Would you like your young daughter to be the next Dream Girl USA?
July 4th, 2008 by Erich ViethIf you’d like your young daughter to be the next Dream Girl USA, take a look at this photo essay published by the St. Louis Riverfront Times. The National Little Miss Dream Girl Pageant gave this photographer wide access to many aspects of the pageant.
These photos contained in the slide shows tell it all: exploited children, numerous frumpy mothers, most mothers with bizarre values, absent fathers, and a sponsoring organization that works hard to over-sexualize little girls. It’s a story that has been told repeatedly, yet many people keep supporting this sort of activity.
For a comment on the sexualization of young girls, see this previous post.
November 16th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Erich, You just proved that any so called “journalist” can write just about anything they want….but it doesn’t make it true though. Dream Girls USA Pageants has a 13 year solid reputation and our website speaks for itself. REAL GIRLS WITH REAL GOALS…. These girls and families enjoy a positive forum to participate and they’ve clocked in literally thousands of hours of community service hours as we promote community involvement. I’m also a big supporter of performing arts and we showcase strong talent at our events. Our fun free workshops help the girls work on public speaking an interview skills…skills for lifetime success. The slideshows on Dream Girls USA Pageants website tells a story and shows real girls having fun and on the go! It isn’t all about winning a pageant Erich. We promote a well rounded girl. To any journalist who loves to sensationalize pageantry, “all pageants are not created equal”. I’ve been called by dozens of TV shows and I always say no because the MEDIA loves to always put a negative slant on any pageant, just like you show in your “review” which was brought to my attention from one of our families who love to be a part of our “program”. You ought to hear what they thought of YOU….
November 16th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Melissa: I’m happy to post your comment–I’ll even post the website to “Dream Girls USA.” http://www.dreamgirlsusapageant.com/home
We will simply have to agree to disagree, I’m afraid.
I think that women and girls have better things to do than this: http://www.dreamgirlsusapageant.com/2008_national_pageant
There is good reason to think that by sexualizing young girls, that you are warping their priorities away from accomplishing important things later in life. You talk about skills, but I think that the 2 minutes you give each girl for “skills” is unimpressive. I’d love to see your judges’ scorecards, to see how much of it relates to physical appearance. I’ll bet that appearance is the overall focus of your pageant. It certainly seems to be, based on your website. In my opinion, appearance (at least, the appearance based on wearing princess dresses and tiaras) shouldn’t be important at all.
Looking at my original post, I shouldn’t have called some of the mothers “frumpy.” That was a low blow. What I was trying to suggest is that the mothers were pressuring their daughters to live the MOTHER’s dreams. It seems so obvious and counter-productive to me.