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The horrible death of JonBenet Ramsey is back in the news with the false confession of John Mark Karr. And with pictures of her made-up face and fancy dresses, the world is once again reminded of Ramsey's life as a darling of the pageant circuit.
Mommyblogger Lindsay Ferrier of Suburban Turmoil recently attended a baby beauty pageant and wrote about it for the Nashville Scene:
"So you’re watching a bunch of heavily made-up girls wearing blond wigs, painted-on tans and bikinis wriggle their butts on a stage to the beat of suggestive dance music. Maybe you’re at an upscale strip club. Or better yet, you scored an invitation to a party at the Playboy Mansion.
Or maybe you’re sitting in a conference room audience at the Opryland Hotel while a bunch of toddlers strut their mini-stuff for a panel of pageant judges.
That’s how I spent my Saturday. After receiving a postcard about the Dixieland Dolls and Darlings National Pageant, I knew fate was telling me to check out the baby beauty queen scene for myself. I didn’t think it could possibly be as bad as the media would have us believe. As it turned out, I was right.
It was worse."
During the pageant, she witnessed the tense relationship between a stereotypically overbearing stage mother and her barely two-year-old daughter. On her personal blog Lindsay writes about The Problem with Pageants and explains how she felt watching this mother/daughter interaction:
"I felt sick. How could a child who just turned two be expected to smile and perform on cue? And why was her mother so angry when she didn't? Surely she knew this might happen. All of us with toddlers know that the moment we most want them to display their knowledge of the alphabet or "Twinkle Twinkle" is the moment they choose not to perform."
It's not difficult to find articles written describing the dark side of pageant life and highlighting the evil parents responsible for pushing their children at any cost. Kariba of Right in Canada points us to an article in the Harvard University Gazette, "The Whys and Woes of Beauty Pageants"
Via Amelie Gillette of Political-Nutshell Dot Com, we learn that four four has uploaded the HBO documentary Living dolls: The Making of A Child Beauty Queen to YouTube. She describes the documentary:
"From the gay couple who coach their 7-year-old daughter to flirt with the host, to the herky-jerky modeling style called "Pro-Am," to the ridiculous pageants themselves, it all seems too over-the-top, too perfectly absurd to be real. But it is. And, really, it's amazing."
Bringing us another opinion about the prejudice against stage mothers, Contributing Editor Suzanne Reisman recently wrote about Stereotypes about Motherhood, Family Life, and the JonBenet Ramsey Case. She asks, "what is easier than to point the finger at a pushy mom who oversteps her role? Reportedly, JonBenet liked being in pageants. Why can’t people accept that?"
And in defense of her peers, pageant mom dreahwrites on Associated Content explains that "anywhere you have precocious children in the public eye you will have pushy parents."
She also notes that the media attention surrounding JonBenet Ramsey did nothing if not help promote pageants. If that's the case, looks like they're here to stay.
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BlogHer Contributing Editor Mary Tsao also blogs at Mom Writes.
Image credit: Garden Pary Collection
