Hot Topic (10/11): Are Beauty Pageants Exploitative?

[Cafe GroupAdmin]

 excerpts from:

The child beauty-pageant queens who grew up.

When Jane Treays filmed two five-year-old stars on the US pageant circuit, parents here were horrified by the relentless grooming. Now, 13 years on, she asks the girls whether they have been damaged by the experience

 

Asia and her fiercely ambitious, noisy, happy family came into my life 13 years ago, when I decided to make a documentary in the United States about the child beauty pageant circuit - then a phenomenon unknown in Britain, though that was all to change after the murder a year later of a six-year-old contestant called JonBenet Ramsey. By the time the feature film Little Miss Sunshine was released two years ago, there were few who were unaware of these bizarre contests in which children are painted and pompadoured to look like mini-hookers.

Back in 1995, I had chosen to film two five-year-old beauties - Asia, from Louisiana, and her arch rival Brooke Breedwell, from Tennessee - and then followed them to the Southern Charm pageant in Atlanta, Georgia, where they battled it out for the $5,000 top prize and the glittering crown of the Supreme Queen.

Looking like a Barbie doll that had suddenly sprung to life, Asia Mansur started wiggling her tiny hips and belting out a song about a boy who had given her "a special look". If he had, it was not hard to see why: with her face plastered in make-up and her hair lacquered and bleached, she was clearly aiming to make an impact. Yet this provocative little vision, already a veteran of beauty pageants, was just five years old.

Earlier, I had asked Asia what she liked about these events. "We like to go where the money and the cars are prizes," she said. "Grandmother really needs a car and we really want money, money, money!" It was not only an outrageous thing for a five-year-old to say but it made me concerned for her future.

At five, Brooke Breedwell had already won a staggering 75 titles and prize money of more than $10,000. An often sullen and inscrutable child, she rarely spoke as she practised her routines on a makeshift stage in her parents’ spare room in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her mother Pam and grandmother Bunny Breedwell were obsessed with her. “Winners never quit. We are the dream team,” said Pam.

But did they? Last summer I travelled back to the US to find out what had happened to the two princesses who had spent their early years inhaling indecent amounts of hairspray and singing sexually suggestive adult songs.

I wasn’t sure what I would find. Would Brooke and Asia - now nearly 18 - have distorted egos? Would they be permanently damaged by the giddy highs of winning pageants, followed by the inevitable lows that came from losing? And what would they think now of their pushy mothers and grandmothers, who had fussed over their false lashes and driven them hundreds of miles in pursuit of cash and crowns?

Then last year, after I was commissioned by the BBC to do an update on my film, I finally met Brooke again. She had lost none of her determination but was more serene than I had imagined possible. Now in her final year at school, she is a sporty girl who rarely wears make-up or glances into mirrors.

She had given up pageants when she was eight, she told me. “I was just burnt out, and my mother used to bribe me after every competition to keep going - I’m not going to lie.” Even her mother Pam had calmed down considerably, due partly to the birth of a son - two years after the Southern Charm contest - who has epilepsy and apraxia.

Brooke, though, had retained her cool exterior. Far from being freakish, she was mature and self-contained; and I was struck by how seamlessly she blended in with all her schoolmates at Baylor College, one of America’s most prestigious private schools.

Asia was a little harder to track down because her parents had divorced and her mother had moved house. She had turned into a sunny-natured, shapely, blonde teen-ager, with a steady boyfriend and a driving licence. At 17, she still shares a bedroom with her two sisters. Her own corner is adorned with pageant banners and crowns; and when we met again she was busy preparing for the Darling Dolls of America pageant, which was offering a first prize of $10,000. Unlike Brooke, she still does the circuit – and has won eight titles in the past two years.

“Some heads are just made for crowns,” she joked, as I watched 12in hair extensions being woven into her locks. “I just love pageants. As a little kid, I loved the hair and make-up, and feeling like a big kid.”

To my relief, the two shocking little Dolly Partons whom I had filmed all those years ago had both become poised, decent and disciplined young women. Who knows? Perhaps some of that is down to the beauty pageants. They certainly think so.

Do you think beauty pageants are exploitative? These are only two of many, many child beauty queen's stories.  What are your thoughts?

[stormcris]

I think it highly depends on the child how they turn out. In all honesty sometimes competition makes a child better and sometimes it makes them worse. I do not think all the makeup and hair does anything to the child or their personality. Many people are raised to be china dolls without the pagents. This dress up and perfection do not change the child. Nature comes in and takes over, nurture on the other hand would affect them with or without the glitz. The pagents are no more exploitive than any other thing. I think the far worse thing is the parent who fails to take up time with their child than this.

[hsteele]

I have 2 issues with beauty pageants. 1st, when the parents make them do this and are obsessive, and 2nd when they are made to look like (as the article so perfectly put it) mini hookers. I think it is disgusting to make a 5 year old look sexy. These are children not sex objects and no one should be looking at them like they are. Also these pageants are ridiculously expensive. I think more than anything they exploit the parents bank accounts. Besides paying for the dresses, makeup props, etc, the entry fees are ridiculous. I cannot see any benefit to a pageant in a childs life.

[athenax3]

I must admit I find the idea of dressing up little girls like grown women, parading them out like purebreads on display and sexualizing toddlers creepy- but apparently there's a portion of people who don't, and well, it's not abusive I don't believe, just, welll, icky- I personally can't even watch those shows, but I wouldn't condemn or deride others for choosing it. But I'd rather find other ways for my girls to value themselves.

[lifescholar]

I think it sends a message, not only to girls, but to society in general, that good looks get you places in life, and are valuable.  Sure, some of them include a talent portion, and when they're older, they even have to give intelligent, well thought out answers to some deep questions, but let me tell you, there are a lot of GREAT, very deserving, intelligent, thoughtful girls and young women out there who are NEVER going to win a pageant because they simply don't have the looks.

THAT, to me, is wrong.  And I don't think it's necessarily always damaging to the girls who go to these things and WIN, but what does it do to the ones who NEVER win?  Or the ones whose parents discourage them from entering because they know they don't have the physical appearance for it?  Or the ones who wouldn't even bother asking their parents to enter because they think they're "ugly"?  THOSE are the girls I worry about.

[PepsiMom1224]

Here is my problem with beauty pageants.  It is not about beautiful little girls, it is about little girls in makeup.  If the beauty pageant world would just do a beauty contest w/ NO makeup, extensions, capped teeth, sprayed on tans, etc, etc, etc, & just do little girls acting like little girls, it MIGHT not be so bad.  Why can't they just do a little girl pageant.  Little girls are so precious w/o any goop.  When I see Moms doing this to their daughters, it turns my stomach.  All of our daughters are beautiful.  Girls have enuff problems growing up in this world of ours.  Growing up with an self-esteem problem should not be one of them.  As we have all learned in our lives that beauty is within.  I don't see any beauty pageants with that theme.  Maybe we should restructure beauty pageants & make them about the inner beauty.  I guess that would not make good TV & I am so sorry about that.