Child Beauty Pageants The label “Child Beauty Pageants” comes from the cul-ture itself. Emerging in America in the 1960s after the take off of regular beauty pageants, child beauty pageants judge girls’ and boys’ looks, capability, poise, perfection and con-fidence, or what judges refer to as “the complete pack-age”.1 Child pageants are now becoming even more popular-ly known through The Learning Channel’s (TLC) television show Toddlers and Tiaras and spin off series Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.

Along with competing to see which contestants have the “complete package,” child pageants can be used as a stepping stone for children to break into the acting or modeling industries. Monetary prizes are also award-ed to winning contestants, usually in the form of savings bonds, in addi-tion to tiaras, sashes and other items. Parents of these children say these awards help their children build con-fidence and self-esteem.

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Pageants are held all over the U.S. Most prominent in the south, pageants can be held at the local, regional, state or national levels. There are two types of child beauty pageants: natural and glitz. Natural pageants allow the girls to wear minimal makeup and are not as heavy on glittery, expensive hair-styles and outfits. For glitz pageants, girls are expected to wear full makeup, hairpieces, sometimes fake teeth and get spray tans. Both types of pageants can be found in any area of the U.S. and members often have experience com-peting in both.

What do members represent?

Children in beauty pageants most often repre-sent a fierce sense of competition and desire to re-ceive prizes and titles at the pageants. Parents in beauty pageants can often be found to represent vicarious living and desire for their chil-dren to succeed. Parents—usually mothers– find a sense of accomplishment and pride when their chil-dren win a title or prize during the competition. Judges, coaches, and stylists are usually the au-thority figures in the pageant world that represent judgment and are the ones the contestants listen to and try to impress.

What are the members known for?

Members of this culture are known for being su-per competitive and doing whatever it takes to win. Parents involved in pageant culture often find themselves gradually making concessions on what is appropriate for their children to be allowed to do to prepare for, perform, and act in and outside of pageants.

What do members actually do?

The pageant culture ultimately re-volves around the children competing. Beauty pageants are contests in which girls (an occasionally boys) compete against each other in various categories usually including: Beauty, Talent, Personali-ty, Head Shot Photo Quality, and special-ized outfit categories. The goal of competitors is to win the top title and prize in the pageant. This title is usually called Grand Supreme, and is awarded with some kind of cash prize, siza-ble tiara , sash and sometimes other items such as stuffed animals or goodie bags. The children involved prepare for weeks and even months to compete in pageants. The contests are usually open to children ages 0 to 17, and can sometimes include categories for mothers, or “misses”. Parents, coaches and stylists help the children prepare for the competitions and a panel of judges evaluates the contestants and decide winners and prizes based on the predetermined criteria of each catego-ry.

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General Description

Members of child beauty pageant cultures obviously in-clude children. These children usually are between the ages of 0-17and have fierce desire to win. They often can be demand-ing, have high expectations and display their emotions and thoughts freely when offstage. However, when performing, these contestants keep a smile on their face and know the im-portance of putting on a good show for their judges. The parents of the children competing are usually of middle– to upper– class socioeconomic status. How involved they are and their sense of competition can vary, with some mothers and fathers making all their child’s pageant-wear, do-ing hair and makeup, coaching and choreographing talent, etc. In addition, some parents see pageants as an opportunity for their children to have fun, while others see it solely as an op-portunity to win . Judges are present only the day(s) of the pageant and have little to no interaction with parents or contestants. Judges are often made up of influential people in the community, adults who have been pageant winners, and previous coaches/stylists/pageant directors. Coaches and stylists are gener-ally present all along the pageant process. This can involve practicing routines and hairstyles on the girls days or weeks before in addition to the day of the competition.

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Qualifications for membership

Membership in the child beauty pageant cul-ture is voluntary. There are fees for each pageant, so as long as the parents are able to pay the fee, a con-testant may be entered into any pageant. Only na-tional pageants with contestants chosen from win-ners of state or regional pageants have a component of exclusivity to their membership. The entry fee for a child pageant can range anywhere from $5-$500 depending on the scale and type of pageant. Girls and boys can compete in pageants, but they are usually made up predominantly of girls. Girls tend to have the most interest in winning a special title or crown and have a strong desire to be competitive and win.

Cultural Reproduction

Although any child can enter a pag-eant, there are certainly specific skills, attributes and basic under-standing the contestants and parents must have in order to be an ade-quate competitor and not be shocked by the transformation these girls (and boys) undergo. Contestants are often coached and styled by professionals so they can be considered and judged at the same level as the other competitors.

Cultural Boundaries

It is relatively easy to enter into a pageant and be accepted into the culture—if you have the financial resources. It is not required for contestants to compete in a set number of pageants per month or year, and contestants can withdraw from a pageant at any time. Though technically the boundaries are flexi-ble, the acceptance into the culture of compe-tition can be difficult to enter in to. If a child is not successful in multiple pageants, they are not considered to be real competition by the other competitors and competitors’ families.

Roles

The main roles in this culture are competi-tors, judges, directors, emcees, coaches, styl-ists and parents.

Competitors. The role of competitors is to perform in each of the categories for a partic-ular pageant, be prepared to submit a head shot photo, and be on time and ready for each category when it is called.

Judges. The judges role is to evaluate and score contestants for each category and tally the final scores to declare winners.

Directors. The pageant directors are respon-sible for facilitating the pageant and ensuring it runs smoothly. Directors can also take on the role of judge at other pageants they are not directing.

Emcees. The emcee of the event is responsi-ble for announcing names, categories and fi-nal awards at the conclusion of the pageant.

Coaches. Coaches are responsible for prep-ping contestants before the pageant compe-tition. This involves preparing routines and working with the child so they know how to stand, pose, walk, smile and perfect other technical aspects of their performances and routines. Coaches can also take on the role of stylists.

Stylists. Stylists are responsible for doing the child’s hair and makeup before and during the pageant.

Parents. The role of the parents is broad. Often the parent will take on the role of coach and stylist as well as being responsible for his/her child the day of the pageant.

Hierarchy The real aspect of hierarchy present in child pag-eants comes into play at the awards ceremony that concludes the pageant. Prizes are awarded by age division and usually include prizes for superlatives (best hair, best smile, most photogenic) and then division queen. After division titles and prizes are announced, the ultimate titles are awarded. These are the highest awards for the entire pageant and can be given to a contestant from any division that did not win queen for her division. So actually, divi-sion queen is a title usually received with disap-pointment. The ultimate titles given are: Novice Supreme, Mini Supreme and then Grand Supreme. Grand Supreme is the highest title and is usually accom-panied with a savings bond ranging from $100-$2000. The winners of a “supreme” title are con-sidered the best of the best in the pageant com-petition.

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“I don’t want to be normal. This is the life I love.”

- mother, Southern Glitz Open Pageant

Individualism

The beauty pageant culture places a high emphasis on individual accomplishment and success. The sole purpose of a pageant competi-tion is to be the best and win the highest title or prize. This emphasis on recognition and success is highly representative of pageants. Also with individualism, each child wants to feel inde-pendent of their mothers, coaches and stylists—especially once they step on stage. The other main emphasis is on standing out and setting yourself apart from other com-petitors to ensure you will win. 2

Other values emphasized are the accu-mulation of self-esteem and confidence in one’s own abilities.

Uncertainty Avoidance

The members of this culture have a combination of high and low uncertainty avoidance, depending on the situation. They have high uncertainty avoidance between other contest-ants and judges, where they avoid conflict and project a polite and happy demeanor, but often times talk negatively behind contestants’ backs or about judges decisions. Between the children and their parents/coaches/stylists howev-er, there is a low uncertainty avoidance. There is a lot of conflict and direct statements of disagreements freely shared most often during the preparation of the pageant.

“Her motto is: it’s all about me.”

—mother of contestant, Groovy Girls pageant

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Power Distance

Again, the power distance structure depends on which members are interacting at what time. Between contestants, there is a low power distance because even though there are different age divisions, everyone is competing for the ultimate title and are judged on the same level as each other no matter what age contestants may be or what previous titles they have won. Between contestants and judges there is high power distance be-cause the judges ultimately decide the winners of the pageant and the contestants do not argue or speak to the judges as equals and must ac-cept their final decisions.

Masculine vs. Feminine

Masculine and feminine values are both present in this culture. Feminine value orientation can be found in the fact that boys are allowed to compete in these pageants and fathers of children com-peting sometimes take on the role of coach, cos-tume designer, choreographer, etc. Though usu-ally expected to be taken on by the mother or other women, this shows there is fluidity in gen-der roles . On the other hand, girls are expected to convey beauty, kindness and politeness onstage, all of which are aspects of a masculine oriented value system.

Institutional Collectivism

Though the majority of values emphasized fall into the individualistic category, there are institutional collectivism values present as well. The expectation that competitors will fol-low rules and norms for the pageants illustrate this value category. Contestants are expected to be on time, wear outfits/make-up/hair similar to each other, and follow the same basic patterns of behavior on stage (smiling big and bright, moving with poise, etc.) The adherence to these norms results in the fulfillment of contestants’ desire to fit into the criteria and expectations of the judges and pageant directors. However, the balance be-tween fitting into pageant norms and standing out as a competitor can often pose issues.

Individualism

The values of individualism are most often reflected in the pre-performance and backstage conduct of the contestants and their mothers. There is often frustration from the par-ents when they are preparing their child for the pageant if they are not reaching the level of perfection the parent expects. As one mother at the Universal Miss and Master International pageant in Las Vegas stated, “Once I put her on stage that’s a product of me.” The “me”/“I” mentality of the group members is often the source of conflict be-cause each party (contestant and parent) can-not see or understand anyone’s point of view but their own. This mentality, as well as the fact that these contestants are still quite young, both lead to tantrums and screaming matches back-stage.

Uncertainty Avoidance

There is a lot of negative talk and comments that go on backstage in pag-eants between contestants and their family, but not between the actual contest-ants, illustrating high uncertainty avoidance. This increases substantially after titles have been awarded, though the complaints are never stated directly to the judges who made the decision or the other contestants. After one pageant, Gold Coast Arizona, where an infant won the overall title of Grand Supreme, there were a lot negative comments communicated be-tween parents and their children, but none to the family of and actual contest-ant who won. Said one eight-year-old competitor, “I think it’s really not fair a baby won Grand Supreme because it can’t walk or talk or dance or do anything!”

“If I don’t win this pageant, I will trash the hotel room.”

— Contestant, Gold Coast Arizona pageant

Power Distance

Again, the power distances seen behind stage and onstage are very differ-ent. When backstage if conflict ensues, contestants and families are much less restrained in their opinions and comments, but when it comes time to take the stage, the contestants and their families act with restraint and politeness. At the award ceremony, it is understood that even if you do not win any-thing you should act with poise and dignity and still smile onstage. However, as soon as the awards are completed and everyone exits the stage, the happy non-verbal behavior quickly changes into angry verbal and nonverbal behavior.

Institutional Collectivism

The value of conforming to the beauty standards of these pageants are conveyed most clearly in the preparation of pageants. The main value of the pageants is beauty, so all contestants and families of the contestants strive to make their child as beautiful as possible. Often the pro-cess of this can be long and make the child weary and impatient, but the parents often try to ration-alize it with a phrase or idea and continually repeat it. As one mother repeatedly told her daughter while preparing for the Tiny Miss USA pageant, “What does mama always say?... it hurts to be beautiful.”

Masculine vs. Feminine

There are many times that female contest-ants in these pageants often act as “tomboys” out-side of the pageant. Because of this, these girls’ parents usually find pageants as a means to com-municate how you are expected to act if you are a girl. This means being able to walk, talk, smile po-litely and radiate beauty. Said one mother, “Pageants have taught Brooklyn how to be a little girl!”

While that notion provides for masculine value orientation, the codes of communication that support feminine value orientation is the availability of pins, hats and other artifacts stating, “Pageant Dad” on them, promoting male involve-ment in a culture that is primarily dominated by females.

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Common Communicative Rituals There are three main rituals in which unique communicative behavior can be ob-served. The first is preparation for the pageant. This include practices leading up to and getting ready the day of the pageant. What communica-tion often occurs most is conflict between moth-ers and daughters. Tensions run high and this is usually when any fighting, yelling, crying or screaming happens. The second is the child’s performance on-stage for each category. What is significant about this is all contestants must communicate nonverbally to the judge and their audience through smiling, eye contact, general poise and confidence. The third ritual is the awards ceremony, where the winners are crowned and announced. This is where most everyone is reacting to the announcements and awards, and often have to restrain their positive or negative reaction in re-spect for the other contestants.

Who Communicates With Whom?

There is a lot of overlap with who communicates with whom at beauty pageants. First, obviously parents and their children who are competing communicate frequently off stage. Even when on stage, mothers or fathers often communicate nonverbally with their children performing on what moves are coming up next in their routine and remembering to smile. Communication is also frequently made between stylists, coaches, parents and children to prepare for and evaluate their per-formances. There is also communication between the pageant directors/emcees and the contestants when announcing who is next and mak-ing sure everyone is lined up backstage. Judges communicate with one and other when deliberating and tallying the points to determine winners for the pageant.

Appropriate Topics

Appropriate topics vary depending on the context. Onstage, the appropriate topic for the emcee to communicate is information about each contestant when it is their turn. Contestants speak minimally in pageants unless there is an in-terview component. In this case, topics the contestant can speak on are limited specifically to the questions the judges ask of them. The contestant should never stray from the question or respond in a neg-ative manner. Backstage between families, sizing up the competition are ap-propriate topics, but when among other contestants this is consid-ered inappropriate. Only polite, friendly discussion and topics are ex-pected between competitors off or backstage.

When Does Talk Occur?

Talk is most likely to occur before and after a performance of a contestant . Before, constant com-munication happens to coordinate and get the con-testant ready, and after an evaluation of the perfor-mance and/or praise of the contestant from the fami-ly/coach/stylist is common. Audiences and judges also talk amongst themselves between performanc-es. Talk is least likely to occur during a perfor-mance of a contestant . This is to show respect and allow the judges to evaluate the contestants. In addi-tion, little talk occurs during the award ceremony ex-cept for the emcee announcing the awards.

Nonverbal/Verbal Rules

The nonverbal rules of pageants are related to performances. Usually contestants do not speak dur-ing their time onstage and must communicate happi-ness, confidence and poise to the judges through nonverbal behaviors like smiling, eye contact and good posture. If these norms are violated or not ad-hered to, the contestant is often docked points from the judges and will most likely not receive a score high enough to receive any rewards.

The verbal rules are that contestants and par-ents do not speak to judges regarding scores or prais-ing performances. If they do so, the contestant can be docked points or the contestant and their family may even be asked to leave the pageant.

Frequently Performed Ritual

A ritual that is performed frequently is the preparation that takes place before a pageant. This often includes spray tanning, creation of fake teeth, hair appointments, nail appointments and shopping. The reason this ritual can be considered communicative is because this is when the most communication takes place between the mother and/or fa-ther and their child who is the contestant. Communication includes verbal and nonverbal exchanges. Participants and Roles. The parents, contestants, and stylists are all part of the prepara-tion process. Mothers and fathers take on the role of financial beneficiary, meaning that they fund and support their child’s hair, nail, tanning and other appointments. Children take on the role of contestants in that they put themselves in the pageant mindset while they are undergoing these appointments. Stylists use this opportunity to practice what the child will look like on the day of the pageant and must communicate with the parents and child. Channels of Communication. The channel of communication often used for this prepara-tion ritual is face-to-face communication. Parents communicate with their child to find out the child’s preferences and feelings about their hairstyle, nail job, tan, makeup, etc. and will also communicate with the stylists to convey the opinions of the child. Because all par-ticipants are present, children can also directly communicate with the stylists and their parents face-to-face to make their feelings known. Context. The context of this preparation ritual is usually in an interpersonal group com-munication setting and informally conducted. Because parents, children, stylists are usual-ly all present, there is usually interaction between 2-5 individuals at one time. Because the communication takes place outside of the pageant contest, it is usually casual and infor-mal. Physically, the context is usually at home or in a salon. Noise. The noise that often creates communication barriers is often psychological noise that prevents the participants from listening to each other. Usually the participants all have their own idea of what looks good and preferences for appearances, so their inability to quiet their own perspectives and opinions inhibits their ability to listen to each others’ perspectives. Rules. There are usually minimal to no rules when undergoing preparation for a pageant. This is why preparing for the pageant is often the most stressful time of the pageant, other than the final hour of preparation the day of the pageant. Because parents tend to give their children free reign on their look for the pageant and the preparation process can vary based on pageant and contestant, there are no guidelines set for how the parents or children should act during this process.

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Highly Representative Ritual

A highly representative communicative ritual for this culture is the award ceremony that concludes each pageant. Though they can vary from pageant to pageant, an award ceremony happens at every pageant and is the ultimate repre-sentation of and directly addresses the individualistic values of success, achieve-ment, and beauty that are present in child beauty pageants. Participants and Roles. The participants in this ritual are the contestants, em-cees, award distributors, and audiences. The audience plays a role in applauding and reacting to the awards given. The role of the contestants are the receivers and supporters. If they are given an award they are a receiver and are expected to signify that by raising their hand when their name is called. If they do not win an award they fall into the category of supporter who is supposed to show grace and happiness toward the winners. The emcee has the role of announcing the winners, and the award distributors do just that—distribute the awards to the winners and have little communication with the contestants, audience or emcee. Channels of Communication. The channel of communication used is a formal face-to-face communication. The emcee uses a microphone and stands onstage and directs their announcement of the winners to the audience as well as the contestants standing onstage. The contestants have little reciprocal communica-tion other than nonverbal behaviors expressing gratitude or grace. Context. The context of this ritual is a large group, formal announcement setting. It is often done in a large room where the competition took place and usually the emcee/announcer and contestants stand onstage while the judges, parents and other audience members sit in the arranged audience seating. Noise. There is generally little noise occurring during this ritual. The type of noise that may occur can be murmurs from the audience or other large group distrac-tion noises such as applause, yells, comments, etc. However overall there is little audible noise and the psychological noise is often anticipation which helps focus everyone’s attention to the communication of the winners rather than inhibiting it. Rules. The rules during the announcing of awards are for the audience and con-testants to be quiet so the announcements can be heard and to for the contest-ants to act grateful if they are announced a winner or to act gracious and happy toward the winners who were announced. The expectation is that the audience is supportive of the winners as well and that no one shouts or exhibits any negative comments or actions toward the winning or losing contestants, the emcee(s) or families of the other contestants.

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Interview—Jenna Kreider, Age 19

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Artifacts Some major artifacts you will see in the pag-eant culture are: 1. Trophies. Trophies are awarded to win-ners and signify success and winning. 2. Money. Money is often awarded to the top title winner in the form of cash or savings bonds. 3. Sashes. Sashes accompany trophies and tiaras for contestants winning a title. 4. Tiaras. As the title gets higher, the tiara gets bigger and is the ultimate prize wanted by the contestants. 5. Dresses. This is the type of dress worn pri-marily in glitz pageants where the more spar-kle, the better. 6. Flipper. A flipper is a set of fake teeth worn by contestants if they have missing or crooked teeth.

How many pageants did you compete in? I’d say probably 8 or 9. I started when I was three and competed in them until I was about eight. What kind of pageants did you compete in? They were all natural or low glitz. Did you win any awards? If so how did you feel when you won them? I won Miss Personality and a few others but none that were really high titles. When I won Miss Personality I cried be-cause they announced it after they an-nounced the high titles and I thought I didn’t win anything. What categories did you participate in? They did an interview portion, an outfit

portion and an optional talent portion which I never did. What would you say the main values of pageants are? It really depends on the type of pageants you do. In natural it’s more to gain skills for the future but in high glitz it’s more to get money and be able to say you won those pageants. Do you think television shows (T&T, Hon-ey Boo Boo) are representative of the pageant culture? I think they represent the extremes of the pageant cultures. Not all the parents are as crazy as the Toddlers and Tiaras par-ents and a lot of the kids in pageants actu-ally do like to do them.

What is your opinion of child beauty pageants in general? I still like them. I would like to put my kids in them in the future but it’s ulti-mately going to be up to them. Would you participate in another pag-eant? Why or why not? Yes, probably. I just like crowns!

Methodology To compose this ethnography scrap-book I used a combination of research tech-niques. My primary method was to do a con-tent analysis on the television series Toddlers and Tiaras. I watched a random selection of 15 episodes from the first three seasons of the series (5 episodes from each). I recorded observations and images that pertained to communicative acts and examples related to our Communication and Culture course. Second, I researched images and infor-mation via the internet to compare the obser-vations I recorded from the culture depicted on Toddlers and Tiaras to cultivate a complete view of this culture. Third, I conducted an interview with an individual who competed in beauty pageants as a child and included the interview to juxta-pose the television and internet depictions of the culture of child beauty pageants.

Self-Analysis

For this project I was not able to actu-ally participate or view first hand an actual child beauty pageant. Although there are numerous pag-eants in Ohio (about one or two a month), circumstances were unfavorable and not conducive for me to travel and observe first-hand the structure and conduction of a child beauty pageant here in Ohio. However, had I observed a pageant first-hand, I still would not have had access to backstage preparations of the contestants that I was able to view on Toddlers and Tiar-as. This inability would not have provided me with a complete view and perspective of a beauty pageant held here in Ohio. With that being said, I do think be-tween my informal content analysis of Tod-dlers and Tiaras, internet research and inter-view conducted with a previous child pag-eant contestant, I was able to get an ade-quate picture of the culture of child beauty pageants.

From this project, I learned that child beauty pageants are a unique and highly representative culture of the United States mentality of success, beauty and perfection. There are some antiquated values emphasized by child beauty pageants, specifically on how women should look and act, and the misconception that beauty equals perfection and superiority. However, there are also some more modern values dis-played in child beauty pageants. These include gender flexi-bility with fathers becoming more involved in the pageant world and process and having young men and boys compete in categories with similar concepts and values as the young women and girls. I also learned that child beauty pageants often have the emphasis in a family equivalent to that of a child’s participa-tion in sports. Most families in pageants view them as a kind of sport and take them as seriously as if their child were com-peting on an athletic team. While it is promising to see more fathers becoming in-

terested in being involved in their child’s pageant experience, the overall perpetuation of core values pageants teach still poses concerns for me. The main values promoted are competition and beauty. Although competition is not a bad thing, when it gets to the point that some parents take on a second job or give up basic necessities to fund their child’s participation in pageants that advocate beauty is the most important quality of a person, that is concerning. Though it can be a positive bonding experience for mothers/fathers and their daughters, after observing child pageants with an open mind, I find myself not quite able to accept them as a healthy or positive activity for families and children. But although I may not agree with them, I can say I do have a little more knowledge about the culture and motiva-tions behind participation in child beauty pageants and am better equipped with the knowledge to communicate effec-tively with participants if the opportunity ever arises.

Information: 1. http://www.minorcon.org/pageants.html 2. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/food-thought/201108/child-beauty-pageants-what-are-we-teaching-our-girls 3. Seasons 1-3 of Toddlers and Tiaras Photos- a combination of Season 1, 2 and 3 of Toddlers and Tiaras and: 1.bsckids.com 2. 3news.co.nz

3. savvyspice.com 4. tvgasm.com 5. thelaughingstork.com 6. torinelson.wordpress.com 7. nyctaughtme.com 8.dailysentinel.com 9. rebeccadrobis.typepad.com 10. beutifullyme.wordpress.com 11. peanutcouture.wordpress.com