{"id":1148,"date":"2012-01-12T09:35:03","date_gmt":"2012-01-12T14:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=1148"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:24:50","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:24:50","slug":"toddlers-and-tiaras-entertainment-or-exploitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2012\/01\/12\/toddlers-and-tiaras-entertainment-or-exploitation\/","title":{"rendered":"Toddlers and Tiaras: Entertainment or Exploitation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jessica Jackson\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Recently a friend of mine sent me\u00a0this montage<\/a>\u00a0about one of the child stars on the hit reality TV show\u00a0Toddlers and Tiaras<\/em>. \u00a0The show is designed to provide an\u00a0inside glance at the life of pageant children<\/a>\u00a0as they prepare for the pageant and compete. \u00a0Many of the segments feature children as young as 8 getting their legs and eyebrows waxed, even younger children getting spray on tans, girls wearing dentures to cover gaps left from baby teeth, and girls as young as 2 or 3 wearing piles of makeup.<\/p>\n

\"TT\"<\/a>After watching the horrifying clip in which a mother feeds her daisy duke clad daughter caffeinated \u201cgo go juice\u201d (really Mountain Dew) so she has more energy on stage, I scrolled through a few more clips of the show. \u00a0The next noteworthy clip included a 4 year old being\u00a0dressed as Dolly Parton<\/a>\u00a0for the competition, in an outfit complete with fake breasts and butt enhancements. \u00a0There was also a clip of a toddler dressed as the\u00a0hooker in\u00a0Pretty Woman<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(played in the movie by Julia Roberts). \u00a0 Apparently some of the pageant girls also do promotional appearances, including\u00a0this rendition<\/a>\u00a0of \u201cSexy and I Know It\u201d by one of the 5 year old T & T stars at a Manhattan bar.<\/p>\n

Last year, San Francisco\u2019s Child Protective Services received thousands of calls after a clip from the Today show went viral showing a pageant mother\u00a0injecting her young daughter with Botox<\/a>. \u00a0The story, which turned out to be a hoax, shed light on the chilling fact that many of the pageant mothers featured on these programs are willing to do whatever it takes and put their daughters through whatever is necessary to achieve fame through these pageants. \u00a0The high cost of entering the pageants, the expensive outfits, and the price of hair\/makeup for the mini beauty queens greatly exceeds the actual prize money offered, so it is clear that the mothers who participate have other motivations.<\/p>\n

At what point should Americans turn off the TV and cease to support the network\u2019s encouragement of some mothers\u2019 exploitation of their children for fame? \u00a0Is there a point at which Child Protective Services should step in? People may agree that at this point the show is less entertainment and more exploitation of little girls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jessica Jackson\u00a0 Recently a friend of mine sent me\u00a0this montage\u00a0about one of the child stars on the hit reality TV […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-iw","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}