Kids Today!: Wednesday Night Woes

Since sweeps is so late this year, thanks to the stupid digital conversion (really, we can't make a decision about energy efficient light bulbs, but as a nation we can mandate that everyone switch to digital and provide government vouchers for that?) America's Next Top Model won't start their new cycle until March, and I won't get to see a new episode of Gossip Girl till next month, either. Shame on you, CW! In my search for something else to fill my Wednesday nights, I stumbled upon a WE television marathon of Little Miss Perfect. I was so appalled that I just had to watch.

This series apparently documents little girls who compete in beauty pageants, a subject which has already been explored and exposed (remember Little Miss Sunshine?). I can't help but wonder what, if anything, this reality show will add to the already overly examined world of child pageants and pageant moms. It's kind of like watching ANTM...except instead of hilarious, it's depressing. (It's also a little hilarious.)

The judges commented on what they were looking for in the girls, such as "Is her smile connected to her heart." What? I hope it isn't...at least, not directly.

One of the categories is called "wow wear." I'm not really sure what this means.

More interesting than the pageant moms are the pageant dads. One dad says that he really hopes that his daughter can one day break into the world of modeling, and that pageants, while not something he would normally approve of, might help her. I don't really understand disapproving of pageants but hoping your child can one day become a model. I know, I know, Tyra--it's not the same. (It's the same.) I can kind of see where the pageant moms are coming from: they're trying to live through their daughters, right? You can tell because most of them aren't exactly lookers. But what are the dads trying to do? Did they also have dreams of being the most beautiful girl in the room? I smell another reality show spin-off...

One of the girls actually has a coach, who tells her mother that "if you want to risk getting a lower score just so she (the five year old girl) feels good, go ahead." How does one become a little girl pageant coach? And isn't the justification to putting kids in pageants usually that it helps their self esteem or makes them "feel good" about themselves? I kinda like how this guy doesn't make any pretenses--it's about wining the title.

You have to wonder--don't these people realize that they look like a**holes? The pageant audience is always nearly empty, so all the hard work and the girls don't even get to perform to a full house (and how hard is it to fill a Radisson conference room?). The best part of the entire pageant is the announcer, who I'm assuming had dreamed as a little boy of one day announcing for Miss America but didn't quite have what it takes. He also serves as the show's narrator, and he sings a wonderful song about rainbows and ponies that was so wonderful I'd like someone to sing it to me each morning as I wake.

Overall the show didn't really shed a new light on pageants, except that it didn't seem so horrible, just stupid. I hope you're happy, CW! Because of your programming schedule (and because I'd rather watch anything than the new 90210) I just spent my evening participating it one of our culture's creepiest traditions. Bring me some grown ups with emotional problems and lack of self esteeme whose only dream is to make it in the fashion industry, please. I'm talking to you, Tyra Banks! And don't worry little girls--someday you'll grow up to be your generation's Heidi Montag! If you're really lucky, you might have your very own reality show someday, on a more respectable network like MTV.

This entry was posted by Brigitte, on Thursday, February 26, 2009. You can leave your response.