires you didn’t get? Probably blackwall blems* anyway.
The National Women’s History Museum admits contestants were exploited, adding that it had been called “the worst program in tv history.”
It defends the show by saying, “Women of color and immigrants went on Queen for a Day too, showing the nation how the same difficulties affected all women, regardless of race or nationality. It allowed women to realize that perhaps their misfortune was not solely their own doing, but was partially a symptom of the oppressive systems in place in society.”
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*blackwall blems. Whitewall tires were the rage and showed you had money and class. Blem stands for blemish.
Bonus
Jack’s first two bathing beauties were Maxine Reeves and Carol Silversparre, ancestors of the hundreds of Carol Merrills and Vanna Whites to come. In all, another 68 different women would serve as Queen for a Day spokesmodels.
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