Season 5 of Toddlers & Tiaras debuted on TCL last night, and while all the comments on all the blogs seem to be ranting about how wrong and distasteful baby beauty pageants are, five seasons of this show can only mean that a lot of people are still watching.
So what’s the appeal? Why do so many people tune in to watch inappropriately dressed, spoiled, 5-year-old brats throw temper tantrums and get their eyebrows waxed?
Maybe, as women, we like to revisit our girlhood fantasies of dressing up like princesses, because really, that part of it would be many girls’ dream come true. Maybe, as mothers, we like to be judgmental of the pageant moms who are screwing their daughters up way worse than we are. Maybe, as humans, we just like rubbernecking at other people’s outrageous behavior.
While I like watching a train wreck as much as the next TV-addled couch potato, when I take a step back and realize that these are REAL LITTLE GIRLS and not just pixels on the TV screen, my stomach churns. Yes, the pageant moms have their heads screwed on backwards and yes, these little girls are missing out on normal childhoods, but the real problem here is that America keeps watching.
If you don’t like these pageants, STOP WATCHING. We live in a capitalist society, and anything that continues to draw an audience and make money will continue to happen. You may not be pushing your daughters to compete against Makenzie Myers or Eden Wood; you may not be driving either of these girls from the spray tan salon to the pageant stage; but as long as you keep watching, you’re contributing to the mess.
