This is one episode of a show called “Toddlers and Tiaras” on TLC. This show glorifies the excessive makeup and forced personality of the pageant lifestyle. The pageant system creates a standard of beauty that is completely unattainable in every day life, but is still reflected to the masses as what should be the norm.
The show brings the perspective of the pageant onto young girls. The girls compete in age brackets to make the competition more fair. The youngest of these age brackets is 0-23, so the contestants are being taught what beauty is nearly from birth. The brackets go up to a 9 to 10 year old brackets. The girls in that age range will have been doing pageants be being taught that beauty ideal, so they don’t have any other perspectives to go from.
In the pageants the girls, often equipped with fake hair, teeth, and a tan, are first announced by their physical attributes, like their hair and eye color. It also teaches a very competitive attitude. In this episode, one of the girls is quoted as saying, “I’m better than all the other girls”. Having that kind of competitive attitude at such a young age
The way this show represents femininity is extremely fake and airbrushed. This show is aimed at both mothers and young girls, and it affects both of their perceptions. Young girls who watch the show may understand beauty to be the fake and airbrushed way pageants represent it and adopt that sense. Mothers who watch it may be inspired to start their own daughters in the pageant system and teach their daughters that ideal of beauty.
Some pictures of pageant girls before and after hair and makeup:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u5ock_qQ62M/TlLSrnyQnQI/AAAAAAAACvU/m_rD1zDrAns/s1600/toddlers+and+tiaras+before+and+after.JPG
http://cherryvondagger.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/toddlers-and-tiaras-before-after.gif
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