Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Toddlers & Tiaras

While beauty pageants across the world have always caused controversy over the degradation of women, a new realm of beauty pageant has been brought to light with the TLC hit reality show, Toddlers and Tiaras. For almost three years running, the show details the lives of young girls and their parents as they prepare to compete in beauty pageants. In the latest issue of People magazine, the cover story features the show, and describes how it has sparked outrage over the shocking world of child beauty pageants.

The article in People illustrates the ridiculous extremes that the young children must go through in order to be ready to participate in a pageant. Such extremes include fake hair, fake teeth (called "flippers" in the pageant world), spray tans, padding, and waxing. Clinical social worker Mark Sichel told People that all of this tedious preparation "causes the children tremendous confusion, wondering why they are not okay without those things." This confusion can have a negative impact on these young girls' body images, especially as they grow older.

In a Fox News article, childhood behavioral health psychologist Dr. Mike Bishop agreed, "Toddler beauty pageants set a superficial expectation about what makes someone beautiful – that beauty is primarily about your pose, your smile, your hair, and the clothes you wear. Self-worth should not be tied to competitions." Supporters of the pageants argue that the competitions increase self-esteem and confidence. While this may be true, there are other more effective ways to help young children do so.

Controversy surrounding the show has escalated in recent episodes of the past month, which have featured toddlers dressed up in inappropriate adult costumes. The September 7th episode of Toddlers and Tiaras even ignited uproar from the Parents Television Council (PTC) when it showed 3 year old Paisley wearing Julia Roberts' prostitute costume from the movie Pretty Woman. PTC member Melissa Henson told Entertainment Weekly, "For years we’ve seen adult sexuality being inappropriately and aggressively foisted on innocent young children, but children today are being sexualized at younger and younger ages.”

Overall, I think that the concept of child beauty pageants is completely disturbing and unnecessary. Throughout the public sphere, critics of the show are expressing their outrage over the sexualization of these toddlers. I think that these pageants are robbing the children of their childhood through all this intense and costly preparation and competition. Even more damaging is the effect that these pageants will have on their body image.

People article:
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20527816,00.html

Fox article:
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2010/06/03/tlcs-toddlers-tiaras-returns-critics-say-parents-exploitive/#ixzz1ZH2KzM5E

Entertainment Weekly:
http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/09/07/ptc-slams-toddlers-tiaras-for-pretty-woman-costume/

8 comments:

  1. This seems to be a very controversial issue. I think that something like a beauty pageant can be a confidence-booster for a young girl, but once factors like makeup, fake teeth, tanning, and spraying are added, it only makes the girls insecure about their image. There are probably a ton of little girls who audition and participate in beauty pageants, and the ones who don't win or can't participate are already being told that they aren't pretty enough. Our society really is sexualizing females at younger and younger ages. Hopefully it won't go much further, for the sake of the toddlers.

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  2. Mary, I really like this post a lot. I feel so badly for the little children involved in these pageants. Granted, when I was a toddler, I did aspire to be a barbie doll. But, then again, I was three years old. Having an imagination as a child is very different than wearing makeup and heels and actually trying to look like a barbie in front of a row of judges. I think it's sort of disgusting, actually. Adults are judging children on their appearances - what kind of message are we sending the next generation?! That we should value aesthetic qualities over personality traits? And why start them so young? They actually have to wear fake teeth on top of their baby teeth in order to look older. That's disgusting - why haven't pageants including children who are not old enough to legally consent to being involved been eradicated? You brought up a very interesting topic to consider.

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  3. I'm glad that you wrote about this because I have seen commercials for Toddlers and Tiaras and the concept of these child beauty pageants really upsets me. The little girls are always over dressed and wearing more makeup than a grown woman would. Confidence should be instilled in children and forcing little girls to be judged by their appearances does the opposite of that. I agree with what you said about how participating in these pageants robs the girls of their childhoods. It is really not fair to them and it is usually their mothers who are the ones who want the girls to compete. It will be interesting to how these girls feel about their appearances when they get older.

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  4. Mary, this is a very well written piece for sure. i think you make some very interesting points. You are also pulling some very interesting and relevant quotes from quite a few sources. This was really helpful to read as a fellow blogger still learning how to write these posts. As for my opinion on the subject, i feel somewhat bad for these children. However i also do not think that they are being forced to do all of this. When i was a child i could argue that my parents made me to play squash, however i am unsure whether or not i would use the word forced for this kind of thing. overall though, i really enjoyed reading this.

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  5. I know Miss America is a "scholarship", but I don't know how the parents on this show can possibly justify their children's presences in these types of competitions. I've seen the commercials, and I am happy not to have any influenceable younger sister at home who will see girls like this on television and want to become like them. I do think the network is partly to blame, too, because the premise seems to me more like a reality show than any kind of exposure technique that eliminates the suffering of the girls who are already becoming sexed up for an audience.

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  6. Another hit topic apparently! Cool. I would have probably agree with you Mary except I have a really close friend who has been in beauty pageants most of her life (her sisters too). And she loves it still at 21. And I think its because her mom was really well-grounded. She never pushed though Im sure it was her idea for them to start. So I guess the obvious question is: is there anything wrong inherently with pageants? Or is it really all about the kind of parents?

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  7. Going off of Alyssa's post I definitely think it is interesting to get the perspective of the person actually living this lifestyle. When I see commercials for Toddlers and Tiaras I cringe when I see what these children are put through however it would definitely be interesting to do research on the other end without the media's perspective to see what the beauty queens themselves think.

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  8. This kind of stuff is just disgusting. I have had a lot of involvement with beauty pageants in my life and this is not what they are about. These children are being used by their mothers and fathers as pawn for their parents self-esteem. Children deserve to live their own lives, to have childhoods, and by subjecting girls to the pageant process at such a young age it robs them of their childhoods.

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