Not feeling the love? Here’s why
Universal Royal Pageant chief Annette Hill isn’t feeling the love from us here in Australia over her plans to export US-style child beauty pageant culture to our shores.
“Oprah Winfrey went, she had a great time, and that’s why I want to come too. But I’m not feeling the love like Oprah did,” she told News Limited.
Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that Oprah wasn’t accompanied by six-year-olds in feathers and sequins performing Las Vegas Show girl routines? (perhaps it also has something to do with the fact that she’s not Oprah, but I’ll leave that aside for now).
Blogger and author Kerri Sackville has perfectly and comically captured the essence of kids that most of us want to protect. With her permission, I’m reprinting her post here. Enjoy. (And the little boy with the bucket on this head? I can neither confirm nor deny that this is a child of mine).
Now THIS Is A Kiddie Beauty Pageant
Kiddie beauty pageants are coming to Australia and we Aussies aren’t pleased. We do not want our kids prematurely sexualised. We do not want them wearing makeup and beehive hairdos at the age of two (actually, we do not want them wearing beehive hairdos at all, because they look utterly ridiculous). We do not want them primping and preening and flirting with the judging panel when they should be making mud pies. And we certainly don’t want them to wear those expensive sparkly dresses because they’re just going to spill their Milo on them anyway.
However, I don’t think we should dismiss kiddie beauty pageants altogether. I think there is a place for them in our country; they just need to be modified a little to better suit the Australian culture.
So I have come up with guidelines for the Australian Toddler’s Beauty Pageant. All rules must be adhered to and the judge’s decision is final. See terms and conditions* for more details.
Children are to be judged on appearance, performance and demeanor.
Appearance
•All choices of clothing are to be made by the child themselves. Bonus points are awarded for creativity, colour and uniqueness of ensemble. A pink tutu worn with yellow gumboots and a bright green hoodie is excellent. Likewise a long sleeve, purple winter top worn under a white summer frock with pink leggings and Dora The Explorer novelty shoes. A designer dress worn with matching party shoes entails immediate disqualification.
•Bonus points are awarded for vegemite smears on clothing and/or food remnants on face.
•Extra bonus points are awarded for food remnants in hair.
•Triple bonus points are awarded for stains of unknown origin anywhere on the competitor.
Performance
Children are to engage in a performance of their own creation. Sponteneity is preferable and props will be provided by event organisers. Suggestions are as follows:
•Spinning around in circles until they fall over.
•Spinning around in circles with a bin on their head until they fall over.
•Lying on the floor kicking their legs.
•Doing a toddler handstand (i.e. placing hands on the floor and looking at the world from between their legs).
•Pulling up their top to show the judges their belly button.
•Kicking down a Lego tower. (Bonus points if the Lego tower was built by another child).
•Eating paste.
Demeanor
Children are judged on their demeanor, with points awarded for appropriateness and dramatic effect. For example:
•Throwing a tantrum for absolutely no reason.
•Running offstage to use the potty.
•Actually using the potty onstage.
•Running offstage in protest.
•Embarrassing their parents (“Daddy does smelly poos!”).
•Embarrassing the judges (“Why does that lady have a beard?”).
•Standing there looking dazed and doing absolutely nothing at all.
If you are interested in enrolling your child, contact me via this blog. But I really wouldn’t bother if I was you. My three year old is going to win for SURE.
*There are no terms or conditions.
Take action! Find out how here
June 23rd, 2011 at 9:06 pm
Love, love love it! Today my 3 year old wore fleece pants, sneakers, a long-sleeved t-shirt, covered by an enormous pink dress that “twirls” and an ostentatious flower clipped in her hair.
Bless you for your understanding and love of children being children.
June 23rd, 2011 at 9:52 pm
The closest this pageant is going to come to child abuse is the apparent torture my 2 year old suffers when required to do his toddler handstands with any clothes on.
Thanks for that Kerri & Melinda… after all the ever-descending craziness of this pageant business, I so needed that laugh!
June 23rd, 2011 at 10:13 pm
I’m thinking of stealing a child just so I can enter them… 😉 (Except, you know… stealing is wrong…)
June 24th, 2011 at 12:36 am
So then you will soon be campaigning against children sports too yes? Because there are too many aggressive “stage” parents involved there too and children shouldn’t show their legs and arms so I guess we had better stop them swimming too…
Glitz pageants aren’t the only pageants. The US does have plain pageants for kids too and many little girls like to dress up and wear their mother’s lipstick and high heels. In reality, the majority of little girls love doing pageants and their mothers are normal – but they don’t make it onto the reality TV shows because that would be boring and you wouldn’t watch it.
For many pageant kids they go onto successful careers on TV and movies. Doors open for them for the poise and confidence they learn through being in pageants.
I understand your concerns and agree with them however, you shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Why ban an entire activity because of the actions of a few – the few you have seen on sensationalised TV shows like Toddlers and Tiaras.
I fail to see how Eden Wood is sexual and for those who do that just makes me very afraid. Those who do are the ones with the problem… they are the ones you need to deal with. Those and some of the over the top stage mothers who shouldn’t be allowed to have children.
But don’t pretend to represent “Australia” when clearly you don’t. Not everyone is so gung-ho and anti. You are embarrassing the country and showing us up overseas in a very unaustralian light. It’s one thing to express concerns but you have gone overboard and are in that respect not much different to the over the top stage mothers you so detest.
June 24th, 2011 at 8:45 am
Wonderful! My kids are now too old to qualify (10 and 13), but the mystery stains and weird clothes combinations never seem to stop coming! Thanks for the laugh.
June 24th, 2011 at 9:25 pm
My little darling at the age of three, went through a phase where she refused to leave the house without some form of crown (fortunately, she owned several, mostly homemade). Then there was the very creative layering, and colour combining and the (as my niece just today reminded me) the ‘denim dress and hoodie worn as cape phase’. As I was fond of saying at the time (possibly to the horror of more glamourous mothers) ‘if you can’t wear a fairy dress, jeans, gumboots and a crown when you are three, when can you?’
June 27th, 2011 at 2:00 pm
@Jade
1. Beauty is not a sport. The next generation of Australians deserve better than to be encouraged to compete against each other on a basis of appearance.
2. ‘Plain’ pageants still send little girls the toxic message that their self-worth is intrinsically based in their appearance or in stereotyped adult standards of femininity, and that they can and will be judged accordingly.
3. Pageant ‘success stories’ do not negate the developmental and psychological harm risked and suffered by many other participants.
4. Eden Wood is not ‘sexual’ – she is ‘sexualised’ i.e. conformed to adult ideals of beauty and behaviour and presented to the public in a manner totally unnatural for a young child. Pageants by their nature do this to children and it is one of the main reasons child health experts object to pageant culture.
5. I am yet to see a survey published in the Australian media with less than 90-95% of respondents opposing the establishment of pageants in Australia. Are you able to explain how Melinda’s post is thus unrepresentative?