I just watched this show today and the concept reminded me of Gurlesque because girl is the center of the show. The girl as a woman. The girl as a beauty queen. Since gender is what "we" perform, Toddlers & Tiaras seems to be the ultimate performance and is, due to the nature of beauty pageants. As Pafunda mentioned in class, the construct of girl is what is sold to girls--the image of the beauty queen.
In the Gurlesque introduction Glenum writes, "the Gurlesque describes an emerging field of female artists now in their 20s, 30s, and early 40s who, taking a page form the burlesque, perform their femininity in a campy or overtly mocking way. Their work assaults the norms of acceptable female behavior by irreverently deploying gender stereotypes to subversive ends." (11)
With that said, I wanted to start a discussion with a couple questions: do you think Toddlers & Tiaras is gurlesque? Is the center of Toddlers & Tiaras the girl's voice or the mom's voice? Pafunda said in class that the center of Gurlesque is the girl's voice. These toddler pageants seem to be a parody of real pageants, yet the children's parents are completely serious about them.
Overall, is this show a positive or negative step in feminism?
These 2 to 6 year-olds cannot possibly have a clue as to what they're parodying. I also don't think their mothers would have much to say on that aspect of child pageantry. But, I'm biased, because I find these types of things disturbingly sadistic. I see the existence of such activities, which subject children to conceptions of adult gender roles, as what gives rise to Gurlesque poetry and art-forms. I can imagine the little girl in that picture will have a lot of writing material come adulthood...
ReplyDeleteI think that despite the fact "Toddlers and Tiaras" bears many hallmarks of the gurlesque there is one major difference that prevents it from being a form of feminist resistance a la gurlesque, which is that it's about a girl performing a woman and not the other way around. When women perform girls they have lived through girlhood and they are products of girl culture (whether they resisted that culture or not). These women are making a conscious choice to explode the category or girl and complicate our ideas of what it means to be "girly." But when girls perform women they are not performing anything they know anything about, but rather being initiated into the kind of culture that the gurlesque seeks to disrupt. Furthermore, pageant culture is about silencing girls' voices. Girls are seen (looking like caricatures of women), but not heard. To me, "Toddlers and Tiaras" could not be less gurlesque
ReplyDeleteI don't know that much about this show, but I don't think I see any kind of "parody" of a pageant at work here. I think in order for any satire to be at play it would require the show to much more outlandish in its deployment of gender norms and feminine expectancies. This makes me think of the movie Little Miss Sunshine. In the first scene the girl Olive, who wants to be in this type of pageant, tries to imitate the reactions of real pageant girls. This is, of course, not a representation of every girl who takes part in these pageants, however it is most likely that girls see how "beautiful" the women are and aspire to be "perfect" in their image. This is why most of these events are taken very seriously.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I find these types of events as very counter-productive for feminist aims. They perpetuate circumscribed notions of what it is to be beautiful and desirable. Added to the fact that these girls are 2-6 years old, I can't even imagine the types of ingrained notions that will carry through their lives.
Little Miss Sunshine does wonderful job in exposing the perversity of these kinds of events. Their is a moment where the main girl character realizes that she is slightly overweight. When she asks her dad if that is a bad thing he responds "those women is Miss America, are they skinny or are they fat?" This is exactly the kinds of pressures that girls are put under at such a young age. The pageants may incorporate things like "talents" and a "question section" but what are the real reasons for the type of people who make it in? I see this only as a reinforcement of the idea that a women's source of success and power is only through her appearance and body.
To clarify: In my own opinion, "Toddlers & Tiaras" comes off as a "parody" because I find it to be quite ridiculous, although I am sure this is not what the actual contestants and contestants families are going for. TLC does a nice job exposing the show without commentary because then the sadistic qualities Elizabeth mentioned are revealed in an unbiased manner, which allows viewers, like us, to question the nature of beauty pageants altogether.
ReplyDeletethe problem being that it's only a parody in the eyes of a certain cultural/intellectual group who think of it as gratuitous kitsch.
ReplyDeleteI'm slightly embarrassed to say that my mom, 10-year-old sister and I watched this show over the summer because we found it funny. As Sara has highlighted, the show is obnoxious and TLC is careful to produce it without any commentary except what is said by the direct participants. I feel like in this way, I see Sara's point that the show is a parody (even though any of the show's participants would likely disagree considering that they take their pageants VERY seriously).
ReplyDeleteI wanted to comment though on one of Sara's earlier questions: Is the center of Toddlers & Tiaras the girl's voice or the mom's voice? I feel confident in saying that the voice here is the mother. While it is definitely true that these 2-6 year olds are being sold girl and are definitely the primary subjects of the show, I believe that the ultimate purpose for most of these families is for the mother to relive their childhood vicariously through their sons/daughters. Furthermore, I agree with Elizabeth that these children cannot possibly have an understanding about the activities they are engaging in. In this way, the words might be coming out of the child's mouth but they are merely a parrot of what their mother and/or coaches have told them to say. For me, this means that the voice then belongs to these women, and not the girls, so my understanding then is that this is probably not gurlesque in that aspect. In other ways though, it might be because, as the show clearly demonstrates and as previously mentioned, the children are being sold "girl". I feel like the gurlesque is complicated and I give Sara props for bringing up an example that I think has a lot of decent arguments in it that support both sides of the story.
I really appreciate the way Hannah took apart the performance aspect here, and after re reading the intro to Gurlesque I agree entirely with what you have to say (so thanks for the help there). However I also am reminded of our talk with Julie last thursday about purpose and how it can influence a work. Calling Toddlers&Tiaras 'art' would certainly be a stretch, but I can see how Sarah looks at it as a parody because the purpose of the show is so vague. Winn is correct in saying that unfortunately many viewers may actually appreciate the subject matter of the show, however its presentation could be analyzed in many different ways, and were one of our Gurlesque poems presented to the masses it would be true again that many might 'miss the point'. This is probably a stretch, but I like Sarah's attempt to bring pop culture into the academic discussion, and in some ways i think it does work.
ReplyDeleteMaybe if Gurlesque was presented to the masses then "Toddlers & Tiaras" would be seen as a "parody." Gurlesque exposure would allow pop culture into the academic discussion and it would not be such an exclusive conversation. Also, Gurlesque exposure may allow individuals outside of academic circles to see all of the above qualities concerned with "Toddlers & Tiaras" like "parody," sadism," "reinforcement," and "performance."
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