'Toddlers & Tiaras': controversial reality show returns

[celeb_2006]

(The comments are rather interesting)

The Mommy Files : 'Toddlers & Tiaras': controversial reality show returns

The second season premiere of TLC's "Toddlers and Tiaras" airs Wednesday. The reality show follows young beauty pageant contestants and their overzealous parents.

In the first episode of 'Toddlers & Tiaras,' 4-year-old Eden Wood dons a showgirl outfit in the Universal Royalty pageant in Texas.

If this season is anything like the first, passionate moms will take glamming up their little divas seriously, adorning them with spray-on tans, fake eyelashes and fingernails, and more makeup than most teenagers wear for a night of clubbing. And there will certainly be meltdowns as it's not easy being 4-years-old and sporting a full-length gown and a sparkly crown.
This time around, the show highlights state and national-level competitions, taking a peek inside the pageant circuit in Hawaii and covering the Gold Coast Pageants that inspired the movie "Little Miss Sunshine."
The show has sparked controversy ever since the first season premiered last winter. Over at CafeMom the discussion has escalated into a heated debate. One mom writes in: "This show sickens me. Who the hell in their right mind would think it is okay to dress their little girl up in wigs, makeup, fake tans, false teeth and scantly clad clothes and parade them on a stage in front of a bunch of middle-aged men and have them voted on being beautiful?"
About a dozen Facebook pages have popped up asking TLC to kill the show; the largest of these, "Help Ban the TLC show 'Toddlers and Tiaras,'" has over 5,000 members. The page's description reads: "These girls are scantily clad, painted up like dolls, making them look too mature for their age. These children are being exploited by these pageants and by the show. This show is promoting pedophilia, and is very much sexualizing these children."

BreAnne Sterling looking good in the Universal Royalty pageant.

On Facebook, you'll also find a handful of pages supporting the show. On these moms with children who participated in the program speak up: "There is nothing wrong with pageants people," writes Chandra Smith of Beaumont, Texas, on the "Toddlers & Tiaras" page's wall. "My daughters have moooore fun doing them! We've had a blast! I agree some moms go over board but as long as the kids show an interest then, my gosh, let them. Plus we get to ride in parades, go on trips, help with charity work, all kinds of fun stuff. We love them! And my daughter just recently taped with Toddlers & Tiaras...The producers and camera crew WERE AWESOME!...My daughter was featured on 'Entertainment Tonight.' You should of seen her little face when she saw herself and heard her name on TV! It was like she just won the lottery! Get over the pageant hatred!"
TLC defends the show, saying they are simply depicting "from an objective and unfiltered perspective" something that 100,000 kids take part in each year.

Read more: The Mommy Files : 'Toddlers & Tiaras': controversial reality show returns

[NicoleWasHere]

Oh great. Poor kids.

[buttmunch]

I saw an ad for this and one mother was favouring one of her twins over the other? What the fuck is wrong with these people? And what's up with those middle-aged men with cloudy coke-bottle glasses who act as 'judges'. It just screams pedo to me.

[card]

Oh.....my......God. My daughter & I watched this last night, our mouths agaped most of the time, listening to that mother with the twins. We were almost ready to cry over Ashlynn, the non-favorite twin. That mother should be shot. Way to go Bitch, you're really giving your daughter self-esteem.

Most of you know that both my daughter and I did pageants (I'm in the process of writing a tell-all book about them), but I must say, she was the WORST pageant mom we've EVER seen.

[DeChayz]

I watched this last night, and I don't know how to break it to little Jayla's mom, but her husband is uber gay.

[WhoAmI]

^^Ya think? I'm sure the mother must know, but she probably enjoys having a husband who shares her interests. From the shots of the town, it doesn't look like he has any gay bars or clubs to hang out in in the surrounding, oh, 1200 miles, so she probably doesn't have to worry about him finding love elsewhere. (Until more men like him start going to the pageants, and then there would just be super-catty competition.)

[aabbcc]

I saw a commercial for this while watching Jon & Kate [did I just admit that publicly? oy]. The couple of mothers I saw were fat and ugly and the little girls looked like Vegas hookers. Disgusting.

[Chimera]

I'm afraid to watch this, my blood pressure might not be able to take it.

[Wiseguy]

Card, you may be able to shed a little more light on this subject, but I tend to shudder when I see this kind of thing. I immediately think of Jon Benet. I may be totally off base in my thinking, but I think it makes little girls feel that they will forever be judged on how they look.

I also think they become a pedo's dream. If I had a little girl who was very pretty, the LAST thing I want to do is put her in this kind of environment. A friend of mine has a baby who ended up being on diaper ads because he was such a handsome little boy, but that's about the extent I would go.

[MrsMarsters]

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ3KcfzDEK8&feature=fvw[/YOUTUBE]

[bellini]

Oh.....my......God. My daughter & I watched this last night, our mouths agaped most of the time, listening to that mother with the twins. We were almost ready to cry over Ashlynn, the non-favorite twin. That mother should be shot. Way to go Bitch, you're really giving your daughter self-esteem.

Most of you know that both my daughter and I did pageants (I'm in the process of writing a tell-all book about them), but I must say, she was the WORST pageant mom we've EVER seen.

Wasn't that sad, with the twin? That beaver toothed mother is such an idiot. Oh that poor kid is going to have so many issues. I hope when she gets older she can find some validation in something that doesn't involve her twin.

Did anyone see the episode with Madison/Tootie? What a rotten girl, very pretty, but rotten.

[january]

I watched this last night, and I don't know how to break it to little Jayla's mom, but her husband is uber gay.

I know, right?! I was laughing so hard when he was guiding her through her dance routine. She HAS to know, its so painfully obvious.

The one thing about this show that I've noticed is that in every episode I've seen, the pageant moms are dreadfully unattractive and very overweight. Its almost like their own insecurities about themselves lead them to push their kids on stage so they can deflect from themselves, and focus on how cute their kids are. I have yet to see a good-looking stage mom on this show.

[*DIVA!]

Remember the pageant thread..where the 'pink' board folks complained about a pageant person ripping kids off and cheating... Make this show hilariously sad..

[bellini]

The one thing about this show that I've noticed is that in every episode I've seen, the pageant moms are dreadfully unattractive and very overweight. Its almost like their own insecurities about themselves lead them to push their kids on stage so they can deflect from themselves, and focus on how cute their kids are. I have yet to see a good-looking stage mom on this show.

Yeah that seems to be a common denominator, the moms being unattractive. Save beaver teeth mom, she actually did pageants herself. The boy who competed, his mom did pageants also, but she totally 'let herself go' to where she looked only slightly like her former pageant self.

I'm probably strange but I would have loved to have a gayish type father who was into all my girlie stuff growing up. Thank god my mother didn't die young because if I had to be raised by my overly macho father, man I would have had a terrible childhood. I just loved the guy who choreographed all his daughter's dances. Not that I could ever be married to someone like that.

I feel completely sorry for the girls that are pushed into this, sorry that they see beauty as such a total validation. But somehow I feel sorry for these homely moms who push them into this lifestyle. Some of them, you know they never experienced being pretty. They completely live through their daughters. That must be such a tough existence. Especially when the daughter moves on. You see it so often with celebs and their stage moms. Pretty sad.

[word]

Dressed in a skimpy bikini, skin glistening with a fake tan, she places her hands on her hips. She drops her chin and gives the camera a coy, come-hither look, her eyes rimmed heavy with eye liner and fake eyelashes. Her lips are thick with gloss; her hair, teased and coifed, is stiff with hair spray.
She pouts and shakes her small bum.
She is seductive, a sex kitten in glittery sandals.
And she is all of 7.
http://tlc.discovery.comIf you watch TV, you are familiar with the insanely promoted TLC program, “Toddlers and Tiaras,” which follows the bizarre quest of pint-size beauty pageant queens as they vie for crowns, titles and money — and the even more bizarre behavior of overzealous mothers and fathers who spare no expense (dental work included) in transforming mere children into little Lolitas.
I know I’m not the only one troubled by these incessant trailers. I don’t know a single female who isn’t outraged by this series.
Facebook users have even launched pages pressuring the network to kill the show. The largest, “Help Ban the TLC show ‘Toddlers and Tiaras,’” lists thousands of members. As one online commenter posted: “It’s a parade for pedophiles.”
But these poor girls are being exploited before millions of national viewers (yes, including pedophiles) at every level. At the most tender of age, they are being told to show more skin, sashay seductively and diet (talk about future eating disorders).
They are being hammered with the idea that their beauty is not in their intelligence, confidence, athleticism and empathy, but rather in the color of their hair, nails and skin, and the layers of makeup and fake tans. How long before the silicone implants, I wonder.
Their mothers and fathers tolerate outrageous temper tantrums and outbursts that in another age, would’ve netted a stinging smack on the butt, and today are grounds for a timeout. And instead of learning to make lifelong girlfriends, these girls are being encouraged to backstab their peers.
Talk about scarring a child for life.
Then you have a father like Enrique Gonzalez. He’s the California dad at the center of a tattooing case that has become international news.
Gonzalez has covered his body with the Bulldog tattoo that is sign to one of Fresno’s most notorious criminal street gangs. Earlier this year, he decided to give one to his 7-year-old son.
His estranged wife noticed the quarter-size dog paw print on the boy’s right hip, and before long, a California court was trying to determine if placing a tattoo on a minor constituted a permanent and painful disfigurement.
If convicted of mayhem — described by California statutes as “extreme indifference to the physical or psychological well-being of another person” that intentionally causes disfigurement “unlawfully and maliciously” — Gonzalez faced a potential life sentence.
The question at the center of the trial: Do children, at the hands of their parents, routinely undergo other procedures that are decidedly more painful and permanent? Circumcision and ear piercing surfaced in arguments.
Do you see where I am going here?
I’m not defending Gonzalez. He sounds like a street thug all grown up and possessing not one iota of common sense. But the language and themes revolving around this case got me thinking of the dolled-up little divas being encouraged by their parents to grow up fast — and into the wrong world.
Don’t the hours of prodding, teasing, disfigurement with fake tans, dental caps and fake nails constitute painful disfigurement? Couldn’t you argue that the warped psychological torture they put these girls through results in painful and irreversible damage?
Law professor Laurie Levenson, director of the Center for Ethical Advocacy at Loyola Law School, told the Associated Press this week: “I don’t think kids belong to their parents. You can give a child the haircut you want him to have, but you can’t permanently disfigure a child.”
A week ago, Gonzalez was acquitted of mayhem. He still faces seven to 10 years in a new charge of child endangerment. The judge ruled that any damage left by the small tattoo does not rise to the level of permanent disfigurement.
Unfortunately for the little girls who should be playing field hockey or reading Harry Potter, the judge is only going to rule if she’s sexy and beautiful enough to earn the crown.



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