blindlyinsane

I watched the documentary called "living dolls". It is about children in beauty pageants. I remember as a kid watching miss usa and miss teen usa and loving it...and recently I've been reading the book about jonbenet ramsey, which led me to see what there was on her on youtube. I discovered this documentary.

This documentary basically follows the pageant preparations and pageants for leslie butler and swan brooner. While watching this, I had mixed emotions. I went from disgust that a parent could do that to their child at such a young age, to feeling sorry for the moms that are obviously making their children follow the moms dream...it's OBVIOUS that these MOMS are more excited about the wins than the children. It's awful, especially when I see little babies that don't even have a clue what's going on, with their hair all teased and curled and make up on and the moms are all "WE are gonna win this"..NO lady, it's not YOU who are gonna win it, it's your baby who doesn't even know what's going on..

Watching this documentary though, my feelings started to change a little bit toward the end, atleast in regards to Swan. I found myself holding my breath to hear her name called out and got actual tears in my eyes when she won!! weird, when I was having such ambivalent feelings about pageantry through out the movie...anyways, swan reminds me of my daughters friend Lara. She is so cute!! and I'm talking when she's NOT all dolled up...

anyways, I realize that some people argue that pageants give kids confidence and good self esteem and poise. and I agree that they probably do --IF the KID is the one who actually wants it and not just the parent!