What if JonBenet did competitive dance?: Dance Moms and Toddlers & Tiaras

Wednesdays at 10 pm are really must-see-TV for me. Thanks to my DVR I can watch TLC's tried and true Toddlers & Tiaras and Lifetime's newcomer, Dance Moms. I've long said that in many ways competitive dance and child beauty pageants have a lot in common. Imagine if JonBenét had been a competitive dancer and not a child beauty pageant queen... Well, it seems competitive dance is now getting its place in the crazy sun.

Dance Moms features the Pittsburgh- area students of dance teacher Abby Lee Miller. Miller is a character straight out of central casting. Imagine Mama Rose times a thousand (but they aren't even her kids). But she gets results, with her students winning nationwide, appearing on dance television shows, and dancing professionally. It's not that all of her rules are wrong, but it's the way she sometimes says it to her young students. Miller commented several times throughout the episode that she wants to treat her girls like professionals. Only problem is, they aren't professionals yet-- they are developing dancers and people.

Having studied competitive dance, there are several elements of the shocking show that strongly resonated with my research (oh, and several elements that don't, which I'll get to).

  1. It didn't surprise me at all that one of the moms featured on the show is a former Abby Lee Miller student. Not only have many dance moms done dance themselves, but some I met send their children to the same studio. This usually means they had a great experience-- though in this case it may be some form of Stockholm Syndrome?
  2. Other moms are definitely more critical of dance teachers. At the end of the competition featured in the premiere Miller took a mother to task over a costume mishap. The mom's rejoinder? That Miller works for her since she pays her to teach her daughter dance. Sadly, this is a pretty common refrain not just in dance but across children's competitive activities. And Miller's response was also typical-- this is my business, my livelihood, not an afterschool activity. Both are right, of course. But because afterschool teachers and coaches aren't regulated and credentialed as regular teachers are, they are often seen as careworkers by parents.
  3. At the regional competition several of the girls commented that having their dance teacher with them backstage right before they competed made them more nervous, since she kept giving them corrections. When I interviewed competitive dance girls-- and other competitive kids-- they expressed similar sentiments.  In fact, kids love being around their peers at these events, without their teachers or parents present.  Making friends and building relationships is one of their effective coping strategies for dealing with the stress of competition. As long as there is some adult supervision backstage (an outside party provided by the competition itself), I think this is the best way to help kids learn to cope with competition themselves.
  4. One of the things shown in this episode that shocked viewers the most, based on what I've read on message boards, was Miller's use of "the pyramid." Each week she has one girl at the top, two in the middle, and three at the bottom. I agree that this is particularly extreme and public, but, honestly, this happens all the time in these competitive kids' activities.  Kids who do sports and dance are constantly competing-- not just at organized competitions. They are competing at every practice/rehearsal to see who will be the starter, who will be featured, etc. Miller makes this process more grossly transparent, but clearly it happens and kids and their parents know it. I'm not advocating for "the pyramid" approach, but it's unwise to think it's not a part of participating in any competitive activity.  It's also important to note that not only are kids under constant surveillance by a teacher/coach, but they are also often literally under surveillance by their parents. In Miller's studio there is a "dance jail" where the moms can sit and watch down over the class through a glass mirror. This also famously occurs at many ice skating rinks and gymnastics gyms (if you're interested in these areas, Joan Ryan's Little Girls in Pretty Boxes remains a must read).  Not all dance studios do this-- in fact, I think the best ones don't-- but the sociologist in me can't help but think of a panopticon when I watch the moms watching the dance teacher watch their girls.

So, yes, I was prety surprised by the outright naming of the competitive pyramid even if I understood it's motivations. And that wasn't all I was surprised by in this first episode!

First, it seems absurd to me that a new routine is necessary for every regional competition. This clearly has to be a reality show-inspired practice to keep up maximum drama (Will they pick up the choreography? Will the rhinestones get on the new costumes in time? Who will be featured? Etc.). I can see a small argument that learning new routines quickly is a professional dance skill-- but given that a six-year-old is one of the featured dancers on the show, it seems a touch premature.

Second, and probably most disturbing, was the moms decamping to the bar and getting tipsy during the competition. Now, look, I'm sure as a mom I will indulge in a glass of wine when necessary. I'm not a teetotaler. But, but, but, it was the  two girls of the tipsy moms who had mishaps during the competition. One poor girl got burned or her arm by a curling iron (and it looked pretty painful) at the hands of her mother. The other had the aforementioned costume mishap with a hairband (which a few extra bobby pins would have prevented). I really do hate to be judgmental, but these are safety issues. Also, while some of the competitive parents I met would be happy, and free, to enjoy some alcohol after a competition is over, I know no one who would leave to consume alcohol in the middle of a competitive event.

In ay event, I can't wait to see what Dance Moms continues to bring after this insane first episode (Oh, I did mention cops coming to the studio over an angry mom, didn't I?!). Toddlers & Tiaras continues to entertain, but it has some serious competition.

Speaking of, two quick T&T observations from the past two episodes:

  • As the mom-to-be of a little boy, I admit to having a serious crush on last week's featured pageant "diva", Brock, and his family. I hope whoever my son is, he is as well-adjusted as the adorable Brock. Check him out.
  • Serious child beauty pageant watchers/aficionados: Did you catch Hannah Douglas, former child beauty queen, winning the $10,000 cash at Universal Royalty? Hannah was the original Eden Wood-- long before Eden was born. During the late 90s and early 2000s, Hannah Douglas RULED the pageant circuit, winning a reported $40,000 one summer. At the time she was raised by two dads, who had pageant businesses (they still do-- owning pageant systems, hair and make-up services, photography, etc.), though the dads have since split.  No, this is not Leslie Butler from Living Dolls-- Hannah was a bigger success than Leslie, though both were big names. I heard a rumor that 20-year-old Hannah now has her own baby pageant queen now. Given she tried for the Miss USA system, I'm guessing this was not quite planned... In any event, her out-of-retirement win raised more than a few eyebrows at the pageant. Is it any surprise she won, really?

In a Sea of New England Brunettes, a Blonde Miss Massachusetts

This past Saturday evening I had the pleasure of attending the Miss Massachusetts Pageant, held in Worcester, MA. Molly Whalen, Miss Taunton, took the title-- the only blonde title holder from New England competing for Miss America 2012.  Misses Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island were in attendance, actually sitting in the row in front of me.  The odds favored brunettes this year (most of the Top 8 were brunettes), but blonde ambition prevailed and Whalen won a preliminary swimsuit award, and ultimately the crown.

After writing about the past 25 years of the Miss Massachusetts Pageant in The Boston Globe Magazine a few weeks ago, I was especially interested in this year's results. Not surprisingly, based on my analysis, Miss Massachusetts 2011 was a vocalist who majored in the sciences (at 20 she already has a Bachelor's from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and is starting a Master of Science degree in Applied Nutrition at Northeastern University this fall). She also was a repeat contestant, competing in 2008 at age 17. Slightly more surprising is that this is only Miss Taunton's third win (the first was Miss Massachusetts 1972, the second 2002) and no previous winner has ever listed Taunton as her hometown.  Whalen actually resides in Middleboro, which has also never before had a Miss Massachusetts winner!  We'll have to wait until January 2012 to see if Whalen-- or her New England sister queens-- can finally bring the Miss America crown back to the region (the last was Miss Connecticut 1933, Marian Bergeron).

While I enjoyed the show as an audience member, I couldn't completely take off my researcher/sociologist cap.  Given that the other major stream of my research is about competition, I was thinking a lot about the fact that some of Miss Massachusetts' competitors were there watching the competition. Were they sizing up their competition? Getting ideas for their own dresses and routines? Or were they genuinely excited to meet someone else going on this strange journey with them. I'm guessing it's a combination of emotions-- and I suppose it's no different than sports teams studying game tapes really. The other perhaps more troubling competitive conflict of interest, at least to me, is using pageant directors from other states as judges.  Twenty-five years ago, in 1986, the executive directors of the Miss New York and the Miss Idaho Pageants helped select winner Kathleen Marie Callahan (who also attended the Pageant!); this year the executive directors from Miss Delaware and Miss Indiana judged.  Now I can see why it is useful to have "pageant insiders" as judges-- they know the type of young woman who is most likely to succeed in the position. Yet, they also have a horse in the Miss America race, so to speak. Even though I am sure a part of them wants the best Miss America possible, they also want "their girl" to be successful. I wonder how different state winners would look if only former state executive directors worked as judges? Granted they are only two of five member judging panels, but I still think the results would likely vary in significant ways. Given that the Miss America Pageant now only uses "celebrity" judges for preliminaries and the finals, perhaps state pageants should move in this direction as well.

A few other thoughts from this Pageant watching experience:

  • Five talented young dancers were the "Miss Massachusetts dancers" (Erin Lynch, Nick Silverio, Jessica Lynch, Danielle Turcotte, and Jacqueline Wall). They danced routines like they were trying out for So You Think You Can Dance. Three of the Top 8 contestants were also dancers. While the three finalists did an admirable job, they were not at the level of the five featured dancers. The Miss America Pageant used to have female vocalists and dancers as part of the television production, but dropped this to put the spotlight squarely on the contestants (they still have male dancers sometimes). I wonder if this is part of the reason vocalists seem to have a huge statistical advantage at Miss Massachusetts?
  • It was fun to watch the contestants compete in swimsuit, talent, and evening wear. I just wish the audience would have gotten a taste of their personalities with an on-stage question. The judges get an extended interview with the contestants, behind closed doors, two days before the final competition-- and it's often said that all these pageants are actually won in the interview room (if the judges really like someone, they may overlook a shaky talent routine, or give them higher scores throughout all phases of the competition since they already have a favorite).
  • We not only got to see the contestants and dancers perform, but also the outgoing Miss MA, her sisters, and the reigning Miss Massachusetts Outstanding Teen, Sydney Rachael Levin-Epstein. Levin-Epstein's talent was Irish Dancing. As a Levey who went to Catholic school for twelve years and has Irish blood, I must admit I still did a double take!
  • Lest one forget that this was a competition and that the contestants invest a great deal of emotional, psychological, financial, and physical energy into the event, I saw two contestants (who had placed highly) in tears at the celebration following the pageant. While I can appreciate their disappointment, I have never seen adult pageant contestants cry at "visitation" after the competition.  Granted, I've seen many a tear shed at crowning at child beauty pageants (and you have too if you've seen Toddlers &Tiaras!), but, again, never at an adult pageant. I'm sure many tears have been shed, but behind closed doors. The tears were sad to see, but a reality when not everyone walks away with a crown and a title.

In any event, it will be fun for me to follow Miss Massachusetts through the Miss America process, after seeing her crowned. Wish I could fly to Vegas this year, but the Pageant is only a few weeks after my due date, so not in the cards!  I think this year's crop of contestants is shaping up to be interesting.  The state winner with the most press thus far is definitely Bree Boyce, Miss South Carolina. Tomorrow morning she'll be on both Good Morning America and The Today Show talking about her 110 pound weight loss. Last week's story on her win really took off, especially on The Huffington Post. Last year's Miss Delaware got a lot of early national press exposure talking about her alopecia-- but Kayla Martell didn't bring home the crown. We'll see what happens with Boyce.  There's also Miss Colorado, Diana Dreman, daughter of a former Miss America, who I recently wrote about.  Finally, another story I find intriguing is Miss Nevada, whose father is a state senator. Love the first paragraph of this article about Alana Lee.  Do you have an early favorite for Miss America 2012?

PS. What do you think of my new blog/website?

Shrinking and Pinking: Summer Round-Up

The summer brings warm weather (finally!), outdoor activities, and lots of sports news.  What's new in the world of shrinking of pinking since my last installment? Here are some female-centered sports stories that I've been thinking about this past month.

1) Did you see this excellent piece in The New York Times about Babe? No, not Babe Ruth-- Babe Didrikson Zaharias. I remember reading a biography of Babe as a young, unathletic girl and being amazed by her accomplishments.  Though she died young-- at age 45-- she accomplished much, including winning multiple Olympic golds in track and field, being an All-American basketball player, and a golf champion (she helped found the LPGA).  It's not an overstatement to say she may be the most well-rounded and accomplished female athlete of all time. But she's largely forgotten today, despite being a trailblazer. Today's female athletes should remember that Babe Didrikson Zaharias helped pave the way for all of them, long before Title IX came along.

2) Another story from the annals of sports history offers a slightly different lesson-- one young, female athletes today shouldn't imitate. Did you see the Sports Illustrated story on Kathryn Johnston Massar? Massar is credited as being the first girl to play Little League baseball. But there's one problem. She was actually too old to play Little League "legally" since she was fourteen at the time of her ground-breaking season in 1950 in upstate New York.  While it's clear to me Massar shouldn't be recognized as the first female to play Little League-- that the honor should go to Maria Pepe for pitching as a 12-year-old in 1972-- Massar's case raises interesting questions about when boys and girls play together and if the same rules should apply. Given that boys tend to be bigger than girls around puberty, should we allow "older" girls to play with "younger" boys?

3) Then again, Marti Semetelli shows that some girls can hang with the boys, regardless of age. This female pitching phenom will play on the boys' baseball team at Montreat College in North Carolina. At only 5'2" Marti is a force to be reckoned with while on the mound. It will be interesting to see how her collegiate career develops.  I think Babe (maybe both Babes?) would be happy to see a female collegiate pitcher take the mound.

4) While some girls can play with some boys, there's a move in Massachusetts to prevent too many boys from playing with the girls.  Because there simply aren't enough boys who play field hockey in high school, boys are allowed to play on girls' teams (the reverse of girls wrestling on boys' teams, which I've written about before).  But these boys tend to be bigger and play more aggressively. This article in The Boston Globe details the serious concussion one female player sustained at the hands of a male field hockey player.  After incidents like this one, coaches petitioned to prevent more than two boys at a time from playing on the field, playing in the area just around the goal, and from playing goalkeeper. Some oppose these changes, saying they discriminate against boys-- though I can see that they are meant to protect everyone on the field. Hopefully soon there will be enough boys interested in field hockey that all-male teams can be fielded.

5) Another rule change, though this one separates men from women. No longer will men and women (competitively) eat against one another. Now there will be separate competitions to crown male and female victors. As this article explains, "'Serena Williams didn’t have to beat Roger Federer to win the Wimbledon title, and we don’t think Sonya Thomas should have to beat Joey Chestnut,' said master of ceremonies George Shea." In case you don't know who Sonya Thomas is, she's "The Black Widow" of competitive eating (at only 105 pounds she once ate 41 hot dogs in 10 minutes); Joey Chestnut, also known as "Jaws," ate 54 hot dogs in 10 minutes.  While there is currently controversy over the men's competitive eating world champion, no one seems dismayed that women now get their own title and competition, as the move is expected to give women more attention.  Do you think having separate-sex championships (they do the same thing, somewhat controversially, for women in chess) will help women, or hurt them?

More importantly, what would the great Babe Didrikson Zaharias think of competitive eating as a sport?

My Big Fat "Gypsy" Dresses

After reading this you might be forgiven for thinking that I watch a lot of TV (somewhat true) and that I only watch TLC (definitely not true).  Still, I can't help but write about TLC's latest foray into a different/almost-deviant subculture, My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. This show offers an "inside look" at life among the UK's Irish Travellers, and a few Roma; note I put "gypsy" in quotations in the title of this post both because the show isn't really about gypsies and because the term is actually quite offensive.  The show was a runaway hit in Great Britain, and it's been doing so well here that a US-based version of the show is now in the works.

Yes, there are Irish Travellers in the US, where they mainly live in Southern states.  What brought attention to the group in this century was a scary video of a mother beating her 4-year-old daughter in a store parking lot in Indiana, back in 2002.  With an improbable family name of "Toogood," the story brought attention to this reclusive community.

What struck me about the story was the revelation that Traveller girls get married very young (think 14-18) and their mothers dress them in a combination of pageant/ballroom dancing/stripper dresses (I was heavy into child beauty pageant research at the time, so this really resonated).  And the mothers then teach them how to dance in a sexy fashion to attract husbands. Yet, according to Travellers/Roma themselves, and many reports, premarital sex is basically unheard of, as is out of wedlock childbearing, as they are devout Catholics.

The UK/TLC series has truly exposed the bright, gaudy, over-the-top, and often suggestive wardrobes of Traveller females.  Here's a little taste.

The gussying up starts young, but especially around the time of a girl's First Communion:

(Photo: http://chateaudelu.blogspot.com/2010/09/irish-traveller-update.html)

When girls attend others' First Communions, or weddings, they go dressed to the nines:

 
 It doesn't stop as they get older. This is a shot of a bachelorette party (can you spot the bride and her mom?):
 
 (Hint: This is the bride-to-be):
 
Her wedding dress was my favorite shown:
Her bridesmaids' dresses (I SO should have used these in my wedding!):
 
My second-favorite dress featured on the show had lights inside of it, along with moving butterflies. Someone had to follow the bride with a fire extinguisher in case she caught on fire though... (Interestingly, she married into the Traveller community, so her dress was even more over-the-top, presumably to prove her bona fides):
Some other amazing wedding wardrobing:

(Photo credit: Mark Duffy)

So why do Traveller women wear these elaborate dresses? I turned to a book by British anthropologist Judith Okely that had been sitting on my bookshelf since I learned about the dresses worn in this community-- The Traveller-Gypsies.  Shockingly, while the book is very informative, and devotes an entire chapter just to women's issues, sartorial choices are never discussed. Given that the fieldwork for the book took place in the early 1970s, I'm left wondering if such elaborate dresses are a more recent phenomenon. The show's narrator always says that these practices are stepped in tradition. I know bright colors are part of "Gypsy" tradition (think of painted, covered wagons), but I'm not sure Britney Spears-inspired bubblegum pink concoctions are "traditional."

Clearly there is an element of the animal kingdom's sexual mating rituals-- get as done up, and as colorful, as possible to attract a mate. But I would think there is more to it than this. I've been starting to read other books about Travellers, trying to see if there is a link between Southern child beauty pageant cupcake dresses and Irish Traveller outfits; I have always found the link between Irish/Scottish immigrants to the American South and traditional notions of femininity and masculinity fascinating (best book I have read about this is Culture of Honor), so I suspect there is a deeper connection. In any case, while I am sure you are all now ready to order your own bachelorette/bridesmaid/wedding/Communion dress a la "Gypsy" style, better be ready to write a BIG check. Those dresses can cost anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000!