In “Toddlers In Tiaras” Skip Hollandsworth purpose is to get readers to understand Pageants are fun but can also be dangerous many predators attend them to seek out their next victim. Pageants can be very overwhelming and sometimes affects the participants in the long run. His exigency is the unknowing exploitation of little girls who are decorated with makeup, fancy clothes, and extensions added to their hair and the death of JonBenet Ramsey was taken serious but is believed to be a consequence of being in a pageant. “We love the beautiful dresses and the big hairstyles. We love the bling and makeup. We love our girls showing lots and lots of style, and we love seeing them sparkle”(Annette Hill). In the article Skip is speaking to many types of audiences. …show more content…
Recent female contestants they will understand the dangers of pageants and become more aware of what they need to do to protect themselves. Some will not care and believe it will not happen to them, that they are the one who can survive in the game. Economic classes are spoken to; upper class all they see is the glitter and trophies so they go to the extreme to go for the prizes of thousands of dollars and don’t care about what they need to do in order to get it. “Parents, many of whom have only modest incomes, pay for high-glitz coaches ($50 to $100 an hour), high-glitz photographers ($300 per session, with $150 for retouching), high-glitz wig makers ($150 to $175 a pop), and high-glitz spray tanners ($25 per pageant)”(Hollandsworth). Middle class they don’t see it as you have to have money to do it they can do just as good as those who have lots of money and do it better. Fans who support the pageant will consider how they perceive the girl as the model and perform their talents on
In “Toddlers In Tiaras” Skip Hollandsworth purpose is to get readers to understand that pageants are teaching young girls to young women that the sexualization of their looks are their main value, leaving a negative effect on contestants physically. He believes parents are usually the main reason why young girls join the pageants to begin with so, he targets parents as the audience of his essay. To get readers to understand his point of view and to persuade them to agree with him he displays evidences from reliable sources using ethos, pathos and logos throughout the article.
Skip Hollandsworth wrote the “Toddlers in Tiaras” article, which was published in the Good Housekeeping magazine in August of 2011. The author argues that pageants are a bad influence for young adolescent girls, and makes life for them harder. Hollandsworth wrote this article in response to the popularity of the TLC hit TV show about child pageants, and the re-opening of the murder case of Jonbenet Ramsey in 2010. This article can be divided into 5 division’s total. In the introduction the author opens with talking About Eden Wood and her getting prepared for a pageant. He goes on to discuss the fancy dresses and her pageant experience that day while also brushing up a little on JonBenet. In the next division Hollandsworth provides an example with a girl named Rayanna DeMatteo. She was a competitor with JonBenet Ramsey, she explains the times she remembered playing with Ramsey and all the fun they had. This section continues with
The amount of money spent on these pageants have caused many families to go into debt, lose homes, or even divorcee because of the overwhelming cost required in some pageants. Parents put way too much into pageants when it comes to expenses. All of the fancy cars and make-up artists are not needed for kids especially if parents cannot afford it. Parents say it is all about the kids but most of the time it is to make them happy. If only pageant parents knew how they are teaching their kids about a materialistic life style. Kids should know more than fancy cars and clothes.
Many mothers who allow their children to participate in beauty pageants would argue that performing in the pageants isn’t as stressful and serious as the television shows portray them. In fact, “the pageant industry promotes this idea by advertising pageants as family affairs that are great for a child’s self-esteem and poise” (Wolfe 445). Also, in an article written by Lise Hilbodt-Stolley, a mother of a pageant princess stated “that while pageants may be ‘politically incorrect’ they are drug, alcohol and gang free” (3). However, many parents push their children to win because they are either greedy for the money and fame that accompanies a win, or are living through their young children because of their own feelings of inadequacy. These same parents who are blinded by the possibility of their baby...
She grabs the foundation and smothers her face with it; she creates a mask. She sprays the hairspray till the fumes clog the air. She squeezes into her bejeweled dress and puts on her heels. She transforms into someone who is unrecognizable, and fake. This is a little girl. The process of preparing for a beauty pageant is very demanding and stressful while little girls spend hours training and getting ready for their appearance on stage. Weeks are spent choreographing their dance routines and thousands of dollars are spent on, “glitzy” dresses, fake teeth, and spray tans. As long as beauty pageants for girls under the age of 16 continue, there will be an increase in mental and physical issues, an increase in the objectification of women, and there will be negative impacts for little girls.
Children beauty pageants encourage young girl’s to wear make-up, dress in fancy, expensive clothes, and prove to the judges they have what it takes to beat the other contestants. Jessica Bennett states in Tales of a Modern Diva “But this, my friends, is the new normal: a generation that primps and dyes and pulls and shapes, younger and with more vigor. Girls today are salon vets before they enter elementa...
The financial burden that pageants bring can really put an abundance of stress on the parents. After the shocking death of Ramsey, the High-Glitz portion of the pageant world surprisingly skyrocketed. Today it is now worth over $5 billion (Blue). With prices of everything today rising, this is not surprising news. The prices of new dresses, shoes, makeup, hair, spray tans, and even flippers (false teeth for young people to cover their always changing mouths) can really add up, not to mention the costs of pageants coaches to teach the kids the perfect way to walk and wave (Woolf 3). Regulars like Alana Thompson (aka Honey...
In the 1920’s, when beauty pageants began, the main reason for these pageants was to gain tourists. At the time, Atlantic City, New Jersey, was a popular tourist resort. To bring in more business to the city, they came up with the idea of a Fall Pageant. The city got sponsors to represent these young women, and a panel of judges would decide on the most beautiful bathing beauty in America (Alter 2). Since these times, beauty pageants have grown to be a huge part of today’s society. Child beauty pagean...
American’s unneeded celebration of beauty in the pageantry world is digging a hole for the country and has been the contributing factor to the downward spiral we are presently in. The system of this pageant needs to change tremendously in order for it to become a beneficial contest in the future. Beauty pageants to...
Imagine you are at home, watching tv. Flipping through the channels, you see a preview for next week’s episode of Toddlers & Tiara’s. They show the girls dressed in frilly, sparkly attire, fake teeth, fake hair, fake tans, and makeup that could transform their faces into someone in their 20’s. These children are usually misbehaving, disobedient, overdramatic and they are between the ages of four and six. Any person could see that this lifestyle is incredibly harmful to these children not just because of what it does to their appearance, but what happens when these little girls’ minds become tainted with the thoughts of needing to be beautiful and talented in order for people to like them. They also learn that being beautiful means doing whatever it takes to make yourself look perfect, even if it means that everything about you is fake. At the same time, when these little girls are dressing up for these shows, they are being put in outfits that could be worn by strippers. This draws attention to sex offenders and pedophiles, which could potentially end up in something tragic. Claude Knights, the director of child protection charity Kidscape, says, "We do know that predators or paedophiles continually tend to justify their interest in children by saying children are sexual beings. That children are now given a channel to become little Lolitas, to be portrayed as older, to almost become mini adults – these are all trends that give legitimacy to that kind of thinking." In the end, children’s beauty pageants are essentially harmful to both young girls safety and minds.
A lot of people may think they can save up a child’s beauty pageant winnings and make a profit off of it. But it can take 3,000-5,000 dollars to compete in a single pageant. Overall the money spent on pageants outweighs the money gained by winning. About 2.5 million girls partake in pageants each year. Young girls should not compete in glitz pageants because it can cause the girls to not feel good enough when not wearing their pageant outfit.
Many young girls are forced to wear preposterous outfits and enormous amounts of makeup that deny them of their innocence at a young age. Beauty contests are meant more for adult women who are mature enough to understand all that’s going on and can handle losing competitions to the other contestants. Children should not be able to compete in pageants because of the harmful effects on self-confidence and character. Some people think they are good and some do not agree that they are good. (Leo, 2014)
Modern beauty contests started in the United States of America in 1880 with the first Miss United States bathing beauty contest held at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Since then, beauty pageants had been popular in many parts of the world. Miss Universe, Miss World and Miss International, participated in every year by more than fifty countries, ceaselessly attracts huge audiences and supporters. The biggest, the Miss World competition, had been running annually since 1951, and although it is less popular in the UK now than it was in 1968, when it attracted 27.5 million TV viewers, it still attracts an enormous worldwide audience of up to 3 billion viewers in 120 countries. [1] Although the main purpose of these pageants are to empower women, the crowned winners are also traveling around the world in order to support causes like HIV/AIDS and children's charity organizations. [2] Due to the success of these internationally produced pageants, various beauty contests for different classes of age, sex and sexuality stemmed up. However, even with the huge diversity, the content of each pageants have almost always been the same: all of them are comprised of the mainstream categories like swimwear portion and evening gown portion. With these content, beauty pageants gives out strong messages regarding what the ideal type of woman is, hence undermining the purpose of a beauty pageant: to empower women. Thus, although beauty pageants contribute to the entertainment of the masses, it promotes an ideal of female beauty that only a minority of women can realistically aspire, objectifies women, further advances cultural insensitivity among its candidates and uses up too much resources which is why it should be banned.
" Money, ratings and attention fuel the pageant/dance media machine, with parents and adults reaping the benefits. Purpose of Child Beauty Pageants For these young pageant girls, brains before beauty is not the case. Real-world priorities such as schooling, family, and friends are trumped by tiaras, makeup, and evening gowns. More value is often placed on being beautiful in the eyes of the judges, than on each girl’s individuality.
Cromie, William J. “The Whys and Woes of Beauty Pageants.” News.harvard.edu. 2000-2014. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.