Toddlers And Tiaras Research Paper

As seen on the hit TLC reality show Toddlers & Tiaras, and its spin-off, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, child beauty pageants put a premium on appearance. And in the case of so-called "high-glitz" pageants it's an appearance that requires girls to dress up and perform like pint-size adults, complete with fake hair, spray tans, full makeup, ornate costumes and even artificial teeth (known as flippers).

The child pageant and dance circuits are competitive, demanding and stressful. Watch any reality dance or pageant show and see how children are placed under enormous pressure to perform flawlessly. Tears, tantrums and fits frequently ensue with some adults mocking crying children. As result, child performers may believe that parental and/or adult
The girls can compete and have some fun and later in life earn money or scholarships to further their actual careers in the future. The extremes though those mothers will take to get their little girls to win can be way too extreme. Toddlers and Tiaras have publicly shown that not only can these competitions be stressful but in some ways abusive and terrible acts of behavior. Multiple little girls on this Television show display no respect to mothers and one little girl was caught on film slapping her mother. Another mother had her daughter “smoke” a fake cigarette on stage to go with her outfit. Not only did these girls show disrespectful behavior but showed other little children that it is okay to act this way. Another instance is what some consider being abuse to the children competing in the pageants. One daughter was held down so her eyebrows could be waxed. The mother stood by telling the camera crew that she was only scared to get her eyebrows waxed because one time the wax was too hot and pealed her skin off. The daughter kept saying she didn’t want to get her eyebrows waxed but the mother forced her to. Clearly this was an instance of abuse, not a normal one but still you could tell the child was in pain. One very famous little pageant girl as most people know her Honey Boo Boo.
The first organized proto-child pageant, however, occurred around the same time as the first pageant for adult women — and was actually more successful. Famous circus entrepreneur, businessman, huckster, and all-around exploitation artist P.T. Barnum organize America's first beauty pageant for adult women in 1854, which failed due to public protests that the contest was immoral. But in 1855, a national contest Barnum orchestrated, called the "National Baby Show," attracted 143 child contestants and 61,000 viewers. "Baby parades" soon became a national sensation — in 1893, one in Asbury Park drew 30,000 spectators, and in 1904, Thomas Edison chose the event to be the subject of one of his first films, which would actually make him the first executive producer of Toddlers and