Toddlers in Tiaras

Toddlers in Tiaras is a television show on TLC. This reverts back to my points about beauty pageants; they are demeaning at any age. The thing that makes a toddler beauty pageant different from an adult one is that fact that they are learning from a young age that they need to worry about what they look like at all times and must be perfect. Children shouldn't be raised to be concerned about if their makeup is perfect or if they are skinny enough. Making these young little girls participate seems like it shouldn't be allowed. All little kids are cute, how can you pick the cutest 4 year old with pounds of makeup and hairspray on her face and in her hair. Children are pure and beautiful and putting them through the competitions is assuring that they will grow up to be concious of every move they make. Not that being concious of your actions is a bad thing, but you should be able to make your own decision about what you care about and don't care about once you're older and mature. As an teenager and legal adult I can say that there are things I do not like about myself, but that is because I've formed those opinions on my own. My parents never would influence my thoughts about how I look at myself which is what these parents are doing to these young girls that they put in beauty pageants- raising them to believe beauty is all about what's on the outside.


-Carly

Reality Television

I feel like reality television is not reality at all. Just as much as television shoes with scripts pick "pretty" people to play main parts, reality television works the same. Let's take the Real World for example; the people on it are always good looking. Millions of people turn in crazy videos to try to get themselves casted for the Real World, but no one unattractive is ever casted. They say you get casted because of diversity and spunk, but they cannot deny that looks have something to do with it. People watch televisione enough and see scripted things that make them think twice about the way they look and they want to see real people on "reality" televsion, but even that can't happen. Some might be excited for a reality show to come on because they want to see how other normal, real people live their lives when the "reality" of it all is that it's not real.



Real World Las Vegas

-Carly

Beauty Pageants

Beauty pageants make girls feel like they need to be perfect. It's a competition of who is prettier and better. I feel as though they are extremely demeaning. They are competitions that require you to pass a preliminary round to make sure you have the right qualities to continue. Why are there only pageants for girls that are considered "beautiful" by others in society? Everyone is equally beautiful and there shouldn't be requirements on how you look to be able to participate. The looking glass self plays role because if a girl goes to tryout for a beauty pageant and doesn't make the next round or gets turned down from even participating it could make them feel really bad about themselves. Others shouldn't have the right to judge if someone is good enough for something. A beauty pageant should reflect inner beauty. The only part of these pageants that I somewhat respect is the talent portion. That is something that does not reflect looks whatsoever and truly shows something that the person is good at. It allows them to show off the inner beauty and not just the outer.


-Carly

Halloween

I began to wonder, is it possible that people love the holiday Halloween so much because they have a chance to dress up in a new character? A chance to be someone else for a night? Is this why so many girls dress in small dresses and heels? Because on any given night, most girls would not dress in this manner, they would be talked about behind their backs and stereotyped. On Halloween, however, no one would say a thing about what anyone looks like. I think people love halloween for this reason. It makes me think of the looking glass self because in a way it is the exact opposite of what the looking glass self is. The looking glass self is how a person thinks others feel and think about them, but on halloween, no one really cares.



-Anna

Boys

According to wikipedia, components of looking glass self are:

1. We imagine how we must appear to others.
2. We imagine the judgment of that appearance.
3. We develop our self through the judgments of others

With that said, sadly enough to admit, I have had an experience where a boy made me change how I felt about myself. He broke up with me for another girl, which made me wonder what was wrong with me, or what was better about her. So I began to compare myself to other girls around me, and want to look differently, because I felt as if I was not good enough. After a few weeks I realized that was very dumb of me, and I got over the boy and knew it was his own fault, not mine. But, at the time, I was wondering how I appeared to this boy, which made me negatively depict my own looks. 

-Anna

Mirrors

A few weeks ago I went home for my grandmothers funeral. I met an extremely interesting man there, he is my fathers cousin's husband. The man and his wife, my father's cousin, take trips to Africa every once in a while. They were talking to my brother and I about the experiences they had there. They told us that so many children in Africa live in orphanages, due to the fact that everyone has AIDS. The married couple goes to the orphanages and visits the children and tries to help them out in all the ways that they can. They told us that they took around a Polaroid camera, and took individual pictures of all of the children. The children had never seen their reflection before they saw these Polaroid pictures. This really got to me, I got to thinking about our society and how much we care about our looks. I think if our society was not so concerned with how we look at every second, then we could potentially be a lot happier. To think about never seeing what I look like until I was younger is an insane thought, but this is these kids life. It made me think of how much I have and how lucky I am, but at the same time how conceited I can be. If i was not so concerned about what I looked like and looking in a mirror every few hours, I would probably be happier.

-Anna

Make up and Magazines

Besides looking through magazines and wishing one looked like the airbrushed famous people in them, I have seen a few positive things about magazines. I love when there are issues in magazines where women pose for pictures of themselves without makeup. This makes girls around the world feel better about themselves, because they realize that these celebrities are indeed human beings, and do not always look gorgeous because most of the time they have tons of make up on.

In these pictures is Eva Longoria, a beautiful actress. She was brave enough to pose without make up. One can really see a difference in a real life photo of this woman without make up and a posed photo with her make up and hair professionally done. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the women who do this.


-anna