Toddlers & Tiaras

I have seen this show a couple of times in the past but will mostly be reviewing the episode I saw the other night.  If you don't know anything about the show, it follows 3 or 4 pageant contestants and their parents as they prepare for a specific pageant.  This episode was the Southern Celebrity pageant.  I found it interesting that the Southern Celebrity pageant was held in the quintessential southern town of Chicago.

There are 2 kinds of pageants: natural and glitz.  Natural pageants are a little more toned down where the kids wear makeup but not Tammy Faye Bakker amounts of makeup.  The Southern Celebrity pageant was a glitz pageant so the girls were expected to really do it up big with fake hair, fake teeth, fake tans and super bedazzled outfits.  One of the mothers claimed that there are "tons and tons of rumors that my daughter can't do glitz pageants".  My first question would have to be, who are these people taking the time to spread rumors about the glitz-ability of your elementary age daughter?  Clearly there is a seedy underworld of rumor spreading associated with children's beauty circuit.

In order to prepare for the big day, each of the featured contestants went in for a spray tan and tamed their brows.  One of the little girls cried as her mother ripped her eyebrow hairs right out of her face with a pair of tweezers.  The loving mother soothed her daughter by saying, "that's what you get for shaving your eyebrows for two years".  Just to be clear, I assume it was not so much the daughter who was shaving her own eyebrows but more likely the mother shaving the little girl's eyebrows because to be a true pageant princess you mustn't have a unibrow!

This episode also featured a very special contestant, Brock.  The first thing Brock's mother said to the camera was "Brock is a diva".  Brock, by the way, is a boy.   It was clear to me (and his mother echoed this statement) that Brock is just Brock.  I will not make fun of this kid because I fear he gets a lot of that.  I will, however, give you a few facts about him.

1. Brock takes his dolls, Lexie and Rebecca, with him everywhere.  He said Lexie is like him because she has a lot of sparkle.
2. Brock LOVES dancing.  He hopes to be on Broadway.
3. Brock was the only male contestant.  When he won, he was given the choice between the boy's crown and the girl's crown...he chose the girl's crown.

About pageants in general:
I don't understand why the style of smiling and walking and winking and dancing that takes place in pageants is considered desirable.  If I walked around my everyday life winking at people and smiling without blinking they would put me in the psych ward.  Maybe as an experiment I will spend an entire day walking with my arms out at a 30 degree angle (so as not to crinkle my gigantic skirt) and kiss my index finger and point it at people.  Perhaps someone will give me an enormous gaudy crown.  More likely they will move away from me as quickly as possible.