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Child Beauty Pagents
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I was watching Little Miss Sunshine last night (which I recommend you all watch and participate in this months Film Club discussion in Entertainment), and I was thinking, actually, does anyone else not find these things a little creepy? I mean you've got little girls essentially made up to look a lot older than they are, with full makeup, spraytans and revealing clothes. I remember watching something about Miss Teen America a while ago, and I found it a bit disturbing that they had a swimsuit competition. Now I'm all for that in an adult equivalent, but let me tell you that "teen" didn't seem to be referring to girls between 16 and 19. I was wondering what everyone elses opinions of them were, bearing in mind that things like talent competitions already exist where the kids could do that particular section of the pagent and still have all the same enjoyment out of it?
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Most of the stuff I know about them is definitely coloured in a hugely negative light -- as it is all from the publicity and coverage of pre-teen beauty paegants that was in the media when that wee girl JonBenét Ramsey was murdered. I remember seeing clip after clip of her and her fellow contestants winking and pouting at the old, largely male judges and being coached to wiggle their hips and stick out their "chests" and other tricks of the trade that seemed so dreadfully, dreadfully wrong. That's without even mentioning that they have their hair dyed, body hair shaved/waxed/lasered off, are put on diets, forced to practise their routines when they are loudly and (naturally) childishly voicing their preference to watch Spongebob Squarepants or similar.
There is simply no denying that it is vicarious wish fulfillment on behalf of the parents, and I think that is just inexcusable. Of course people in favour of the paegants come back with the argument that the girls like it, and maybe they do like the praise and adulation they (possibly) receive from the judges as they're probably being constantly scolded and told they're not up to scratch at home -- especially if they don't come home with the elaborate crown and Pottery Barn vouchers. Of course it is important for children to learn that there are competitive elements to life, and that it's not always going to be "the taking part" that counts. But they shouldn't be learning that in the context of a contrived contest based on who can twirl a baton the best and who can best flutter their mink fur eyelashes at a panel of old men. Talk about putting your daughter's foot on the first rung of the worst possible ladder.
Oh yeah, and I can never help but think that they will all end up like this:
With their best achievements having been between the ages of 5 and 12, and then blazing a hasty trail into soccer mom, pill popping-nirvana or insanity (a la Baby Jane :razz:)
Does she stick her hand up her arse to get her to talk?
ETA: At least she looks vaguely like a child. Nowadays they seem to just be miniature versions of the proper beauty queens.
I don't know about that, obviously our attention is drawn to the extreme cases but still...
It's a completely extra-curricular activity, not like sports (which is also high competitive by all accounts and can be littered with stage/pitch/field-parents) and is something that they are seriously in to win. When you consider the amount of time they spend practising their routines and doing their children up to look like a doll then it becomes a pretty involved process which I don't think they do purely for the fun of it. That's not even going into the huge expense some of the parents seemingly go to, hiring bloody talent/walking/speech coaches and travelling all over the shop to compete.
Haven't you seen the film? If not, you should! It's not about a beauty queen as such, just a child performer who can't let go of her past success (and present abject failure). Well, there's a lot more to it than that of course. The doll is a doll of herself that used to be sold when she was famous, how sad
"I've written a letter to Daddy..."
Incidentally, I remember a documentary film that came out about this not too long ago. Can anyone remind me what it was called?
sure all kids love to dress up and wear make up, but geez, let them do it in their own home, where they are safe and where it's about having fun, not winning a sick competition!
Exactly..
I would love to hear from someone that actually supports it or a parent whos kids are in it - I really would like to know what the justification is.
I would like this as well.
Indeed. But with stuff like football & dancing, it's not just a case of standing there looking pretty to win the competition.
wtf? i'm suprised a dentist actually did that
I agree, as others have said, let them play dress-up at home for a bit of fun as kids to, but doing for it for gain just seems unnatural for me. Many of them dont want to do it anyway, the seem to be doing it because of their pushy parents.
I'm still not convinced of her parents innocence, y'know.
Well to be fair, if you're going to see any good in these paegants then it's that they get an incredibly tenacious (and scary, in my view) "work" ethic.
Also, a lot of them are talented singers, dancers... well, to use an all-encompassing word - performers... from the little footage of them I've seen, but then most young children could learn and perfect these skills to the same degree if the same amount of time and effort was put in. It could - of course - be exercised in a much healthier way and environment but if we had to pinpoint a silver lining then that'd be it. Obviously, that little "good" is far outweighed by the bad.