Toddlers and Tiaras...OMG!!!

[Will B]

I?ll go on record as saying that TLC?s ?Toddlers and Tiaras? may just be one of the most disturbing shows on TV. No, I?ve never watched it. The commercials are more than enough?
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?until today!

Over the walls of cube-land I heard the dulcet tones of what sounded like a drunken midget transvestite singing a song called ?Cutie Patootie?. The urge for knowledge was too great. I followed the voice like a sailor to a Siren and found some of the gang watching this video. It?s one of the ?Toddlers and Tiaras? girls singing a song on The Talk (stars Leah Remini, Sara Gilbert, Sharon Osbourne, Holly Robinson Pete, and Julie Chen). Before you step over to the dark side and watch the video here are a few notes?
* Yes, it?s her voice. It?s slowed down. I?ve (regrettably) also seen the original version. It had to be subtitled to understand her. Clear as day slowed down.
* Pay close attention to the faces of the hostesses. Priceless!
* What makes it so good, though, is to watch the mother who is in pink sitting in the middle of the gang. While all the others are clearly mortified she is dancing along in her seat, clapping, laughing, and trying to sing along.

If you dare, here is the video. Enjoy! And let me be the first to tell you that ?Cutieeeee, cutie patoooootie? will be ringing in your ears as you try to fall asleep tonight!

YouTube - Cute Little Girl Sings "Cutie Patootie"

You can thank me later!

 

[DuneAHH]

I just can't /won't go there.

 

[sunspotbaby]

With all the Princess Fairy tales that the girls have seen? NO F N WAY will they ever lay eyes on this show.
These people are just weird. :shock:

I won't even put on make-up in front of my girls.

 

[ameliaj]

The mom!!.....could she be that oblivious to the hosts' reaction around her? Oh my.

 

[Jdarg]

I can't wait to read this book- our daughters deserve better than what society is showing them as examples. And I will never understand the pageant thing and putting young girls in makeup and over-the-top dresses. Yuk.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Cinderella-Ate-Daughter-Dispatches-Girlie-Girl/dp/0061711527/ref=pd_ts_b_5?ie=UTF8&s=books"]Amazon.com: Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture (9780061711527): Peggy Orenstein: Books@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51mHwXGCXTL.@@AMEPARAM@@51mHwXGCXTL[/ame]

Product Description
The acclaimed author of the groundbreaking bestseller Schoolgirls reveals the dark side of pink and pretty: the rise of the girlie-girl, she warns, is not that innocent.
Pink and pretty or predatory and hardened, sexualized girlhood influences our daughters from infancy onward, telling them that how a girl looks matters more than who she is. Somewhere between the exhilarating rise of Girl Power in the 1990s and today, the pursuit of physical perfection has been recast as a source?the source?of female empowerment. And commercialization has spread the message faster and farther, reaching girls at ever-younger ages.
But, realistically, how many times can you say no when your daughter begs for a pint-size wedding gown or the latest Hannah Montana CD? And how dangerous is pink and pretty anyway?especially given girls' successes in the classroom and on the playing field? Being a princess is just make-believe, after all; eventually they grow out of it. Or do they? Does playing Cinderella shield girls from early sexualization?or prime them for it? Could today's little princess become tomorrow's sexting teen? And what if she does? Would that make her in charge of her sexuality?or an unwitting captive to it?
Those questions hit home with Peggy Orenstein, so she went sleuthing. She visited Disneyland and the international toy fair, trolled American Girl Place and Pottery Barn Kids, and met beauty pageant parents with preschoolers tricked out like Vegas showgirls. She dissected the science, created an online avatar, and parsed the original fairy tales. The stakes turn out to be higher than she?or we?ever imagined: nothing less than the health, development, and futures of our girls. From premature sexualization to the risk of depression to rising rates of narcissism, the potential negative impact of this new girlie-girl culture is undeniable?yet armed with awareness and recognition, parents can effectively counterbalance its influence in their daughters' lives.
Cinderella Ate My Daughter is a must-read for anyone who cares about girls, and for parents helping their daughters navigate the rocky road to adulthood.

 

[Rita]

.
I wonder what the conversation was about after "Cutie" went and sat down with them?

Curious how the hosts followed up.

Jenny - that book looks interesting., even though my daughter is grown now. whew!


.

 

[AnaEdwardsPhotography]

Until I was hired to do studio portraits at a pageant three years ago, I had never been to one. I've never had the desire to watch Toddlers and Tiaras. But I can tell you from first hand experience, whatever you see happen on that show is real...as disturbing as it may be.

My first experience resulted in shock...in both the children and the mothers' behavior. I have been hired by this particular pageant three years in a row and I'm having to tell myself it's not much different than parents' behavior at little league or rec department football (except for, of course, dressing little girls like grown women).

The reactions of the moms when their perfectly coiffed and made-up child doesn't place or win is...disturbing. However, it is very similar to reactions little league parents have when their child doesn't run fast enough, or hit hard enough, or bashing the referees and coaches when their team loses . Both cases seem as though they would affect children negatively.

Surprisingly enough, the older girls are very well-adjusted and honestly seem to have great attitudes, win or lose. They not only seem to truly enjoy participating in these pageants, but they seem to be real friends to each other and are generally well-mannered. The little girls behave age-appropriate when not on stage...but their moms seem, well...just a bit psychotic LOL

 

[DuneAHH]

Surprisingly enough, the older girls are very well-adjusted and honestly seem to have great attitudes, win or lose. They not only seem to truly enjoy participating in these pageants, but they seem to be real friends to each other and are generally well-mannered. The little girls behave age-appropriate when not on stage...but their moms seem, well...just a bit psychotic LOL

I am glad you shared that. Those are the girls who stayed in the game and seem to have made it OK for themselves.

I know of one little girl whose Mother swore that the little girl loved it; yet it was obvious by the girl's behaviors that she hated the whole thing (including her Mother, for her forceable insistence). I guess the girl finally threw enough ugly vicious tantrums that her Mom finally let up on it by the time she was 10 (or at the point the 2nd daughter was born). How heart wrenching to feel that your Mother can't love you as you are, but only as the animated dolly she paints you up to be.
At 20 years old this young woman continues to rebel against her Mother to such an extent that she'll be lucky if she makes it to 21. That can certainly happen to any young person... it just makes me wonder to what extent the whole forced toddler-tiara scene played into it. It's all very tragic & horrifying to me... like the female perpetuation of female circumcision.

 

[AnaEdwardsPhotography]

It's all very tragic & horrifying to me... like the female perpetuation of female circumcision.

With this thought we could start a new thread, centered on the anthropological 'answer' to this idea: Does one culture have the right to police other cultures and enforce what is 'wrong or right'?

First, I'll share the summary (as best as I can summarize of an essay my anthropology professor gave us to read, about a people known as the Nacirema.

The Nacirema, like all cultures, have certain rituals which can be viewed by other cultures as being bizarre. Some of their rituals center around ridding a body of evil spirits in various ways.

Twice a day, the Nacirema exorcise evil spirits by using a small stick with short, stiff hairs or bristles attached to one end, by plunging it repeatedly into their mouths. Once a year they visit a medicine man, who employs intensely painful methods of removing the worst of the evil spirits, by drilling holes into their teeth. When the spirits are so stubborn that they resist all his attempts, he will pull the teeth out completely.

This ritual is seen by many other cultures as an unnecessarily cruel way of ridding the body of evil spirits, but to the Nacarima, it is deemed essential and performed by virtually all members of their society on a regular basis.

The Nacirema, like many people around the world, are misunderstood by a great many other dissimilar cultures.

"Nacirema" is "American" spelled backwards and is a fictional culture; the ritual described is, of course, the ritual of oral hygiene used by many, but not all cultures around the world. To those peoples who do not use oral hygiene methods similar to our own, these practices seem far from 'normal', as do many of our other rituals.

As Americans, we tend to believe our ways are the most civilized and should be adopted by all other countries and cultures. I daresay not one person on this forum agrees with female circumcision. There are also many people of the world who see our common practices as bizarre.

So does one country or culture really have the right to police all the cultures of the world, abolishing all practices which we find inhumane? And if so, which culture would it be?

 

[DuneAHH]

I don't feel anyone truly has the right to "police" others, whether they think they do or not.
Personal beliefs, styles, and opinions are relatively impenetrable... even when they share a roof together .

As the joke goes:
... and that's when the fight started...