Are Beauty Pageants about an Ideal or Diversity?: Thoughts on three recent pageant programs

I'm pretty sure I've seen almost every documentary, movie, or TV series about beauty pageants (well, at least those that appear in the English language). Want evidence? Click here. In the past week I've seen three new documentaries/TV specials that raise some interesting questions about whether beauty pageants are about an ideal ("There she is, your ideal...") or if they might actually be about diversity.

1) Miss You Can Do It-  Without a doubt one of the best documentaries I have seen in recent memory, particularly about children's activities (it's up there with Spellbound and Mad Hot Ballroom for me right now!). I would love this even if it wasn't about pageants, and full disclosure I cried during almost all of its 74 minutes. The subject is an annual pageant held in Illinois started by Abbey Curran, who was Miss Iowa USA 2008. Curran also happens to have cerebral palsy and she was the first woman with a disability to compete in the Miss USA system (note that Heather Whitestone, Miss America 1995, was the first winner with a disability [hearing loss] and this year Miss Iowa America 2013 Nichole Kelly is missing part of her left arm-- so the Miss America Program is no stranger to championing contestants with disabilities). Curran believed she needed to share her gifts and dreams with others, which led her to start the Miss You Can Do It Pageant ten years ago. When the pageant is held later this month, fifty young girls will compete for the title-- but everyone will leave with a prize. As the documentary shows, every girl gets her hair and make-up done and gets the chance to feel special for the whole weekend, and while on stage. To see the transformation among these young people, and the positive impact it has on their families, is truly something. I can imagine this program turning into something like the Special Olympics, which focuses on sports for those with special needs. Thumbs up to both Miss You Can Do Its-- the pageant and the documentary about it!

2) There She Is- This short documentary (less than 20 minutes and viewable in its entirety via the link provided) is another interesting contribution to pageant documentaries and makes you think about how we define beauty-- particularly relevant this week in light of the Dustin Hoffman Tootsie clip that's been making its way around the Internet. It focuses on two women competing in a plus-sized beauty pageant. In this case I actually wanted to know more about both women and the pageants themselves (Is there a minimum size or weight requirement? Does anyone try to get around this? Does it help to be bigger or smaller? What are the age limits for these events? How many of these women did more traditional pageants before?). I loved that the filmmakers followed up a year later, but I still had questions (Were the two women still friends? Do they recommend that other women like them do pageants? Do they think there should be plus-sized pageants for kids?). The short film raises more questions that it answers-- particularly when one of the women talks about never going to the grocery store in sweats because she doesn't want strangers to think she's a slob-- but it's a good start.

3) Crown Chasers- Sadly, this show is getting the most press, even though it's the least worthwhile contribution here. It's on TLC and the show is basically a grown up version of Toddlers & Tiaras. Five women are featured (ranging in age from 30 to 52) as they compete in a Mrs. beauty pageant in Colorado. The women, predictably, behave poorly, fighting and swearing. One woman can barely go three sentences without breaking down into tears about menopause. They're catty and not very fun, but this special was clearly a test run for a possible future series. I hope it doesn't happen (note that I participated in a HuffPost Live segment with two of the crown chasers, around 14:45, and the women seem far more likeable in this format). While they emphasize that pageants give them a chance to retain some non-mom identities, as a new mom I know there are better ways than this to do so...

So between pageants for those with disabilities, those who are overweight, and those who are older, it seems as if pageantry isn't just about a blonde, thin ideal. Actually this shouldn't be tremendously surprising given that prisons often hold pageants for inmates and there has even been a Miss Holocaust pageant recently. And, let's face it, the child beauty pageant contestant who is currently most well-known is Alana Thompson of Honey Boo Boo fame, and she doesn't exactly conform to the norm of what a child beauty pageant contestant looks like either...

Increasingly we will see more diverse types of contestants, and contests. Case in point: This week in South Carolina Analouisa Valencia is one of 103(!) women vying for the title of Miss South Carolina, and ultimately Miss America 2014. Valencia stands out for two reasons: 1) She is openly gay, and 2) She is bilingual. Miss America has never had a national or state winner who was either.

So as the "ideal" changes, so do those who aspire for recognition in small and larger ways. I for one think this is a good thing!

Pageants, Pageants, Pageants! From Miss America to Miss USA to Mini Miss

A lot has been going on in the pageantry world recently and I've been writing and talking away!  All the biggies have gotten some press coverage. 1) Child pageants- Toddlers & Tiaras returned earlier this month and so far the biggest story to come out has been about Tinker Tea (a sick concoction of pixie sticks, Mountain Dew, and sweet tea). It turns green, hence it's name. Anyway, more evidence that the "reality" show has become a launching pad for all sorts of infamy and opportunities to make money as this mom attempts to sell her sad brew to others.

2) Miss USA- Of course, Miss Utah's flubbed answer stole the show. In case you missed it:

It's clear that her mind went blank-- you can see it happen-- and she did well answering a question a few minutes before. I don't think she's a rocket scientist, but her nerves clearly took over. To me it honestly wasn't as bad as Miss South Carolina Teen's answer from 2007, where the girl seemed to project the confidence that she was making sense. In any case, while I'm sure both were embarrassed, they did receive almost/more press than the winner, so...

Far more worrisome to me was how thin many of the contestants appeared; not just in swimsuit but also fully clothed. Their toothpick arms came up in a discussion I participated in on HuffPost live about "Making Over the Pageant Industry." I was the only non-pageant contestant on the panel, which included two former Miss Americas, one former Miss USA, one former MAO state queen, and one former MAO local winner.

3) Miss America- Speaking of Miss America, thankfully, more accomplishments than mistakes have been in the news thanks to Ericka Harold, Miss America 2003. Harold, who I spoke with last summer when I was writing a series of articles on beauty queen politicians, is enormously impressive. I went on record saying this recently in The Washington Post (this piece also discusses Heather French Henry, who is considering a run and who was on the HuffPost Live panel with me as well); sidenote, I simply love being described as a "pageant scholar" and I may add this to my CV! It's very disheartening to hear that Harold is being racially and sexually derided-- even by members of her own party. She, and all candidates, deserve better.

And I can speak from experience that not all pageant contestants blank on TV and they often do have important things to say and contribute to the world. I spent part of last week and the weekend judging Miss New Jersey in Ocean City, NJ. Cara McCollum, a rising senior at Princeton, was crowned and she will represent the state as the Pageant returns to its birthplace, Atlantic City, after seven years away. There will be a lot of attention on Miss New Jersey this year, but I'm confident Cara is up to the challenge. For more on her, and my thoughts, check out this blog entry I wrote for PAW (Princeton Alumni Weekly).

Unleashing Momsters: It's a Small World of Pageant Reality (originally published on Huffington Post Celebrity)

CLICK HERE TO READ ON THE HUFFINGTON POST CELEBRITY! When Season 6 of TLC's controversial hit Toddlers & Tiaras premieres on June 5 many of its usual cast of crazy characters will be absent. Some of the tiny tots made famous by the reality show have since "retired," including Paisley Dickey, Isabella Barrett and Eden Wood.

Before Alana Thompson (aka "Honey Boo Boo") came along, Eden Wood was the breakout star of the reality show. Her former manager, Heather Ryan, claims that after becoming the "bump girl" (the girl used in series ads) for Season 2 in 2010, Eden was the "poster child for American Beauty Pageants."

Ryan says a whole lot more in her new tell-all book, Unleashing a Momster: A Peek Behind the Curtain at the Tragic Life of America's Most Successful Child Pageant Star. The book--filled with angry language, typos, and grammatical errors -- is accurately described by its author as a "Labor of Loath."

The focus of Unleashing a Momster is Ryan's relationship with the Woods, young Eden and the "momster" Mickie. Ryan draws on three years with the Woods, relying on over 2500 emails, two-and-a-half years of Facebook posts, Tweets and YouTube videos to make her case. The headline is that the book reveals Mickie's abuse of Eden (including too much caffeine, working while sick and illiteracy), a condition Ryan dubs "Mikie-Chousen by Proxy."

But none of these claims will terribly shock anyone who has seen an episode of Toddlers & Tiaras or the Logo show that starred Ryan and the Woods, Eden's World; they certainly didn't shock me as someone who has studied child beauty pageants for over a decade, long before they went the way of reality television.

Ryan discusses the link between child beauty pageants and reality TV, writing, "Reality Television and crazy ass pageants were destined to go hand in hand -- and I was there from the very beginning, when the two began to intermingle." According to Ryan the first intermingling was in 2005 for a show on Bravo called Party/Party, though the television audience's first taste of American beauty pageants in a standard recurring reality series format was Bravo's 2004 Showbiz Moms & Dads.

Ryan's tendency to insert herself into a grander entertainment narrative occurs throughout the self-published book, which while poorly written does make for strangely compelling reading. She claims to be the first to create a Facebook fan page for a child pageant star (imitators followed within weeks, of course), the first to make a pageant girl mainstream famous (though lots and lots of Hollywood starlets, including Britney Spears, got their start on the Southern child beauty pageant circuit), and the first to manage 34 beauty pageant clients (including Maddy Verst, of Dolly Parton fake boobs and custody battle fame). It's true that Ryan has just the right amount of moxie to take advantage of all the fame new media allows -- Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, talk show circuit, online tabloids, and the seemingly endless cycle of reality shows. She's so ahead of the game with all this that she rightly refers to the moms who are so desperate to get their daughters on the TLC series as "Toddlers Chasers."

But Ryan was particularly impressed by one Toddlers Chaser family, the Barretts, who figure prominently both in the book and in more recent child beauty pageant news. Susanna Barrett, mom to Isabella, contacted Ryan and tried to link up to the "Eden Train," pushing for joint appearances and the creation of a toy line. Ryan wrote of Barrett, "Any stage mom who has so much dedication to the cause to lie on such a grand scale about her daughter's experience in pageants, just to get a little name recognition, is a mom that I will entertain!" While Barrett and Ryan eventually split (and Barrett when on to become infamous for calling Paisley Dickey, a toddler competitor, a prostitute), about a year later in spring 2013 Barrett went on Good Morning America to reveal that her daughter is now a millionaire. Isabella is now is a star in Germany because of her own reality show, but she nonetheless no longer does the pageants that made her famous because they are too toxic.

If it worries you that a six-year-old can become a millionaire based on her participation in child pageants, you're not alone. In the end Ryan not only stopped managing Wood, but stopped being a pageant manger all together because, "Eden was a child and it felt like we were betraying her by brazenly treating her as a commodity." Ryan does write that she deposited some of Eden's earnings into a Coogan account, a hopeful sign for a future, but it likely won't be enough to make up for Eden's lack of a formal education during childhood.

In the end the rise to fame of young girls like Eden Wood and Isabella Barrett, along with adults like Heather Ryan, illustrate the new nature of celebrity, not just in America but also in Germany and Australia. "Be yourself" in a contrived way on social media and reality shows and fame and fortune may come. The new self-styled celeb mantra could be: If you build the Facebook page (and pay for ads), the fans will come.

However, the failure of Eden's World to garner a large number of viewers, especially when compared to Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, indicates that it may indeed be much better to be your real self -- fat, flatulence, filth and all -- than to pretend to be something you aren't. Reality princess wanna-bes in Toddlers & Tiaras Season 6, take note, especially now that Heather Ryan is no longer around to guide you.

Lil Poopy: The Male Honey Boo Boo? (Originally posted on The Huffington Post Entertainment)

Last week a diverse collection of Boston-area star made headlines. Ben was the Oscar winner. Tom was the superstar team player. And Lil Poopy was the music prodigy. Who is Lil Poopy? Read on... Lil Poopy, aka Luie Rivera Jr., is a 9-year-old resident of Brockton, Mass. The fourth grader, who earned his stage name due to some impressive diapers when he was a baby, is now an artist with Cocaine City Records. He raps about doing drugs and having sex with women. His videos show simulated sex acts for money, and he's paid thousands to appear in nightclubs and perform. Not surprisingly, the boy's father, Luie Rivera Sr., is being investigated for child abuse by the Department of Children and Families at the request of the Brockton Police Department.

"Lil Poopy" took to his Twitter page to rage against the investigation writing, "LOOK AT SANDY HOOK Y THEY OUT HERE HURTING CHILDREN IM JUST SINGING HOOKS IANT OUT HERE HURTING CHILDREN."

Some may wonder why Lil Poopy's father is investigated when no child protection agency (that we know of) has investigated the mothers who appear on Lifetime's Dance Moms. Every week the show features girls around Lil Poopy's age crying because of nasty comments made by a teacher who puts them in revealing costumes and choreographs often age-inappropriate dance routines for them (one memorable one involved them portraying "topless" Vegas showgirls). Similarly, child beauty pageant moms -- especially those featured on TLC's Toddlers & Tiaras -- are frequently accused of abusing their kids. One mom, who dressed her four-year-old daughter in a Dolly Parton outfit complete with fake breasts almost lost custody of her daughter to her formerly incarcerated ex-husband as a direct result of her daughter's pageant participation, as I discussed last year at Slate, though the two parents now share custody.

The difference between these stage moms and Lil Poopy's father is that while many of the moms clearly have questionable parenting habits (which very likely could do emotional harm that will haunt their daughters later in life) they are not doing anything illegal with their kids. Meanwhile, Lil Poopy is promoting activities that are not only illegal for kids, and but also for adults. One of his lyrics, "Coke ain't a bad word," speaks for itself.

CLICK HERE TO KEEP READING ON THE HUFFINGTON POST!

A lawyer for the Riveras has suggested that this investigation is racist. The Riveras are originally from Puerto Rico and there are obvious racial undertones when Luie Jr. is criticized for rapping, an art form traditionally associated with African Americans.

But if we're going to think in terms of social categories the sociologist in me finds it more interesting that the first time a child's out-of-school activity has led to such a public criminal investigation is when it happens to a boy. Do we care more when a male is the subject of exploitation? For example, viewers have been particularly outraged that Lil Poopy's shirt is lifted up by an older woman who grinds up against him while dancing. But this type of thing happens all the time with young female performers.

It's possible to imagine a defense of Luie Sr. that says that child actors play roles that feature illegal activity all the time, and their parents aren't accused of abuse because of it. But the key difference here is that child actors are portraying a character and not themselves. Lil Poopy may be an alter ego of Luie Jr.'s, in the same way that Beyoncé invokes Sasha Fierce, but his Twitter feed and YouTube account exist in his name. (That it's actually against the rules for a 9-year-old to have his own Twitter account goes without saying, though it's not formally illegal.) This has also been an issue for children involved in reality television, who "play" themselves and not a character. As I have written about at USA Today, kids in reality TV are largely unprotected when it comes to work conditions and finances but, again, they usually are not promoting illegal activity.

So are the Riveras doing something that will mean Lil Poopy is removed from their home? Hopefully not, but we won't know for sure until the investigation concludes. Should this situation worry us? Absolutely. Lil Poopy is just the latest example of kids growing up too fast, trying to be famous, and creating online personas through social media to create a public personality that now needs to be over the top to get attention.

If the goal was to get attention for Lil Poopy, it obviously worked, though it may come at a severe cost to his family and future. Words you may never have thought before: Perhaps Honey Boo Boo's mother, June Shannon, can give some parenting lessons...

The Sociology of the Teen Mom Series (in the Media)

MTV's Teen Mom juggernaut (which includes Teen Mom and Teen Mom 2, along with the 16 & Pregnant series that inspired the follow-ups) is a treasure trove for sociologists. It often shows the inter-generational transmission of poverty (particularly powerful you see it unfold before you); linked to this is much about education, health, technology, and drugs in the lives of today's teens and young adults.

I've been speaking about a few Teen Mom-related stories in the press lately, which highlight some of these issues. More importantly, this shows how pop culture (like TV shows) and the media can be used to help students learn sociology. It's more powerful when it's something students already watch, but can then observe and analyze in a new way.

For example the troubled Teen Mom 2 star Jenelle Evans makes headlines both for what she does on the show and for her real-time life. While reality TV shows have sped up the air dates of some shows, for some reason both Teen Mom series have aired on such a delay that the audience often knows that much has changed since the episode was filmed (unlike other shows that do reunions, like Bravo's Real Housewives franchise, even the Teen Mom reunions are taped well in advance). Thanks to Twitter, fans follow the daily dramas of the MTV reality stars in real time.  Evans, who has been engaged/married/divorced in a blink of an eye on Twitter exemplifies this trourth end. Click here to read the story, and my comment, on why we follow Evans' soap opera life.

While Evans' series is still airing (with a fourth season to come), the first installment of Teen Mom has officially concluded. But some of the "stars" of that series manage to stay in the news. Farrah Abraham raised several eyebrows last month (pun intended) when she revealed she tried to wax, and ultimately tweezed, her three-year-old daughter's unibrow. This led to an NECN appearance where I spoke about what types of beauty treatments are (un)acceptable for toddlers and young girls.

Yes, I'm back talking about virgin waxes (remember Britney Campbell-- whose mom was lying for media attention-- but whose story brought real virgin waxing to light?).

On a more serious note though, it's possible that reality-TV starlet Farrah would have done this to her daughter anyway-- but you can't help but think that her experience on TV, and having her daughter on with her, impacted her decision. Sophia is now used to being seen and she knows that image matters. This is not really the primary lesson you want to be teaching young girls (or anyone for that matter).

Let's hope that Farrah saved some of her television money and invested some of it for Sophia's education (I don't think the kids on the show were compensated separately, like other reality TV kids, but I'd love to hear I'm wrong on this). If not, at least Sophia might have the option to use a website like Seeking Arrangement. Haven't heard of it? It's a relatively new "dating" website that connects wealthy adults with younger, attractive dates. It's usually sugar daddies, but some sugar mommas are on there as well. I was interviewed for a great NECN news segment on this growing trend in the Boston area among college students.

At least Sophia and the other Teen Mom kids are used to showing their own faces on camera already...