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Hello, everyone. And welcome back to America under the Microscope, advanced episode. Hi Lulu.

Hi, James.

So we're gonna continue our talk about beauty pageants, and we're gonna focus kind of on the issues behind it.

Oh, I have so much to say about that. I was really holding myself back in the basic episode. But before we do that, let's do a disclaimer, if any of you have participated or are participating or are going to send your kid to participate in any of these pageantries, we are not against you, we are just sharing our general thoughts.

Ok, 保命的宣言说完了，let's get into it, so what do you think are some of the problems with pageantry.

Moms.

Like moms who forced their daughters…

So pageant moms, we actually call them pageant moms.

Oh, okay.

There are some parents that they like a normal parent would encourage their kids to try things, they have them to the pageants, but they don't take it overly seriously. It's like they try it like they help with the makeup a little bit，but they don't make it a serious affair, but there are some pageant moms that this is their job, their focus is to get their child to win.

What's in it for them though? Is it money? They don't win a lot of money.

No, vicarious satisfaction, living through their children.

Oh, actually I think a lot of them like they probably were really pretty when they were young or they did pageants or failed actress maybe.

There could be lots of reasons. You also could just be a straight up narcissism. And so what some of these moms do or these parents do is like they force their kids to unhealthy diet, and to make sure they stay a suitable weight or suitable body size for the pageant, which is something you should not do with children.

Especially if we're talking about preschoolers or kids that are very young, they haven't even gone through puberty if you ask them to diet to that extent.

And then there have been cases from parents forced their kids to get plastic surgery and Botox injections…

Ouch, that's got to be illegal though, as child abuse.

Hard to prove.

But yeah, it pretty much is, so I mean this isn't unique to pageants because there are parents like this for every kind of child extracurricular activity.

Because imagine out of this, I can think of like they’re parents pushed their kids to play piano so much, or they’re parents who push their kids to play so much basketball or things.

Well, I mean even if it's talking about tiger mom example forcing your kid to play musical instruments, but at least you're not torturing your kids, outright torturing your kids by subjecting your kids to some sort of unnecessary surgical procedure, that is crazy.

Me personally…I don't mind the idea of beauty pageants if you just like ok so for the kids minimum make up you can't… it's like I mean you can't really do anything else other than that. It's like I've seen people make their children wear false teeth because their teeth are still missing, it’s like they are kids, they are 6-year-old, they're supposed to be missing teeth.

Yeah, so that's the other problem because like we talked about in the basic episodes, this whole pageantry no matter what age group you always have this very, very mature makeup, kids were dolled up like adults.

So it's… this whole sexualized children in a way, that is really disturbing.

That is one of the biggest critiques of beauty pageants is the objectifying of women, and especially for the younger ages because it basically turning the girls into dolls and making them act and dress much more maturely.

Yep.

So like you don't want your 7-year-old daughter to dress like a 21-year-old.

Especially thinking about from the safety point of view, this might attract really dangerous attention from the dangerous crowd.

So that's a huge criticism and a lot of people have problems with it, for this reason, so it's highly objectifying and this is kind of icky.

And apart from that, I would think it's also very costly if you have to keep going to these tournaments.

I was actually surprised to find out how much it costs, thousands of dollars, because you got to pay for the clothing, the styling, the makeup, the classes, because…

There are pageantry classes.

There are pageantry classes that teach you things like how you should smile, how you should wave, how you should walk, which is really going like above and beyond;

and not only that, it’s some parents will travel really far to go to these events because they're not held everywhere, and then you have to pay for that and got pay for the coaches, so it is a very money intensive activity.

Yeah, I would think because there is a demand, there will be people obviously profiting on it, for example like coaches. And then sometimes I also think it's probably then you got like a small circle of pageant moms. And there's probably a lot of in fights, because you see that with any type of competition where kids get involved and parents get involved, be it mathlete or be it any sort of musical contest.

Well, you can actually get examples of this in America because there are documentaries on this. They have documentaries on pageants and pageant moms. If you're interested you could go find them online and watch them and see what the whole situation is like.

James, you're a Dad. I know you have a son, but if you had a daughter, would you be willing to agree to your daughter being in a beauty pageant?

If it's her decision, yes. But I wouldn't go full on like insane beauty modification steps. I would say like ok you can do it, we're gonna keep things a bit more nature; and then if you win, you win, if you don't, you don’t.

So it's basically like a Zen, more like a Zen state of mind. Are there any more natural beauty pageants.

Yes, there are. These are starting to show up, especially for younger kids, there are now beauty pageants that have specific rules about no makeup or no hair product. So you can like tie up the hair, bow braid and all that stuff that you can't like…

Put on heavy makeup.

Put on heavy makeup, you can't do like wax and stuff in the hair and things like that.

Spray.

Yeah, and then there are ones that have very specific rules about what kind of clothing can do in it, so that they are wearing more age appropriate.

Yeah, I mean the problem I have with child participating in beauty pageant is that I don't think it's good for their self-esteem, I mean if you get judged on merits like whether you are a good piano player or football player that's fine, or if you do well in math, that's like efforts; but being judged on how you look when you are five or six or even ten, that’s gonna… if someone finds you beautiful that probably just really goes to your head.

But if someone finds you not beautiful enough, that's gonna really mess you up. But as we're approaching the end of today's discussion, I would like to talk about something that's moving away from girls beauty pageants.

Men.

Yes.

Where are the men?

It's not really just men's beauty pageants, I know that's not a thing. But earlier on, you mentioned objectification of women and they are some rare occasions that men are being objectified, quite openly.

Yeah, they’re a few, so like we think of things in America like this like the firefighter calendars.

The firefighter calendars, like usually shirtless.

Shirtless, very muscular, fit men on calendars, and then they do things for charity, but they also do things like auctions where you can buy their time.

Isn’t that just a bit escort service though?

That cost extra.

But maybe it's more like PG version, like have a coffee together.

It’s supposed to be like have a dinner with them, so it's like you auction, you can have a dinner with them. It's all above board, it's not…

Yeah, I mean, you talk about firefighters and that's like very stereotypical objectification, at least in America or in some of the western countries.

But I always remember in Rome once, I saw this calendar for like attractive priests, they look good though. They really look good on the calendar. Again, it's also selling calendar, I think it's all for fundraising.

It is all for fundraising. It's all the way to make money for various charities.

Yeah, we're not doing double standard here. It's just that because it happens much rarer than objectification of women, and then they're doing it, I think willingly as an adult. So I have no problem with that.

And the other thing because earlier on we said all these beauty pageants, the let's say we mentioned a word queen like Prom Queen or Rodeo Queen that sort of thing.

We need the other kind of queen.

Yes, and that is…

The Drag Queen.

The Drag Queen.

So this is one kind of beauty pageant there exists for men is Drag competitions.

It's men dressed up as women.

It's men dressed up as women and they will go to the nines, hair, makeup dresses, heels, everything, talent, no bikini part, but usually, you might get a lot of hairy bellies that way.

Yeah, and some people think it's really weird and sexual, but it really isn't. It's just because a lot of guys do it for fun. I know some people do it for just because they think it's cathartic in a way.

Honestly, I think in a weird way, I actually know that even in China now there are now like the Drag Queen Competition, so to speak, probably more underground because I'm not sure how acceptable it is. But the whole idea is almost like embracing body positivity really I find that very relaxing, watching them and seeing them strutting around.

Ok, and we're not gonna go more into the Drag discussion. If you are interested in any of the things that we said or share any form of views or if you want to disagree, share with us in the comment section what you think. And again we're not against anyone, so if you are involved or ever involved in beauty pageants this is not against you.

Leave us a comment, don't hate us. Thank you James for coming to the studio.

Thank you for having me.

We'll see you next time.

Bye everyone.

Bye.