Blogs and Stories
Pretty Babies
Photographer Susan Anderson captures the bizarre glamour and excess of child beauty pageants in her new exhibition and book, High Glitz. VIEW OUR GALLERY
Child beauty pageants are a billion-dollar industry in the U.S. While some critics see the pageants as an exploitation of innocents, others—particularly pageant parents—view the competitions as a way for a young talent to enter the entertainment industry. Shows such as Toddler & Tiaras have examined the behind-the-scenes drama of these tightly orchestrated contests, but now a show of Susan Anderson’s photographs at L.A.’s Kopeikin Gallery (through December 24), puts the glamour and excess of child beauty pageants on a pedestal for our contemplation.
Click Image Below to View Our Gallery of High Glitz
• PLUS: Watch video of Child Beauty Pageant Dos and Don’ts The girls appear in poses of their choice wearing costly couture outfits adorned with rhinestones and ribbons. Spray-tanned, they are made up to resemble Hollywood and Nashville stars. Hair piled high with extensions and ringlets; false front teeth veneers, known as flippers; and white-tipped, French fingernails add to the doll-like look. Four- and 5-year-old girls become queens of the rodeo, while 8- and 9-year olds are transformed into Southern belles. Meanwhile, the most risqué looks lend the children the appearance of teenage and adult beauty-pageant contestants, which many may eventually become.
In one photo, 6-year-old Tristan shows off her cascading hair and off-the-shoulder, glimmering pink gown in profile and then reveals her hairstyle and full cupcake dress from behind in another one. Likewise, 9-year-old Mary Ashton poses in a white dress like a soap-opera star and then strikes a model pose in a frilly lime-green bikini. And 5-year-old Tatum wears a high-styled wig and a two-piece dancer’s ensemble one moment and looks like a bun-topped, burlesque dancer the next.
Anderson, who has a BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago, is best known for her stylish advertising and editorial photography. However, her three years of work on the High Glitz portfolio, which was also exhibited at Amsterdam’s Torch Gallery earlier this year, is gaining her art world attention. While she may get some flak for exposing a realm of American culture that some people find troubling, her objectivity and aesthetic eye for recording what she saw definitely wins the day.
Plus: Check out Art Beast for galleries, interviews with artists, and photos from the hottest parties.
Paul Laster is the editor of Artkrush.com, a contributing editor at Flavorpill.com and Art Asia Pacific, and a contributing writer at Time Out New York and Art in America.
For more of The Daily Beast, become a fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
How Rich People Smoke Pot
Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
Justice Clinton?
As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, corporations and causes, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono. McKinnon is co-chair of Arts & Labs, a collaboration between technology and creative communities that have embraced today's rich Internet environment to deliver innovative and creative digital products to consumers.
High Society Cut-ups
Paul Laster is the editor of Artkrush.com, a contributing editor at Flavorpill.com and Art Asia Pacific, and a contributing writer at Time Out New York and Art in America.
Norman Rockwell Double Takes
Paul Laster is the editor of Artkrush.com, a contributing editor at Flavorpill.com and Art Asia Pacific, and a contributing writer at Time Out New York and Art in America.
Warhol's Final Years
Paul Laster is the editor of Artkrush.com, a contributing editor at Flavorpill.com and Art Asia Pacific, and a contributing writer at Time Out New York and Art in America.
jaydeekay
Pageant moms... the bottom rung of civilization? Detestable skin peddlers in congruence with porn pushers? Sick minded women who never gave up their pornographic childhood fantasies?
You decide.
Dolmance
Nah... It's just another hobby from the South.
jaydeekay
But hobbies in the South can get very messy... and tend to be illegal.
hithere3
the two are not mutually exclusive
Cooper2
You Jackasses!
There is only one Southern state mentioned in the states she profiled TN vs. NV, CA and TX yet you assume everyone in the pageant is a Southerner. What kind of idiotic statistical analysis states that 25% of the sample infers that everyone is Southern? But then again, I'm just a dumb Southerner.
We're not all pro-pageant morons.
hithere3
well, some of you are anti-pageant morons, i guess.
Cooper2
Keep guessing!
DakLak
Are the Miss ---- pageants of more mature women any better?
At any age these 'meat' shows are demeaning.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
Dolmance
It's actually macabre. Like parents who insisted on having an open coffin for their dead children and a mortician who did his very best to make them presentable.
theschmooze
I find this entire process so distasteful. The mothers are vicariously living their pitiful lives through their daughters.
jaydeekay
In no way is life attached to this kind of 'person.'
lsquare
"Calling all child molesters, calling all child molesters, come out come out where ever you are!!!" I mean, isn't this basically what the parents of these girls are saying? With all the child trafficking, child rapes/murders, and molesting going on in this world, I think the mothers of these girls are absolutely nuts. Not to mention the sorry moral values they're teaching their children, i.e., looks are everything.
I really feel sorry for these poor children. I'm doing well to have my girls sit still long enough to just get their hair brushed. They would feel absolutely tortured if they had to sit still for hours just to be dolled up to please their horribly warped mothers.
With all the horrible child snatching/murders
natalia09
this is sickenning
blinky
The photos look like super realistic plastic sculptures of perfect little pageant girls with fake pageant smiles...I bet the girl's mothers love these pics, even though the images could be viewed as useful to the anti pageant view.
whipmawhopma
Utterly bizarre, turning young children into sex objects to be displayed, but then there really is no limit to the depths of depravity that the human mind is capable of reaching.
DakLak
On seeing these pictures, words that come to mind are: Abuse, exploitation, pornography, pedophilia, incestuous.
No wonder American children are so screwed up, they lose their childhood so early. A very sad commentary on the country.
One thing about developing countries - children get to childish things, to develope and mature in to an adult slowly.
wednesdaywolf
Wow. I can't believe that you would say that children in developing countries get to enjoy their childhoods more fully. Many children in developing country face extreme poverty (and have to work in deplorable conditions, or have you never heard the expression "child labor"), food shortages, crime and violence. I agree that this is f---ed up, but your comparison is, I think, way off base.
DakLak
India and China are developed countries, IMHO, and there is child-labour, I was thinking about Africa, Indonesia (out islands) Manchuria and the like.
hithere3
so... gross
my3sons
And here I am making my child work all weekend on an English essay and a science project. I should just slap some eye shadow on her and a pair of low cut jeans and send her out.
neroves1
This in no way can be healthy for these children. And the makeup! What joke, it does not even fit their young faces. And what about the exposer to all those chemicals. It sounds like Mommy has to much time on her hands, and shes pimping out her kid. The worst!
xsm941f
Ridiculous and sick.
JeffreyinLA
What kind of sick parent chooses to sexualize their child at an early age for a rhinestone tiara? This is child abuse. I don't care what their grasping, desperate mommies say about it. What kind of perverted father allows his daughter to be painted up like a whore and paraded like a hunk of meat in front of adults? This is pedophile heaven.
Sajwert
JeffreyinLA, what makes it harder to understand are the parents who say that their daughters absolutely LOVE this, and look forward to missing all the regular things that children might be doing when she has to parade herself before judges.
As long as I live, I will never forget the pictures and the behavior of the parents, especially of that mother, whose young beauty pagent daughter was found murdered in her basement.
In some countries, the culture is to allow their daughters as early as age 8 be married to older and old men. I'm just wondering how many older and old men are looking at these childrens pictures and sexually fantasizing about them.
Just writing that makes me want to go wash my hands.
Curiouser
O great.... kiddie porn :(
olive007
On a superficial level, these photos illustrate that what is truly beautiful about these girls has been painted over, teased and augmented. It's as if their mothers can't appreciate the natural perfection in their children and they try to "improve" on it, with obviously hideous results.
The real charm in children is their artlessness, and these girls have been robbed of their innocence.
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.