Bigots are using this year’s Miss Universe winner to fuel the war on ‘wokeness’
The far-right are using the Miss Universe 2024 winner Victoria Kjær Theilvig to attempt to prove the “anti-woke” movement. (Hector Vivas/Getty Images)
Surprise, surprise, bigots are making yet more unsolicited comments on women’s bodies. This time, they’re using the Miss Universe 2024 winner to fuel the war on “wokeness”.
Victoria Kjær Theilvig of Denmark was crowned Miss Universe 2024, marking the first Dane to win the competition. Rather than celebrating the aspiring lawyer’s win for the light she has shone on mental health awareness and animal rights advocacy, far-right social media users have instead attempted to use Theilvig as a pawn to mark “anti-wokeness”.
The 21-year-old is the first blonde and blue-eyed Miss Universe competitor to win the title in 20 years, with some onlookers using her success to pit her against other women in a move they have called the “Trump Effect”.
The negative discourse surrounding her win is mostly from the far right. They have, unsurprisingly, made anti-trans, racist and fatphobic comments about other pageant competitors, as they compared them to Theilvig.
It appears that Theilvig is being hailed as a martyr for the “anti-woke” movement as her appearance adheres to Eurocentric beauty ideals, and she is not a woman of colour, nor is she trans or plus-sized.
Donald Trump Jr. also chimed in, congratulating Theilvig for being a “biological and objectively attractive woman”. His social media post read: “WE ARE SO BACK!!!” Even Elon Musk commented beneath the post with two fire emojis.
Despite the problematic rhetoric, Cisgender women have never been prevented from competing in the Miss Universe pageant, even since the first trans woman, Angela Ponce, competed in 2018.
In fact, no out trans women have won the title in the pageant’s 72-year history.
This is, unfortunately, not the first time that those on the right have used a woman’s body to prove “anti-wokeness”. Sydney Sweeney was the subject of similar discourse when she hosted Saturday Night Live earlier this year.
Rather than just allowing a woman to exist in her own body, the Euphoria star had her success hosting SNL reduced to evidence that “wokeness is dead”.
Neither Theilvig nor Sweeney have publicly spoken on right-wing ideologies. They are not martyrs for misogynistic beliefs; they simply exist in their bodies and have successful careers.
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