Beauty Games: A Review of Beauty Queens and Modelland (and why YA Novels appeal)

Tyra Banks has invented her own version of Hunger Games. No, not her competitive reality TV show America's Next Top Model, but Modelland, her debut novel about a mythical world where girls compete to become supermodels with superpowers.

Modelland, which came out in September, is pure Banks. It's a bit overblown and overly long, with lots of invented model-ly words.  But, it's also fun and silly. Now let's be clear, as an author Banks is no Suzanne Collins, who wrote the Hunger Games trilogy, which is a truly exceptional and riveting series for readers of all ages, and a trenchant commentary on social life, inequality, competition, and competitive reality television.  But Modelland, which clearly has echos of the war games involved in Collins' work, is subversive in its own way. In Modelland (both the physical setting and the novel), girls are the stars and boys are the accessories.  There is definitely an element of girl power, even though looks still matter. And it's not always the most beautiful girl who is the star either (though, of course, it doesn't hurt). There is a focus on female careers, and not leaving for a man; when a girl does leave for a member of the opposite sex it doesn't go so well. In addition to this message of female empowerment Banks slips in more mundane beauty lessons. For instance, through one terrifying challenge the girls learn why they shouldn't share make-up products or buy knock-off products/accessories. Like I said, a bit silly, though with a somewhat useful message.

Award-winning Young Adult author Libba Bray's latest, Beauty Queens, is also a bit silly-- but, like Banks, she promotes a message of subversive girl power even as she talks about beauty.

In Beauty Queens all the contestants in a teen beauty pageant go down in a plane crash on an island.  Only a few survive and those who do have to continue fighting for survival (so, again, a bit of a Hunger Games element)... While still preparing for a possible beauty pageant. Through the experience the girls, and the reader, learn that girls can be innovative and strong, while still wanting to look good and be true to themselves.  There are some jokes and observations about child beauty pageants (my favorite is when contestant/survivor Tiara, who started doing pageants at two weeks old, says she won Grand Supreme and one of the non-traditional state pageant queens responds by asking, "Do you want fries with that?" [page 45]) and competition among girls (“Compete is a rather ugly word, isn’t it?” [page 2]) which give the book a sarcastic edge that some teen readers in particular will appreciate.

It may surprise you that I read and write about so many Young Adult (YA) novels on this blog (for example, these dance novels and Wolitzer's new book on Scrabble tournaments).  But it shouldn't.  The topics covered in YA (especially those about topics I study, like organized sports and kids' activities, dance, beauty pageants, etc.) and the sense of immediacy in the stories make them interesting reads.  A recent piece in The Boston Globe by Meredith Goldstein helps explain why so many recent YA books (think Twilight, which I did read, but just couldn't get into the series itself) have had crossover appeal.

In any case, while Modelland and Beauty Queens are fun reads, if you're going to try out a YA novel for the first time, I definitely recommend the Hunger Games trilogy-- especially before the movies come out.  And if you're still hooked, try Bray's or Banks' take on what I call the "beauty games."

Youth pageants thrive, 15 years after JonBenét Ramsey's death (Op-Ed published in The Denver Post)

CLICK HER TO READ THIS AT THE DENVER POST! What did Santa bring the little girl in your life? A Barbie or an American Girl​ doll? Perhaps it was a gift certificate for a manicure or a facial?

Don't be surprised if it was the latter, as girls young as 6 are making appointments at salons across the country for chemical hair straighteners, eyebrow tweezing and pedicures.

Fifteen years ago, the 6-year-old girl who helped start this beauty craze never got to open her gifts from Santa. On the morning of Dec. 25, 1996, John and Patsy Ramsey​ awoke in their Boulder home to find their daughter, JonBenét, missing. A few hours later, they found her, murdered, in their basement.

The ensuing media coverage helped propagate the child beauty pageant industry, along with a beauty culture increasingly directed at younger and younger girls. JonBenét Ramsey's short life continues to rivet, as her murder remains unsolved. Her death was a harbinger of today's media-saturated girlhood focused on princesses, competition and the pursuit of beauty.

In the years immediately following JonBenét's death, the child beauty pageant industry, which I have studied since 2001, took a serious financial hit as thousands began to avoid participating in the now publicly tainted activity.

But now, 15 years later (and somewhat perversely), child beauty pageants are a bigger business than ever, and the industry has profited from the spotlight provided by the murder. Without JonBenét, there would be no "Toddlers & Tiaras​" — and no scandals to report on the cover of People or families to feature on ET or TMZ. Hundreds of small, local pageants have sprung up across the country since JonBenét participated in them.

Beauty pageants had long been part of the culture of JonBenét's family, as they are for many women from the South. JonBenét's mother, Patsy (nee Paugh), was Miss West Virginia in 1977. Patsy competed in the Miss America pageant, winning a non-finalist talent award.

In their 2001 book on JonBenét's life and death, "The Death of Innocence," John and Patsy Ramsey wrote that after seeing her mother judge a beauty pageant, JonBenét declared that she wanted to be a beauty queen as well. Patsy was delighted. She had loved her experiences in pageantry and always felt that if she had started participating in pageants when she was younger, she could have made the top 10 at Miss America, or maybe won the whole shebang.

Over the next two years, with the help of her sister, Pamela (also Miss West Virginia, in 1980), Patsy enrolled JonBenét in a total of nine child beauty pageants in Colorado, Georgia and Michigan.

JonBenét, with her sequined costumes and baby's breath hair adornments, showed little girls that modern princess-hood was possible, before these girls could take their dolls to the hair salon (at the first American Girl store, which opened in Chicago in 1998) or look like their favorite Disney princess, with the assistance of special beauticians (Disney started marketing princesses to young girls in 2000).

Patsy Ramsey, who died from ovarian cancer in 2006, also served as a role model for some mothers. In many ways she seemed to be a throwback to the stage mothers of the past, like Shirley Temple​'s mother, who exhorted her daughter to "sparkle, sparkle, sparkle" before each take. But in other ways, in raising her daughter to compete to win, she was a new type of mother — an early version of a Tiger Mother​, albeit a bedazzled one. She wanted to give her daughter a competitive head start in a world focused on beauty — a world that she thought would bring success, achievement and glory.

Fifteen years after Patsy Ramsey's only daughter was found dead in her home, little girls will spend the afternoon playing with their new kiddie make-up kits and strutting down homemade, makeshift runways in new sequined mini-skirts. They'll watch DVDs featuring their favorite Disney princesses, or even catch a repeat of one of the faux princesses on "Toddlers & Tiaras."

American girlhood may have been sashaying toward unreasonable competitive beauty ideals before JonBenét's murder. But ultimately her death and media exposure hastened the explosion of the girly glitter bomb in the early 21st century.

"Princess means that you' re a loser!": Recent beauty pageant portrayals on TV (UPDATED to include dance competitions)

Princess means that you're a loser! A lot of feminists might agree with this sentiment-- especially with the recent release of Disney's newest princess targeted at the preschool set, Sofia the First.

But it was a child beauty pageant mom who uttered this line during the continuing fourth season of TLC's Toddlers & Tiaras, which returned on December 7th.

The format is similar (introduce moms and kids at home, mock their hometowns, cover their pageant preparations, expose some sort of hijinks, show them arriving at pageant, getting ready, some pageant drama, and crowning) as are many of the themes ("beauty hurts," girls wanting to be Miss America, comparisons to dog shows, likening pageants to a drug/addiction). As I've said before I think many moms on this show are upping the crazy ante to get more screen time, and it seems that Michelle Leonardo, the reigning Miss New Jersey USA (herself a former child beauty pageant queen) agrees with me.

And, clearly, we have some new crazy to process. In the December 14th episode (set in the Midwest) it's princess meltdown mom, Kelly, who compares pageants to an addiction. Click below to see her expletive-laced explosion during crowning after she thinks her daughter didn't "pull" for a higher title.

In addition to showing this intense hissy fit, the new season has also brought us Riley, Bob, and Bob's rat tail in another episode (focused on a "Glitzmas" pageant in the Northeast).  Bob and Riley's parents both love drag shows and cite drag queens as an inspiration in their children's pageant preparations.  While there are clearly some similarities between drag and child beauty pageants, such an explicit connection is rare.

I also see a lot of similarities between child beauty pageants and Gypsy/Irish Traveller clothes and customs (which I suppose have their own similarities with drag), as I've written about before. While TLC covers both subcultures, I've never seen them make an explicit connection between the two.  If you're interested in more Gypsy/Traveller dresses check out the new TLC Gypsy Christmas Special, which premiered this week; the ones shown on wedding guests and at the First Communion in Ireland are especially noteworthy.

TLC isn't the only network giving us recent portrayals of child beauty pageants. On December 11th CBS' CSI: Miami was about a murder at a child beauty pageant.  The episode, "Crowned," had the following program description: "The CSIs expose the seedy underbelly of children's beauty pageants when a contestant's mom is murdered."  While the episode used the proper lingo for pageant terms, it did have the wrong look overall (for instance, the pageant was held outside and many of the dresses shown were outdated pageant styles).  It also featured common complaints about child beauty pageants-- that kids should just be kids, that they shouldn't look like dolls, that it puts them on display, etc.  While the fictional murder case was the opposite of the JonBenet Ramsey murder, since it was the mother who died, that didn't stop the show writers from introducing a sexual molestation angle.

I actually believe that the constant attempts to link child beauty pageants to pedophilia are a bit unfair. I'm not trying to defend pageants and say that they don't in fact place girls in sometimes sexual situations, because I think they do.  But the reality is that there has never been a reported case of child molestation because of child beauty pageants-- yet media portrayals consistently draw this link (another recent TV example: On September 29th of this year an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, called "Frank Reynolds' Little Beauties," features a molester who uses child pageants to find young girls to ogle).

Yes, there was evidence that JonBenet was molested, but it has never been proven that she died because of the pageants connection.  And, sure, we don't know for sure that young girls haven't been abused because of child beauty pageants-- it just may never have been reported.  There have been instances where pictures of pageant girls have appeared on websites that they shouldn't have, but this is true of Facebook pictures as well.  Given all the recent sexual abuse scandals in youth activities (and specifically girls in gymnastics), which I've written about here, it strikes me as odd that we don't pay more attention to activities where we know girls have been abused.  Having been to so many different children's competitive events for research purposes, I can say that child beauty pageants are far more careful about who is allowed around these young girls than any other activity.  They really aren't open to the public and males are kept away from girls.  I understand why pageants are an easy target, but I wish the media would sometimes pay more attention to where we know the bad guys really are.

It's also true that pageants can help some girls.  I have long been a fan of the MTV series Made. Becoming a pageant queen is a pretty common goal on this show and two new episodes (on 12/3 and 12/12) focused on seventeen-year-old girls training to compete in beauty pageants in New England and in Missouri. Both featured great, supportive, flamboyant, male coaches and spirited and well-spoken teenage girls.  While neither "won" the top title, both did well and learned a lot. You can watch one of the episodes in full here.  I love how both girls became role models in their own ways, too (unlike Miss USA 2010 Rima Fakih, recently arrested for drunk driving).

In spite of some flaws I know I'll keep watching Toddlers & Tiaras, Made, and any other pageant shows.  And I will for sure be watching the Miss America pageant, live on ABC on Saturday, January 14th-- even if I don't agree with most of their picks for judges this year!  I'll also be keeping a close eye on what happens with former Miss America Rebecca King's daughter, Diana Dreman, Miss Colorado (especially as I will likely be watching with my newborn son by then... at least I hope I will).

ETA: On the night I posted this a new episode of TNT's Rizzoli & Isles aired. Its title? "Don't Stop Dancing, Girl." The episode was about a murdered dance mom, who stumbles on stage during a routine with a pair of scissors sticking out of her neck.  The first half of the episode (recapped here), focuses on "Dance Moms"-like antics (moms screaming at one another, a security guard in the dance studio waiting area to monitor the moms, a mean teacher who yells, etc.).  Of course, as it turns out, the murder has *nothing* to do with dance competitions and instead involves a drug-trafficking ex-husband and witness protection.

Despite this the episode did produce some funny/interesting quips-- especially linking child beauty pageants and dance competitions, along with other competitive kids' activities.  First example: "It's like Little League. With Sequins." Another described the competition as a "beauty pageant with rhythm."  In defense of dancers , Rizzoli comments that dancers are athletes in costumes who practice 40 hours per week; she compared them to figure skaters.

Probably the most accurate and interesting thing to me in the episode was the focus on the girls' birth certificate, which a dance mom claimed was forged.  This ultra-competitive mom claimed that the dead mom was trying to help her daughter win against younger competitors.  As it turns out, the birth certificate was faked to help hide her from her dangerous dad. But parents manipulating kids' ages to give them an advantage against younger competitors has actually happened (most famous case is Danny Almonte), and it is a frequent allegation in all kids' competitive activities.

I wonder which show will next tackle beauty pageants and dance competitions? I could see Rizzoli & Isles doing on episode on Irish Dancing, given its Boston setting.

Before Painted Babies, JonBenet, and Swan Brooner there was... Blaire Pancake

To outsiders it might seem like there are lots of links between the world of child beauty pageants and the world of adult beauty pageants (which do not exclusively include the Miss America, Miss Universe, and Miss World systems, but those are certainly the most prestigious and well-known). But that isn't quite right. Lots of child beauty girls say that they want to grow up to be Miss America or Miss Universe, but they often drop-out long before they are age eligible.  Or, they are seen as being "Pageant Patties" who are too programmed/robotic to succeed in the adult pageants that place more value on spontaneity and "natural"-ness, so those who stick with pageants over the years often aren't successful in their pursuit of the "big crowns." Outsiders also often wonder what becomes of child beauty pageant contestants as they age. Are they successful? Happy? Married? It's usually difficult to answer these questions as it's hard to track down contestants and keep track of them over the years.  One exception are the two girls featured in the 1996 documentary Painted Babies. This BBC-produced special focused on five-year-olds Asia Mansour and Brooke Breedwell as they squared off in a Georgia child beauty pageant-- long before the world ever heard of JonBenet Ramsey. The filmmaker, Jane Treays, visited the girls again, twelve years late, in Painted Babies at 17, which came out in 2008 and was shown on TLC (FYI- Asia was still doing pageants).

But even before Painted Babies, there was Blaire Pancake. Blaire was eleven-years-old when she and her family were featured in a nine-page spread in Life in 1994 (click here for a link to my own copy of the piece, which unfortunately does not reproduce the pictures well; to read the text of the article, click here). Even with shocking revelations for the time—like the fact that Blaire had competed in over 100 pageants, that she wore glue-on nails, and that she had been accused of wearing hair extensions and having plastic surgery performed by her father (a plastic surgeon)—there was little public outcry about this American subculture.

I have always found this Life piece, by sports journalist Pat Jordan, quite powerful. If you read it now, seventeen years later, you'll be struck by how little has changed in many ways in the world of child beauty pageants. There's clearly continuity in the tensions and practices (flippers, coaches, rumors and accusations, involved parents, etc.). And then there is the memorable Blaire Pancake. The images of her are striking, and the name, for me, has always been unforgettable.

Recently Bloomberg Businessweek ran a story on US beauty queens who have gone on to pursue MBAs.  They tracked down 14 state title holders from Miss America and Miss USA who had worn the crown in the past decade. The article highlights how the women's experiences as state beauty queens helped prepare them for the business world, highlighting networking and marketing skills.

Well, guess who number 12 was in the slideshow that accompanied the article? You guessed it-- Blaire Pancake. Pancake competed as Miss Tennessee in the 2007 Miss America Pageant.  While she didn't place in the Top 15, or win any special awards, she did compete at the Miss America Pageant, which is no easy feat.  True, she didn't fulfill her stated childhood dream of becoming Miss America (per the Life piece from 1994), but she got pretty close.

Pancake apparently stopped doing pageants in high school, and didn't compete in college.  But at 23, at risk of "aging out" of the Miss America system, she decided to try for the Miss Tennessee title. And she won on her first attempt. All those years of pageant prep had paid off.

I was really delighted to read about Blaire Pancake's success. She received her MBA in 2009 and is now working as a "marketing and business development director." A quick Google search revealed that she is married as well. While Blaire Pancake (thankfully) never become a household pageant name like JonBenet, she does show that even child beauty pageant contestants thrust into the national spotlight at a young age can go on to lead successful adult lives. So, there is hope for girls like Swan Brooner (from HBO's critically acclaimed 2001 Living Dolls [and my favorite child beauty pageant documentary]) and for the pint-sized princesses from today's Toddlers & Tiaras. Only time will tell if they can pull off a Blaire Pancake.

The "Grand" Finale: Ending Season 4 of Toddlers & Tiaras (from The Huffington Post Culture)

You've seen the four-year-old dressed up as Dolly Parton (complete with "enhancements"), right? And, of course, you've seen the images of the three-year-old dressed up as Julia Roberts' prostitute character from Pretty Woman, haven't you? Judging by the ratings for TLC's fourth season of Toddlers & Tiaras, it seems you have. Each week over two million people tune in to watch the series. The show, which premiered almost three years ago in January 2009, has always been talked about. But over the past month it has shot into the stratosphere of pop culture. Not since the death of JonBenét Ramsey have child beauty pageants received so much media coverage. This week, for example, the cover of People features five-year-old Madisyn (aka Maddy) Verst -- little "Dolly Parton" dolled up in her cupcake beauty pageant dress -- and asks, "Gone Too Far?"

I've been studying child beauty pageants for over a decade and I do believe that shows like Toddlers & Tiaras have gone too far. Such young pageant contestants should not be featured on television.

As Wednesday night's season finale of Toddlers & Tiaras made clear, pageant moms are acutely aware of the television cameras. One mother harshly whispered into her five-year-old daughter's ear during an at-home practice session: "We are on camera. Don't you dare tell me 'no' one more time. Do you hear me? We are on national TV. Everybody's going to see this. Do you hear me?" After her daughter, Carley, said, "Yeah," her mom immediately pasted a smile on her face and declared in a kinder tone, "Ok. We're doing the Cruella de Vil run through. I want this..." But Carley cut her off declaring, "You are driving me crazy!" Mommie Dearest-like scenes are decidedly uncomfortable to watch, though that doesn't mean we should go to the extreme of banning child beauty pageants outright. Activists recently tried this approach in Australia after the introduction of "American-style" child beauty pageants in July. But they were unsuccessful and the pageant show went on.

CLICK HERE TO KEEP READING ON HUFFPO, OR READ BELOW!

Outlawing child beauty pageants in the United States is also not a serious option. As legal scholars, like Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, and historians, like Holly Brewer, have detailed, American families have long been free to pursue any activities in their own home that they deem suitable for their own children. The state is not likely to interfere with day-to-day parenting decisions, unless the child is placed in an environment that is clearly unsafe and abusive. The bar is set pretty high -- physical abuse, neglect, and abandonment. While some may feel that spray-tanning a child, for example, is a form of abuse, it is not like hitting or binding a child. In general the government takes a hands-off approach to children's activities. Even children's boxing, deemed physically unsafe for thousands of young children by the American Association of Pediatrics earlier this month because of the risk of chronic and acute brain injuries, is legal in the United States.

Instead of pushing for a general ban on child beauty pageants, opponents push for an airwaves ban. The Parents Television Council, for example, released a statement demanding that TLC cancel its hit show: "Such brazen and wanton material should qualify as child exploitation or abuse."

The critics are right. Shows featuring young pageant girls -- especially those who have not yet even started school -- are becoming more and more inappropriate. With competition for limited airtime on reality televisions shows, participants resort to outrageous antics to get on the air (see: Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi of Jersey Shore). Whatever you may think of the ridiculous, self-serving behavior of willing adults, it is wrong for parents to use their children to advance themselves.

Images of these children are more permanent than ever thanks to the Internet. Memories live on in concrete form that future classmates will be able to access. We don't have hard data on specific long-term effects of children's appearances on reality television, but it's hard to imagine that there won't be serious consequences when it comes to friendships, romantic relationships, and assessments of self-worth.

Because of outrageous antics staged to augment fifteen minutes of fame, real accomplishments are overshadowed. In the past week a sixteen-year-old girl became the youngest women to win an LPGA tournament, a fifteen-year-old girl was named to the gymnastics team that will represent the United States at the World Championships in Tokyo next month, and another fifteen-year-old girl won a math tournament at MIT. I'd rather see any of these girls, who have worked hard to develop a talent, on the cover of People, or featured in a reality television show.

I'm sure pageant queen Carley spoke for millions of concerned adults during the season finale of Toddlers & Tiaras. Let's hope she and her child pageant friends won't be driven crazy on camera for much longer.

(Also posted at orgtheory with the following commentary: In addition to guest posting at orgtheory this month, I also blog at The Huffington Post. Check out my latest over at HuffPo Culture on the TLC show Toddlers & Tiaras. This piece, in which I argue that this particular show should no longer be on the air, brings together some of my work on child beauty pageants, kids and reality television, and children’s rights. I also (hopefully) show that it’s a good thing for (academic) sociologists to watch television. I am not ashamed to watch TV, including reality shows!)