Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Help Keep Boards Alive. Support us by going ad free today. See here: https://subscriptions.boards.ie/

Ban Child Beauty Pageants

  • 19-09-2013 01:49PM
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,652 ✭✭✭I am pie


    I would be all for it, or at least imposing a minimum age. The idea of judging a child on appearance is horrendous, telling another child they weren't pretty enough to win is pretty damaging. Worse still from the journal article I understand they have swimsuit sections of the competition. Surely that it wrong on many levels.

    For me it is one aspect of American Culture we could definitely do without. Odd and grisly.

    Ban, Restrict or Let them carry on? 318 votes

    Ban Them
    0% 0 votes
    Only over a certain age
    88% 281 votes
    Weird but harmless...carry on.
    11% 37 votes


«134

Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 133 ✭✭theGEM


    Ban yourself and stay out of other peoples business.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,068 ✭✭✭Specialun


    maybe your odd and grisly


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 285 ✭✭Samuri Suicide


    You were obviously an ugly child.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,045 ✭✭✭✭gramar


    Children shouldn't be judged on appearance (no-one should) but the bigger problem is that it's not their natural appearance. They are dolled up to the nines with fake tan, lashes and make-up to beat the band.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,029 ✭✭✭salacious crumb


    Ban the pagents and burn the parents ;)


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,925 ✭✭✭✭anncoates


    I'd tend to agree although awareness of looks and body image seems to be starting at a younger and younger age these days so I'm not sure isolating one extreme example addresses it.

    A friend told me he could get my 5 year old son into child modelling through a friend of theirs but I refused. Not that I think anybody who allows it is necessarily wrong but personally I'd like the age where my kid starts judging themselves and others in the hierarchy of looks to be postponed for as long as possible.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,122 ✭✭✭BeerWolf


    Putting vanity into a young one's mind is NOT a good thing, and would give way to forms of bullying...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,296 ✭✭✭Frank Black


    I wasn't aware of that there was such a proliferation of Child Beauty pageants within the jurisdiction, that a change in legislation was called for.

    Please provide the necessary evidence and I'll consider my position on the matter.

    Unless of course you've no evidence and this is more of a 'Joe Duffy' type rant about an issue that isn't really an issue.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 36,926 ✭✭✭✭o1s1n
    Master of the Universe


    Something very unsettling about these pageants. I've watched a few of those TV shows documenting them and it would seem to me that it's mostly parents living vicariously through their children's success. Often in a very pushy way.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,230 ✭✭✭Merkin


    I think those pagaents are just paedo paradises.

    Why on Earth would anyone want to see a small child with fake tan in a swimsuit shimmying their (barely out of nappies) bums is just freaky and weird. That programme Toddlers and Tiaras or whatever it's called is an abomination.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 499 ✭✭greenflash


    As David Bowie once sang, this is not America. But if we do have a say, can we also ban mullets and people who love Jesus?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 816 ✭✭✭dr strangelove


    Shouldn't the poll include an "Atari Pedobear" option?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 81,060 ✭✭✭✭biko


    Ban them here OP, or in Murica?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,087 ✭✭✭✭wp_rathead


    Little Miss Sunshine was great film


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Music Moderators, Politics Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 22,380 CMod ✭✭✭✭Dravokivich


    I don't have a problem with the basic idea of it. Sure a small modelling comp for kids can be a bit of craic. But the beast they've become in the USoA and how they are managed is absolutely deplorable.


  • Posts: 81,310 CMod ✭✭✭✭ Derrick Eager Self-expression


    They've just been banned in france

    As much as I hate the idea of them and find them disgusting I don't know about an outright ban
    The parents are still going to be unhappy messed up pushy people pushing them into something or other. I saw a program where they went back afterwards years later and one of the girls used her winnings to pay for a good private school education, another was still doing it and won cruises around the world and made friends and so on


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,744 ✭✭✭✭kylith


    I'd be ok with them, to an extent, for girls over the age of, say, 12. Although I'd want restrictions on things like makeup, fake eyelashes, and inappropriate clothing.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,299 ✭✭✭✭The Backwards Man


    I'd ban beauty pageants altogether. Stupidest things ever.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,122 ✭✭✭BeerWolf


    I'd ban beauty pageants altogether. Stupidest things ever.

    Tell that to the women that thin..-k World Peace!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,125 ✭✭✭heybaby


    Without a doubt child beauty pageants should be banned. The french have the right idea. Its so very disturbing and sad to see parents tart their daughters up like little hookers and parade them like pieces of meat in front of other parents who clearly have a jaundiced perception of what a childhood should constitute. Its a cliche but its true, while you actually need to have a license for a dog, even if you are a deeply flawed human being you can become a parent without any obstacles except your own fertility and a willing partner. The hypersexualization of children at beauty pageants is simply one strand of the disturbing sexualization of children / minors by society in general. Childhood should not be about sexuality, it should be about innocence which as any right thinking parent would tell you should be prolonged for as long as possible.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 451 ✭✭Rocket19


    Soooo..this weekend, the "Universal Royalty Beauty Pageant" is coming to Dublin. The Bracken Court Hotel in Balbriggan is hosting the event this weekend, a child beauty pageant, which will see kids (from babies to teens) compete. I read that about 50 kids will be taking part.
    There seems to be a lot of opposition to the pageant, but it appears to be going ahead nonetheless.

    http://www.thejournal.ie/child-beauty-pageant-dublin-1090610-Sep2013/

    France has recently banned child pageants, imposing criminal sanctions on the organisers. I don't understand how we aren't taking the same action. How is this being allowed here?
    I would describe myself as quite liberal when it comes to most things, but this is undeniably creepy, and not an aspect of American culture we should be adopting in this country. If anyone has seen "Toddlers in Tiaras", they will know how weird and f*cked up these pageants are. I believe there is also a swimwear section of the competition. :confused:

    There are few things worse than sexualising little girls, and parading them in front of adults. I don't see any benefit in hosting this kind of competition here, it's just...wrong (imo).
    What does everyone think about it?

    Also, here is the 'retired' 8 year old US "star", who will be taking part in a "meet 'n' greet" in Dublin over the weekend
    http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRimGiQkdtW2vtvQ57eNOhuzCOWzTkwPyMV0JiAtzoo1mWZfc5K
    *shudder*


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,952 ✭✭✭✭Grayson


    I think a pagent can be run without being creepy, but having said that I haven't heard of one that isn't creepy.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,607 ✭✭✭stoneill


    Balbriggan -


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,959 ✭✭✭gugleguy


    then post this thread OP in legal discussion and not after hours. Then it can be addressed more seriously than in AH.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,230 ✭✭✭Merkin




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 6,528 ✭✭✭TheIrishGrover


    o1s1n wrote: »
    Something very unsettling about these pageants. I've watched a few of those TV shows documenting them and it would seem to me that it's mostly parents living vicariously through their children's success. Often in a very pushy way.


    They actually make me physically sick. I mean I actually want to vomit when I see things about them on tele and I have to switch away. I can see NO justification for them. Every single "justification" I hear about them rings hollow. They are nothing but another form of pedophilia and every person involved in them is, in their own way, involved in pedophilia.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,687 ✭✭✭Karl Stein


    They are nothing but another form of pedophilia and every person involved in them is, in their own way, involved in pedophilia.

    The other day I saw a man putting petrol in his car and I shouted 'enjoy your blood soaked hydrocarbons you fucking war-monger'.


  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Paid Member Posts: 13,789 Mod ✭✭✭✭JupiterKid


    Child "beauty" pageants are bizarre, absurd and creepy. They are an unwelcome import from the USA and should be banned. As usual, the French have some common sense and the right idea.

    There is NO justification whatsoever for these grotesque events that parade small children like pieces of meat and are also a honey pot for paedophiles. Damaging in every sense of the word.

    Ban them.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,930 ✭✭✭Jimoslimos


    stoneill wrote: »
    Balbriggan -
    Given the chronic neglect and underinvestment by Fingal CoCo I can hardly say I'm surprised that a hotel in the town would stoop to such low levels to chase business.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,630 ✭✭✭Zen65


    gramar wrote: »
    Children shouldn't be judged on appearance (no-one should) . . .

    That might sound all well and good, but for evolution to work, we have been judging each other on the basis of physical appearance for millennia. Why stop now?



    PS. I'm in favour of an all-out ban on beauty contests altogether. They are part of the dreadful "celebrity" culture that has set us backwards as a species!


Advertisement