Photographer Susan Anderson took a series of absolutely surreal portraits of young children participating in beauty pagents. She compiled the work in a book, High Glitz: The Extravagant World of Child Pageants. You can view many of the images on Anderson's site as well. (Or, right now at the Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles.) From the powerHouse Books site:
High Glitz: The Extravagant World of Child Pageants (Amazon, thanks Bob Pescovitz!)"High Glitz" is a subgenre of child beauty pageants characterized by couture "glitz" costumes and a broad array of cosmetic preparations including, among other tricks of the trade: glamour makeup, elaborate hairstyles, and "flippers" (false front teeth veneers). Anderson's stunning visuals are complimented by a "High Glitz Style Guide," defining and providing examples of the following categories: Beauty/ Formal Wear, Western Wear, Sportswear, and Swimwear, with a special section on hairstyles such as the "Barbie" and the "Up-do."
Each year as many as 100,000 children under the age of 12 participate in U.S. child beauty pageants, and it has recently become a billion-dollar industry. Parents invest thousands of dollars on costumes and private coaches to give their children a competitive edge. Countless hours are spent by professional hair and makeup artists on each child in preparation for the competition. The girls are spray-tanned, made-up, and groomed to a glossy perfection. Anderson captures the results of this time-consuming transformation process in exquisite detail.
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I can see potential for people giving me weird looks for having this on my bookshelf.
Shudder.
Looking at these photos is like watching snuff films.
There was once a person there, now it's gone. Fascinating and horrible.
The girl in the third picture is a probably a clone of the woman in the birther video a few posts back. neither look human.
I think we've discovered it's larval stage.
Child beauty pageant contestants creep me out
And somehow this is not considered child abuse. Having perused the gallery, in a watching-the-train-wreck sort of way, I'm now going to go wash my eyes out with soap.
Awful, beyond awful. Call social services quick!
The movie "Little Miss Sunshine" has a great take on this.
yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck...
Seriously, how do people do that to their kids?
No better way to insure your kid has body-image issues when she grows up. Why oh why can't I be a size 4T again?
Gross. I'll take flesh eating bot flies and lampreys over this stuff any day.
Why is this not considered child abuse?
As far as I am concerned this is totally child abuse not only in forcing your child to do this, the countless hours doing makeup and hair etc but also that they are making CHILDREN look like adults. Often there is a sexual element to the makeup (isn't that why women use it anyway) and there is also often a swimsuit section to the competition.
My point is that these are the people who complain about parents taking photos of their own kids at the park, calling them pedophiles and such, and then they are the ones dressing their kids provocatively and (trying) to make them look like sexy adults
I think it is sick and that kids should be banned from entering beauty contests till they are of an appropriate age to understand the consequences or at least have very clearly defined rules stating what is and isn't "child-like" in terms of clothes, makeup and posing, so we don't inadvertantly turn these kids into pedo-bear's wet dream
Their parents should be arrested for child abuse. This is disgusting.
Ye gods; dead behind the eyes, looking like they're made out of plastic; have we stumbled on the same place that Miley Cyrus came from?
Ah the romance of the Stepford wives meets baby gulag. WTF is wrong with the parents? If the wanted dolls they should have bought dolls and not Effed up a child's life.
Even more disturbing than the gratuitous overuse of frosted pink lipstick (and the whole concept in general): one of the girls appeared to have cleavage airbrushed in, either as body makeup or in as post-production work done to the photo. Seriously, what is wrong with these parents?
So now I have kiddy pr0n on my harddisk. Thanks a mill. Remember to flush your cache, my fellow boingers.
This is SOOO wrong in so many levels.... I´m speechless....
In seeing how our society’s values of beauty, glamour, and celebrity are reflected in the hopes and dreams of thousands of young girls, we come to see that these pageants are a reflection of American culture itself.
In seeing how our society’s values of beauty, glamour, and celebrity are reflected in the hopes and dreams of thousands of histrionic parents...
I fixed it for them.
I wish the Saturday Night Live video "Babies in Makeup" were on line.
Hey, it's already a billon-dollar industry, so why shouldn't a photographer try to grab a piece of it? Putting it on BB is a great start. Nice work!
Definitely the creepiest thing I've seen recently.
Zsa zsa Gabors in the making
Oh god! Please give us a unicorn chaser!
Child abuse.
Looks like their mothers are still playing Barbie, but with live children now. Most of them look really unhappy, too.
The old baby just loves those pork rinds.
Is anyone else experiencing an "uncanny valley" thing here?
It would actually be less creepy if these were pictures of RealDoll products. At least then no human beings would be treated like toys.
Excuse me while I run, screaming.
Aaaaaggggghhhhh!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HFw8TNexyU
What happens to you in childhood effects you in ways you might never fully understand.
I needed a unicorn chaser as soon as I read the headline, never mind actually seeing the photos. Though I would sort of like to know how they judge the winner of a beauty pagent in which all the entries are essentially monstrous perversions of childhood. Do they pick the least horrible (ie. the ones who actually look the best to most sane people) or the most?
I also have to wonder how many of these people realize they are putting their kids through what amounts to a dog show...
Personally, I categorize this as a form of child abuse.
A brick wall... a brick wall... I must think of a brick wall... a brick wall... I must think of a brick wall... a brick wall... brick wall... I must think of a brick wall... It's almost half past eight... brick wall... only a few seconds more... brick wall... brick wall... brick wall... nearly over... a brick wall...
http://www.moviecritic.com.au/images/creepy-kids-with-glowing-eyes-carpenters-village-o1.jpg
Warren Ellis's Whitechapel blog used to have a category for horrible things found around the net. These kid-bots are creepier than a lot of the stuff displayed there.
Yes, definitely watch "Little Miss Sunshine". Very funny movie that is not beauty pageant friendly.
I just want to point out - I have a 9-year-old daughter, and she DREAMS about doing this. I've taken her for the odd pedicure or haircut and while I can't get to her be quiet for five minutes while I'm on the phone, she can hold absolutely still for half an hour when her nail polish is wet. Try to brush her hair for school and she shrieks, but pull, tease and spray it for a "fancy" hairdo and she's meek as a lamb.
I would never in a million years subject my kid to this kind of competition more because my kid and I both have better things to do with our lives (like anything else, really), but if I showed her one of these pictures and asked her if she'd want to look like that, she'd snap it up in a minute.
We don't have television, we read tons of books, my husband and I are both well-educated and have good jobs. This isn't something she "learned" at our house. It's something she is. Like many other little girls, she likes to look fancy, and in the mind of a child, the more shiny, glittery, ruffly, sparkly and pouffy you are, the fancier. Don't blame the parents. You don't get this effect without some complicity from a willing kid.
Little Miss Sunshine is a good movie, and I recommend it too, but I don't think it's hard enough on the child beauty pageant scene, as the girl in it seems fairly well adjusted, happy and like she's got a chance at a normal life once the movie ends. At least that's my recollection of it.
Halloween is over, guys. C'mon.
I just threw up in my mouth a little.
Actually I just threw up in my mouth a lot.
Have you noticed how the kids in these things always look, well, empty?
the last girl looks just like annie from the boys!
Unicorn chaser, please.
they look like dolls
I can only imagine that when parents get their kids involved in this sort of thing, they don't intend to have it go this far. They have a kid who, like Junglemonkey's, likes to wear pretty dresses and fancy hair. I'm sure they think it will be some harmless fun. Then little by little they get drawn into the completive nature of the pageants and the next thing you know they are spending figuring out how to hide the bill for $2000 in pageant cloths from their spouse and hiring a coach to make their daughter into one of the Midwich Cuckoos.
To contemplate that someone might start off wanting this for their daughter is more then my brain can accept.
A lot of little girls dream about it and like looking fancy, but to actually look like this it goes way way way beyond an intricate updo. They like to look like movie stars, princesses, and fantasize about what it must be like to be grown up. This is normal. Corset training your 6 year old, airbrushing cleavage on her, and putting fake teeth in her mouth so she looks like a woman though is that point where your judgment as an adult should come in.
As a kid I would have eaten chocolate candy bars 24/7 in lieu of regular food if some one didn't keep me from it.
You know there's something terribly off when a kid looks 'wrong' holding a puppy. And half-an-hour spent making sure the pink glittery nail polish doesn't smear is not 10 hours blinking carefully so the mascara doesn't need to be re-done. And by the way -- no drinking, because sweating under hot lights is bad and can be avoided, and the costume might get messed up in the bathroom stall. Been there, hated that.
I've watched the Toddlers & Tiaras a couple times out of morbid curiosity. My overwhelming impression is that the mothers really, REALLY wanted to be beauty queens themselves. Yuk, ick, eew, groddy, nasty, ick.
These parents can't even begin to imagine the damage they're doing to their kids.
#12: Uhm, that's just baby fat. Creepy photos: yes. Cleavage: no.
The one that freaked me the most was the kid in the flag costume with the french tipped nails. Now that was just nasty.
Don't blame the parents. You don't get this effect without some complicity from a willing kid.
Don't blame the parents? Ri-i-i-ght, every typical 4 year old dashes out and signs up for a beauty pageant, purchases all that make-up and tinselled frocks, self-trains to do that all-too-adult hip thrust whilst singing an age-inappropriate song full of double entendres.
There's a difference between playing dress-up and being whored out to an audience of failed Miss America wannabees living their crushed fantasies through their daughters. Stage mothers throughout time have forced their children into acquiescence by making love conditional. It isn't that difficult to manoeuvre a child into obedience.
So Extravagant is the new Grotesque?
Junglemonkey's got it. Little girls commonly aspire to be big girls. Why do you think Barbies outsell baby dolls?
Hell, why do you think grown women (and crossed-dressed men) fiddle with make-up and such? Because it's fun? (Oh, no, couldn't possibly be fun. Must be some neurosis.)
These pageants have been around long enough that some former participants are now grown women, and if there were some horrible sequelae, you'd think we'd have heard about them. But I only found two articles on the subject: a news article that suggested that ex-child beauty pageant participants were about as happy as other women their age and a rather small but more formal study that said they "scored higher on body dissatisfaction, interpersonal distrust, and impulse dysregulation than non-participants," but about the same on bulimia, body perception, depression, and self-esteem. (And, given that the latter was published in the journal Eating Disorders, it's not a stretch to suppose that its authors were looking for some bad news about the long-term effects of child beauty pageants--and still found a pretty slim downside.)
This only seems too sexual or affected for this age group if you think non-pageant girls spend all their time playing with My Little Ponies and coloring books, little bundles of slack-jawed cluelessness who never dress up--either on their own initiative or someone else's. (NOW used to have a poster that featured a little girl in dress, with the caption: Help, I'm being held captive in a blue dotted Swiss!)
It's a mistake to think pageant girls are more sexualized than other girls--from their point of view (and that of their folks), they're probably just being encouraged to be pretty and cute, and doing some female bonding with Mom. In fact, if the parents thought it was intended to be sexual, they wouldn't be doing it. And they sure as hell wouldn't be doing it as a public event.
The equation [(intentionally pretty) = (whorish)] is really discouraging. Any woman past puberty has had the experience of walking down the street initially feeling attractive and good about herself--and being hassled like a piece of meat by the time she got to the corner. But you'd think little girls who just want to play dress-up would be spared that.
This is the most frightening and disturbing thing I've seen this year. Unicorn chaser plz.
Those photos are very good...the expressions are so complex. I love the half-smiles, the sort of subtle desperation in some of the faces, and I love the way she chose to photograph some of them from behind or with their faces turned. The entire collection strikes me as very tragic and twisted.
I feel sad that some girls honestly want to look like this, or that some parents pressure them to do these pageants. But I don't agree that these things encourage pedophilia; I doubt most pedophiles want children that look like miniature adults. Saying that the parents are responsible if their child becomes a victim of such a crime seems a bit like blaming the victims of rape for "dressing provocatively." If I remember correctly, most child abuse is committed by someone the child already knows, not someone who saw them in the park and thought they looked glamorous.
"It's a mistake to think pageant girls are more sexualized than other girls-- from their point of view"
It is a mistake to think molested girls *think* they are more sexualized while they are still children as well. That's the thing, no matter what they are children.
Blueelm - Do you understand that there's a difference between being in a pageant and being molested?
Ok, if it's not traumatic for the children, then can we ban stuff like this on the basis that it's traumatic for the adults? Little girls might think they're only playing dress-up, but *my* soul is scarred for life. Ok? Awesome.
I see that I am not the only person who is disturbed by these images and even the concept of this book (thank gad). In the blurb it notes: "...these pageants are a reflection of American culture itself." Since when does American culture cater to pedophiles?
Placing hands over eyes - watching the kid in Little Miss Sunshine do her dance - Alan Arkin helped her - all is okay with the world - flush - flush - flush.
That and a gallon of vodka should help wash this shit away.
Wow, these little girls are spending time with their parents, entering competitions, and being judged on their physical attributes. How gross.
They should instead join a soccer league , or pee wee football, or baseball, or swimming. At least then they could spend time with their parents, enter competitions, and be judged by their physical attributes.
Yes, that's it exactly, it's as though they're androids.
I can't begin to imagine what is real about them. . .where the human starting point was.
I don't want to seem rude, but they look like corpses.
For all of you who think you know the world you are commenting on I would recommend buying the book and reading the two insightful essays about this world and Susan's work specifically. There is a lot more of interest than the Jon Benet tragedy, blaming the parents or any of the other knee jerk reactions that have commonly followed the posting of these pictures. By-the-way, this is ART and meant to hang in a gallery, Museum and on someone's wall. Like any good art it is a multi-layered commentary on the society in which it was produced. So while there are many questions and reactions brought out by looking at this work, any judgements made are best done in front of a mirror.
My life as a dress-up doll for my micromanaging, obsessive parent who had nothing better to do than live vicariously through me.
We are the publishers of High Glitz, by Susan Anderson. We invite you to check out our website page for the book (http://powerhousebooks.com/book/1114), watch the book trailer, and go to the blog (http://powerhousebooks.com/highglitz) to learn more about the book. Anderson is neither endorsing nor opposing child beauty pageants - she is a fine art photographer that is documenting a world that is very much unknown to the general public.
"By-the-way, this is ART and meant to hang in a gallery, Museum and on someone's wall."
No, this is not art.
You are placing a child in a position where her worth is based on her physical appearance. If you think that this is not abusive, YOU need to look in a mirror.
Girls already have millions of signals of sexuality flying at them, and they are constantly hit with a barrage of messages that say "You are either pretty, or no one loves you".
You can try to justify it by calling it "art". Pedophiles do the same thing, ya know.
But the truth is that this is nothing more than taking a young, developing mind and programming it to rate physical beauty with utmost importance.
So I'll stand by my judgment thanks. If you subject your daughter to this, you are a BAD parent.
What do you mean the photo's and the book are not art but are abusive?
That's like saying that a painting of Mount St. Helens is the same as blowing up a mountain.
Unless you are talking about nailing actual children to a wall like they were Chris Burden.
Really Hep cat? You can't see the difference between painting a natural disaster from memory or fantasy, and forcing/convincing little girls to act as adults in order to take pictures of them? No difference?
What's disturbing to me is that Anderson doesn't seem to find child beauty pageants problematic. In fact, the essays in her book by Simon Doonan and Robert Greene dismiss concerns that most reasonable people would have about the exploitation and sexualization of these girls.
Check out this video where Anderson's co-author Simon Doonan (who you could easily mistake for Sacha Baron Cohen's "Bruno") refers to the pageants as "life-affirming" and "fabulous." Anderson has been similarly dismissive. Somehow I doubt this is a put-on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7Dy2HiAXno
I am a beauty pageant queen. i love pageants. they are all i think about. I do understand how cruel it is for some of the pareants to live through there kids. but i do them for fun. i love the feeling of being beutiful. i go on stage and kick butt. pageants have given me grace self confindence love beauty and scholarship money. i have won so much money its crazy. please rethink about beauty pageants. they are my life i love them!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is cruel exposure of children because their mothers have regrets in their pasts!!!