Enough with the bashing of the abomination that is Toddlers and Tiaras.
The hit TLC reality show, which features young girls competing in beauty and glitz pageants, has been making headlines again since the airing of recent episodes that clearly illustrate that the some parents don’t utilize the portion of the vertebrate central nervous system that is enclosed within their cranium.
Translation: Dumb parents making lame-brain decisions equal big ratings and major media attention.
Then again, what do you expect when you dress up your three-year-old as Julia Roberts’ prostitute character from Pretty Woman or force your four-year-old to strap on fake boobs and butt padding to look like a mini Dolly Parton?
Cue the “normal” parents who insist that the “poor excuse for a television show should be illegal” and the childhood experts who claim that the tots featured on the show are being exploited.
Apparently, dressing your just out of diapers daughter as a whore knocks you out of contention for Parent of the Year honors.
Just ask People magazine, which features the Toddlers and Tiaras controversy on its cover with the headline: “Gone Too Far?”
The article delves into the world of kiddie beauty pageants, but truth be told, none of the information shared by pageant officials or parents of the pint-sized contestants is new. Both groups are quick to defend the competitions, saying that the girls love doing pageants and they can pull the plug on the entire process whenever it’s not fun anymore.
I remember hearing the same schpeel following the horrific death of JonBenet Ramsey. The 6-year-old’s parents were ripped to shreds in the media after images of their murdered child participating in kiddie beauty pageants were broadcast to the world. The now infamous video showed JonBenet in heavy make-up and blinged-out costumes parading across a stage. At the time, some media outlets described her as “a painted baby, a sexualized toddler beauty queen.”
I’ve seen Toddlers and Tiaras a few times; however, I don’t believe the show is to blame for the poor decisions that affect those young girls. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that those beauty queen wannabes would be strutting their stuff in gaudy getups whether or not TLC’s cameras were rolling. That’s just the nature of the pageant world and the parents that are attracted to it.
TLC could cancel Toddlers and Tiaras tomorrow and some mom out there would still send her kid down a runway dressed in revealing costumes, teased wigs, and heels.
Why?
Because they want to WIN! And by win I mean have a panel of strangers validate their opinion that their kid is the best of the best—fake boobs or not.
What’s your take on the Toddlers and Tiaras brouhaha?
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