Toddlers and Tiaras is a fascinating reality television show that lets all of us average people in on the world of childhood modeling. Toddlers and Tiaras doesn’t show us just the modeling but also the blood, sweat, and tears that go along with all types of show business. In addition to these things, Toddlers and Tiaras also gives an air of confidence to all of it’s contestants. It teaches them that anyone and everyone can be beautiful, with several pounds of makeup, over-the-top fake tans and about ten thousand dollar dresses, that is. The preparation that is put into these child beauty pageants is vital.
A 2009 study found that 31 per cent of “girl” toys are all about appearance, involving plastic makeup and dresses. Meanwhile, toys targeted to boys encourage invention, exploration, competition, problem solving. These are all skills associated with highly desirable employees and leaders. I think that parents have to avoid walking exclusively down the Barbie aisle at stores, and instead provide your child with games and toys that encourage scientific discovery,
Such as Cabbage Patch Kid(Snack Time), Lala Loopsy, and Barbie Dream House. All of this commercials give the same stereotype to children that, “Girls play with dolls.” It wasn’t hard to understand the reality taking place in children’s television programming’s. There is an imbalance of the way each race is represented in commercials. White people continue to out-number people of color and other minorities. According to “Riffe, Goldson, Saxton, and Yang-Yu,” in 1987 white males and females together had 87% appearance in commercials while minorities had 35%.
The article that I found to relate to sexism at its finest is about Miss America, Carrie Prejean and her new breast. Not only did she receive free breast implants, but they were organized and paid for by the pageant, weeks before the Miss USA competition. If this doesn’t create an image of what women should look like I don’t know what does. So her boobs weren’t big enough so in order to have her fit in she received implants? This is disappointing to me.
The Toddlers and Tiara girls go through hours of make-up, to different hairstyles, and wearing big fake wigs. They get spray tans, and even fake teeth known as flippers. The girls look so ridiculous for their age and at what a cost. These parents are spending thousands of dollars just to teach their kids that beauty is on the outside. This sort of behavior is only setting children up for body image and mental health issues later down the road.
On another note, it is very rarely would you see an Australian woman go to the extreme to idolize a particular celebrity and clone their appearance and lifestyle. The difference in America would be that the hype has more effect on women there, to actually wear prink tracksuits, oversize sunnies whilst carrying a Chihuahua in their bag for example. As Australia’s population is a middle class majority, women don’t have a successful amount of money to be splurging as much as women in
Even though Barbie is put in a professional occupation, they attribute her success to good luck instead of her non-existent efforts. Instead, it is her pleasure- seeking that allows her dog to discover the gold. Even at work Barbie lives a life of leisure. Motz explains how the image of an adult woman that barbie plants on little girls is fictional. However, we all seem to encourage our little girls to play and interact with this dolls.
Some say Madelyn’s grown-up beauty is giving other young girls unhealthy ideas about how they should look and these people sure know what’s good and bad. Should our 10 year olds be exposed to the world in such a way? I think not. Girls under the age of 16 should not be allowed to pose for images or walk on the runway.
Ironically, the dimensions that Barbie would not even be anatomically possible on humans. A women with her dimensions of 36-18-38 would not be able to live. The perfection Barbie portrays has influenced many women attain Barbie's body by having operations to make themselves "look like" Barbie. Cindy Jackson, founder of the Cosmetic Surgery Network, is a famous Barbie Doll human. She had more than twenty operations and dispensed more then $55,000 in her attempts to look like Barbie.
In Alter’s article, the girls all state where they buy clothes, what they wear and all have personal shoppers to help them find new trends. Michelle Serros talks in great detail about her rigid nose that ancestors passed on to her that she finds very unattractive. She pinches her nose everyday to hopefully make it look smaller or like her best friend Terri’s perfect nose. Living in California puts more tension on her to fit in and look like everyone else, the true Californian girl. “Today, when I take my graduation pictures, my nose will look just like Terri’s and then I’ll have the best picture in the year-book (Serros 33).” She sees that Terri is popular and has the perfect face and she wants that also to hopefully be popular like she is.