The Suz wonders whether she sparkles

I have a lot of free time in the summer. A lot. It's totally by design, and this won't be a post where I apologize for it. Last time: I eat a lot of pasta in the winter, I don't have kids, and I chose well in that my job is closed in the summer. If it helps you to think I'll die alone in some sort of diabetic coma.... well, you go right ahead and think that. I'll be over in aisle ten buying something cool I don't really need in every color they make it in.

Life is choices.

That said, a lot of free time means I spend a lot of time unwisely. I always have high hopes for the summer: daily overdoing it at the gym, writing the great American novel, actually cleaning out closets I don't remember filling..... but then the temp hits 90 one day, and I realize I'm done for the summer. Whatever. I'll attempt to change the lives of others after Labor Day.

One of the things I love about summer is the ability to catch up on my DVR. It's all I can do from Labor Day til Memorial Day to keep the darn thing from filling, as I enjoy a lot of mindless television the Crimefighter can't stomach. I watch it in snatches every time he heads out. A well timed trip to the Home Depot for him can net me a good episode and a half of Jerseylicious for me.

Yeah, I love reality TV. Not all of it, but what I love, I love purely. I know it's fake (I do a whole unit in the Spring concerning how fake it is and how it produces unhealthy views of race and gender to an unsuspecting nation), but sometimes you just want the heat to stop and the grey matter in your brain to drain slowly out, if only for a time.

Wednesday was, perhaps, the high point of the crappy reality TV summer season -- the season premiere of Toddlers & Tiaras. I actually did DVR this, but not because it's a program I watch regularly. It was mentioned in Peggy Oresnstein's Cinderella Ate my Daughter, and I thought she made some good points. In her discussion of The Princess Beast that Ate American Girls, she went on the road with some of the more famous contestants and offered a perspective not given by the meritorious producers of our show. One of the "stars" of the show, if a child routinely exploited by both her parents and the powers that be in the show can be referred to as the "star," actually got into the pageant world because she has a sibling with catastrophic disabilities who requires almost constant care from both parents 24/7. Her mother wanted to be able to give her able-bodied daughter some time to be in the spotlight since she does not get the same amount of time with her parents as her brother does. This must be concentrated into small bursts, like one glitz-filled pageant every two months. Toddlers & Tiaras doesn't show this because it is a "downer," but the show does pay for all the pageant fees these parents couldn't otherwise afford due to medical expenses. Talk about a rock and a hard place for parents.

Toddlers & Tiaras is, when it comes to criticism either television or culture based, shooting fish in a very small barrel. That said, I think the American public is aiming its criticism in completely the wrong place. Sure, I find it disturbing to see little girls dressed up like they are shooting the new Britney Spears video. Sure, the mothers doing the dances on the sidelines are more than a little grotesque, but I think both parties can be excused somewhat. We live in an age of extremely permissive, child-desires-based parenting, and beauty pageants seem to be just another, albeit extremely expensive and weird, branch in a pretty well-accepted, deeply-rooted tree. The contestants themselves? Well, any Child Psych 101 textbook will tell you that anything that garners positive attention is going to hit the mark with your average toddler. I even understand the people who organize the pageants. They charge a grand to enter the pageant of 150 girls and give out $5000 total prize money and about $4.25 worth of cheap plastic trophies. This is the cash cow that will not die.

Yes, I know these shows promote the image that to be a successful female means to be beautiful, and I know that the spectrum of what constitutes beauty is quite narrow (not to mention a little slutty). I know that families bankrupt themselves and cause their daughters to become spoiled divas only focused on image. That said, these messages hardly occur in a vacuum, and at least in pageants they get a trophy and a crown. You don't get that from reading books and graduating from a top-tiered school. Trust me. I know. I looked.

So we feel scornful, but we need a place to heap that scorn..... and this is where I find myself looking at..... the judges. On the season opener of Toddlers & Tiaras, I thought for a moment I was watching that old Kirstie Allie classic Drop Dead Gorgeous. Who ARE these people? I get wanting to strut your stuff on stage. I get wanting to see your daughter be told she's the best. I get wanting to make fat cash by exploiting the weaknesses of women who have done nothing with their lives other than procreate and have a desperate need to get a physical sign that they've done so well.

What I don't get is who gets up on a Saturday morning, dons a sequined cocktail dress, and spends their day evaluating the "sexiness and sparkle" of 4 year old girls in spray tans and hair pieces? These are attractive women in their twenties who must have had a better offer for their Friday night and Saturday morning than sitting in the ballroom of the Howard Johnson's judging the relative merits of some strip mall dentist's fake teeth and some overworked seamstress from the 3rd world's beadwork. Hell, I'm 5'2", 38, rarely wear makeup, and inherited my mother's ankles (or lack thereof) and *I* have better offers.

Then again, maybe I just lack sparkle.