Divas in Diapers: Consequences of Child Beauty Pageants
Photo editing in magazines and television, but also on individuals’ phones as they display their nipped and tucked bodies. They brag and boast of their happy inauthentic lives on little to an immense anonymous audience. Idealized images of ‘perfect’ women inundate our media and change our societal definition of beauty. A toxic infatuation with beauty and pornography has seeped into childhood fashion. Today, dressing minors and children as young as three in provocative clothing and adult makeup might seem ‘cute’ or ‘funny’, made popular though social media and television, but what are the implications on the child? How will their self-esteem and perception of beauty develop in consequence? Perhaps the most frightening display is best exemplified in TLC’s Toddlers and Tiaras. The show follows young girls ages two to eleven as they compete for Best Smile, Best Hair, Best Dressed, and Supreme Beauty. As you watch these shows, you realize these superficial titles and trophies feed the parents’ egos more than fuel their child’s passion for performance and competition. Much of beauty pageants focus on altering one’s ‘imperfections’ to appeal to judging panels designed to score physical appearance above all other categories. To a child, this ultimately promotes that notion that no one is created perfect, but can become so at the proper cost.
In France, legislators banned child beauty pageants and made the hyper-sexualization of children under the age of sixteen illegal. BBC News reports that after a long history of pageants in the French Republic, child beauty pageants with be criminalized and participants sentenced to two years in federal prison or face a $30,000-$40,000 fine. The article also examines a Vogue print ad that featured a ten-year old with pounds of makeup, tight clothing, and heels. After controversy, the magazine defended the images, justifying through girls’ desire to look like their mother. The French government banned the practice of child beauty pageants on the grounds that they promote the hyper-sexualization of young girls and that such displays are both inappropriate and socially detrimental for the rising generation. By passing this legislation, France hopes to draw focus from the appearance of young girls and promote self-confidence and individualization instead. (BBC News).
In the United States, ABC News reports that the parental units of these pageant girls defend the pageants, the glitz, the glamour. The falsification. They claim that the girls enjoy being primped and groomed. It’s a game for them. By the meager age of six, many participants have attended hundreds of pageants, with titles and crowns galore. Little girls get the chance to become the princesses they idealize. Critics comment that pageants inevitably teach the children that their appearance, body, and beauty are the most important aspects of themselves. Another concern is that the shows breed narcissism. While self-love and confidence is important to natural growth, the pageants turn these values into unhealthy obsessions. The cost of these pageants can run to upwards of $10,000 for a single show, which factors in multiple dresses, makeup, entrance fee, fake tans, fake nails, and fake teeth. Other defenders say that is the same as driving their children to athletic leagues and soccer games; it’s a way to spend time together as a family. Often times, more than one sibling in a family will compete in the pageants. Paul Peterson, a former child actor and founder of A Minor Consideration, says that pageants push young girls into the sexual realm much earlier than they would have been and feeds juvenile modeling in the sex industry (Canning, ABC News).
USA Today also covered the popularized controversy. Karen Kataline, a mental health professional near Denver who participated in child pageants in the 1960s, says she understands the motivation to ban the competitions, but doesn’t think that’s the answer. She says that the problem “is not just the pageants, it’s the parents” who support and encourage the sexualization of their children, says Kataline, author of the memoir FATLASH! Food Police & the Fear of Thin — A Cautionary Tale. Martina Cartwright, an adjunct faculty member at the University of Arizona is also quoted in the article. Her research on child pageants was published last year in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The American Psychological Association noted that “girls who are sexualized early will tend to gather their self-worth as an adult based on their appearance,” says Cartwright. And there’s also the issue of certain adults who “make the assumption that the girls have the ability to make adult decisions just based on the way they look rather than their actual age.” Glitz pageants are a multibillion-dollar business now after the popularization of Toddlers and Tiaras, as well as the spin off Here Comes Honey Boo Boo having exploded since Toddlers & Tiaras came on in 2009. When the television cameras are added and the desire to get noticed by judges and camera crews alike heightens, parents and contestants exaggerate their behavior even more, spraying yet another bottle of hairspray on their daughter’s $1,200 wig. The billion dollar industry as well as the cultural hype reaffirms the permitted sexualization of these girls. In their minds, they want whatever will make them like ‘Cinderella,’ an infantelizing princess comparison (Healy, USA Today).
The on-screen pageants that the mass population of the United States sees forms one perspective. Today News reports that many of the “normal” families do not promote victory, but rather a camaraderie among all the girls. These parents also let their child choose what activities they want to do. They end up participating in everything from gymnastics and soccer, to singing and art. Joy Richardson said that when it comes to dolling up young Allie for a pageant, she said “I don’t think it’s anything obscene. I don’t want to put her up on stage and make her look 35.” Richardson added that Allie first gained enthusiasm for competing in beauty pageants from watching the Miss America pageant on television, but is quick to add, “If she says she’s done, then we’ll be done. We ask her from time to time…”(Inbar, Today News). Even with voluntary exposure, beauty pageants have negative affects on children’s psyches. The children who win can get higher self esteems and inflated egos based on false beauty that lasts into their adulthood. Children who lose have lower self-esteems and suffer from distorted self-image later in their life. While beauty pageants may encourage shy children to get out of their shell or improve public speaking skills, the negative consequences of a childhood spent in beauty pageants cannot be ignored.
Exposing children at a young age to the concept of fake beauty or beauty that can be purchased can wreak havoc on their identity and self-worth. We as a society believe that beauty is better bought than born. Must our children grow up knowing this to be true? Aren’t we all just little girls and boys on the inside, staring at our latest Instagram post, waiting to be crowned Supreme Beauty?
Works Cited
“France Moves to Ban Child Beauty Pageants.” BBC News, BBC, 18 Sept. 2013, www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24145119#TWEET894038.
Canning, Andrea, and Jessica Hoffman. “On TLC’s ‘Toddlers & Tiaras,’ Little Divas Make Their Entrance.” ABC News, ABC News Network, 21 July 2009, abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=8128371&page=1.
Healy, Michelle. “Could Child Beauty Pageants Be Banned in the USA?” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 25 Sept. 2013, www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/22/beauty-pageants-children--ban/2842431/.
Inbar, Michael. “Parents Defend Putting Their Kids in Beauty Pageants.” TODAY.com, NBC Universal, 27 Jan. 2009, www.today.com/parents/parents-defend-putting-their-kids-beauty-pageants-2D80555125.
