Televised Beauty Pagents

Debra Landry

Emily Aucoin

November 4, 2014

Televised Beauty Pageants

For years, reality television has captured the attention of children, teens, and adults. More recently, there has been much debate about how far is too far for these events, such as child beauty pageants. They document everything from the pre-show prep of spray tanning and eyebrow waxing to strutting down the runway wearing fake teeth and padded bras. Some view this as a bit too premature for these little kids, and that encouraging the behavior via social media and television shows must be put to a stop. This raises the question, should child beauty pageants be televised? Child beauty pageants should not be televised because it sexualizes little girls, exploits their lives, and lowers their self-esteem at a young age.

Teaching a child to be sensual and alluring at such a young age can lead to a society that sexualizes little girls. The fake beauty and susceptibility of the images of child beauty queens are very appealing to a child molester that could be watching the television show. As Lucy Wolfe wrote in her article Darling Divas or Damaged Daughters, “[t]housands of viewers have visited online forums to voice concerns that ‘these children [are] being trained to act like hookers, pole dancers and/or strippers’” (429). While these acts are portrayed on national television, it may cause people to wonder if this is appropriate behavior for such young children. Christine Tamer also notes that this “suggest[s] that viewing sexualized images of children lead viewers to inappropriately associate children with sex” (88). This can cause the molesters to view these children as targets, rather than the entertainment show it claims to be. Unfortunately, many do not realize this and the media continues to exploit these young girl’s lives.

Airing a young child’s life, complete with the glitz and glamor of the pageant world, is a form of exploitation. Lindsay Lieberman states that these “young...