Toddlers, tiaras and tatas By Professor Locs – September 7, 2011

I watch everything from TCM’s black-and-white films to the reality-induced craziness of “Jersey Shore.” I swear I have seen it all, but every now and then there is something that simply seems too bizarre by even today’s standards. I am talking about the tiny, freakish spectacle that is TLC’s popular reality show, “Toddler’s & Tiaras.”

If you have not seen it, the show is about the engaging and strange world of pageant moms and their children. What makes the show so disturbing is how the toddlers are treated and dressed up like mini-grown women.

Well, one mother has taken the big hair, mini ball gowns and flippers (fake teeth) to a whole new level. She made her 4-year-old daughter, Maddy Jackson, wear fake breast and butt pads. (Holy To Wong Foo, Batman. Are they serious?)

Granted, Maddy was doing a tribute to Dolly Parton, but was the Mom going too far to allow this?

Maddy’s mom, Lindsey, defended her decision: “When she wears the fake boobs and fake butt, it’s an added bonus,” she said.

I know this works at Drag shows, but for a little girl’s pageant?

Maddy’s mom continued: “It’s really funny when she comes out on stage; they think it’s hysterical. They realize not only is she Dolly but she has the added enhancements just like Dolly has.”

If they thought that was hysterical then maybe next year she will sport a pair of stilettos, fishnet panty hose and pasties and really crush the competition.

Toddlers & Tiaras is known for its trademark stage mom’s screeching, “Sparkle” to their sometimes-traumatized daughters. This reminds me of a scene from Gypsy where the ultimate stage mom, Rosalind Russell, screams out to her daughter played by Natalie Wood, “Sing out, Louise.”

Unfortunately in Gypsy, the mother is grooming her daughter for a career as a high-class stripper. Is Toddlers & Tiaras an example of art imitating life too closely?

I must put this into perspective. I was a freelance editor in Atlanta for FOX during the JonBenet Ramsey media spectacle. I remember, like many people, watching the eerie images of this woman-child prancing around like a life-sized doll, with big hair, short sparkly dresses and that haunting plastered pageant smile.

Side note: I find those life-size dolls to be very creepy, so sitting in an edit booth day after day and reviewing JonBenet footage was quite unnerving. Toddlers& Tiaras has a similar effect on me, almost like some bad, spicy, vending machine burrito-induced nightmare.

The pageant circuit is not just a mainstream phenomenon. I have spotted the occasional black stage mom and her daughter looking like a mini-Supreme…lol.

Many viewers have been outraged by the fake enhancements worn by Maddy. The bigger question is what type of mom dresses her daughter up in dramatic make-up, fake hair, false teeth, grown up gowns and now fake boobs and butt pads?

You guys watch the video (below) and tell me your opinion. Is this just innocent competition or moms trying to recapture their youth and glory days? Or should we be more concerned with forcing young girls to grow up too fast?

If unchecked, we could be in store for a future season of “Diminutive Damsels and Diamonds: The Stripper Pole Chronicles.”