Double Standard? Taylor Armstrong/Kardashians

When Russell Armstrong, husband of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (RHBH) star Taylor Armstrong, committed suicide this year, leaving a note blaming part of his depression on the reality TV show, Bravo network was flooded with  criticism and suggestions that they not air this season’s show (which documents, in part, the crumbling of the Armstrong marriage — it was filmed before the suicide). Bravo, stating their belief that the show was not responsible for Russell Armstrong’s death and that the show only depicted the truth of  Taylor Armstrong’s struggles in the face of a physically abusive relationship (though they did rush to re-cut the show to keep it from being too exploitive, according to reports). They stated that (essentially — I’m paraphrasing a bunch of press releases here), in keeping with the nature of reality TV,they felt that they had almost a responsibility to air the show to reveal the denial and confusion endemic of women from any economic class caught in the roller-coaster cycle  of domestic abuse. So far, what I have seen on the show reveals exactly what Bravo network said it would — a woman in crisis who refuses to acknowledge the domestic abuse to her friends on camera, but has apparently told them all off camera, leaving her cast members openly confused, concerned and uncomfortable around Russell in social situations. Two weeks ago, an episode of RHBH showed fellow cast member Camille Grammer, pushed openly by Taylor to confess why Camille was acting strangely  around Taylor, decided to address what Camille and the other cast members referred to as “the elephant in the room.” She openly “outed” Taylor’s “secret” (one that everyone aparently already knew) in a scene that was being filmed, causing Taylor to declare Camille (a former friend and confidante) her enemy, one who was seeking to destroy her. Camille, in her own defense, said that she had only brought to light what everyone already knew in an attempt to help her friend face the dire nature of her situation.

Now, it may well be true that Bravo network hit a dramatic goldmine in the unravelling of the Armstrong case (it turns out that Russell, who had made his money through such Internet ventures as the widely reported idea to allow people to access their medical records online — an idea that he apparently could not find enough backing for or something — anyway, it was driving him into bankruptcy. His partner in this venture committed suicide a few days after Russell, who had a history of domestic violence from his 1st marriage), there was no way that Bravo could have seen the suicide coming. While Taylor had filed for divorce shortly before the suicide, divorce is not uncommon on reality TV. And suicide is not exactly the most common response to a divorce filing. Most people (even TV celebs who are humiliated) seem to get though it, including Camille Grammer, whose husband’s betrayal of her was openly shown on RHBH last season.

In my opinion, Russell Armstrong had issues far beyond the stress of being on reality TV. And it does beg the question of why, if you know that you have dark secrets, would you agree to have your life filmed for a TV show?

Which brings me to the story being told on the latest installments of the Kardashian string of reality TV shows, Kourtney and Kim Take New York. Though this show clearly shows, in excruciating detail, the downfall of Kim and her new husband Chris’s  marriage as well as the serious problems in Kourtney’s relationship with her “baby Daddy”, Scott, I’ve yet to see anything to suggest that E! network NOT air the show in light of Kim and Chris’s divorce filing after 72 days of marriage and Kourtney’s annoucment of her 2nd out-ofwedlock pregnancy with Scott.  I hadn’t viewed the shows until recently, but the problems in both relationships are shown in MUCH more detail than anything on RHBH. And, to my mind at least, the problems in the Kardashian girl’s relationships seem clearly to stem from the girl’s treatment of their men. I was, in fact, a bit shocked with how open Kourtney is about the fact that she no longer sleeps in the same bed with her live-in beau — they take 2 rooms at a condo, 1 for Kourtney and their toddler and a separate room for Scott. Kicking your “husband” out of bed for 3 years after you have his baby is, like, marriage no-no 101. Granted, Scott has not been a model citizen in the past, but it seems like they are at a point where she should get over it or just move on — not keep him in limbo by banishing him to another bedroom for 3 years! He regularly takes off out of frustration and Kourtney doen’t seem to care much. Yet, they obviously did nothing in the way of prevention to keep her from having another baby with this man, who she (in my opinion) emasculates on a regular basis. Notice I did nothing to mention that most parening experts do not recommend keeping your child in your bed past the weaning phase. Even as an ardent feminist, I find the Kardasian girls (I’m talking Kim and Kourtney here…Knloe seems to respect her husband)behavior toward their men appalling.

Kim, for instance, from what I’ve seen so far, seems to have little respect for her husband’s NBA career. On the last episode, she told him that she would never, ever move to Minnesota, where he plays and trains in the off season. Didn’t they discuss this before their “fairy Tale Wedding”? Or didn’t they realize that Kim was a compulsive , self-confessed neat freak while Chris was more laid back on matters of housekeeping? From the show, it seems like they never even discussed how they would live, where they would live, when and how many kids they would have…in fact, it leaves one wondering if they talked about married life at all!

Yet no one is shocked by how brutally the show depicts either sister’s crumbling relationship (which, I’m sorry, makes the Kardashian girls look like spoiled brats). If Chris Humphries committed suicide, would there be a huge outcry about pulling the show? Just wondering…

(Sorry if Chris is spelled w/ a K like everyone else….)

It IS “Her” Day, After All (isn’t it?) or It’s All About the Wedding, Stupid!

I must admit that I have wanting to write about the bridal industry for some time (I wrote some in my “Bridalplasty” blog, but that was more about the extremes exhibited in that show and the ideals of “perfection”). The news that came out this week about Kim Kardashian’s 72 day marriage while the E! network was still re-running their wedding in a 2-part episode called “Kim’s Fairytale Wedding” has given me the perfect excuse to voice my issues about the way weddings are handled in the media. Between the 2 televised Kardashian weddings that we’ve seen in the past year, plus Say Yes to the Dress, Say Yes to the Dress, Atlanta, Four Weddings, Say Yes….Bridesmaids, Say Yes…(plus size) (all on TLC),  The Bachelor and Bachelorette franchise (which are supposed to lead to marriage) as well as all the other shows (the cake shows etc) that emphasize marriage as “the most important day in a girl’s life,” I’m starting to feel like we are returning to the mid 20th century, where unmarried women were still considered “spinsters” (which implied that you were either frigid, impossible to live with, dreadfully unattractive or a lesbian — though that possibility was not spoken of at the time).

Watching the footage of the Kardasians’ reality show leading up to Kim’s wedding could not help but make me think that many of the signs of marital disaster were already present prior to the ceremony (hindsight being 20/20, of course). The groom was annoyed by almost every stage of the wedding planning and quite offended that Kim was not going to take his name (a decision that wasn’t made until they were actually signing the marriage certificate) and the way that his bride-to-be was sooo attached to her family and especially her career. It seems like these were things that should have been worked out and compromised on prior to taking their vows. But that could just be my opinion — all I know is that the name changing thing is something that , in my case, was discussed well in advance of the engagment, as was my involvment in my career, yes or no on kids and when we’d want to start that etc…

It just seems to me that many of these shows — either the reality shows or the strictly bridal ones — place so much emphasis on the wedding itself while neglecting the important thing: the marriage, which is supposed to last the rest of one’s life. On Say Yes to the Dress ,the bridal consultants repeat over & over (almost like a mantra) that this is the most important day in a girl’s life and that she needs to choose the “perfect” dress in order to achieve her dream of happiness. Many of the brides-to-be come in with pictures cut from one of the slew of bridal magazines out there, stating that they have dreamed of this day their whole lives. Regularly, relatives of all kinds are reminded that this is the BRIDE’S day and she should have what she wants. Fathers regularly blow thousands of dollars more than they had intended to purchase the dress that their “little princess” has her heart set on. The brides on Four Weddings compete with each other to see who has the best wedding, most of them spending $20-$50K on their “big day.”

Now, in general, I have nothing against marriage…except that these shows give the impressoion that, like a Disney movie, the couple lives happily ever after. They emphasize the wedding SO much that they don’t seem to consider  that the 2 people have fifty plus years to deal with after the party is over. Kim Kardashian is the perfect example (of course, celebrities are different from you & me….they can blow a million or more on a wedding and not have their parents after them with shotguns when the marriage only lasts 72 days).

Just like the diet &fitness industries, the makeup & skin care industries, the plastic surgery/injectibles industry, the wedding industry exists to make money. Did our parents hire wedding planners? Did the girls think that they were unloved if Poppa wouldn’t spring for the $8,000 dress? Yet the divorce rate is higher…it seems to climb higher even as the weddings continue to mushroom in size and cost. In my opinion, the industry is selling it…and we’re buying it, no questions asked.

And Here I was Gonna Write about Kat Von D…

I’ve wanted to write about the complexities of Kat Von D for some time now.. as some type of new Renaissance woman who worked in a traditionally male world, yet was still hyper-make up&heels feminine…sort of questioning if she would have had her own show if she hadn’t dated Nikki Sixx, been a size 6 etc. With her reality show suddenly coming to a close, I figured  NOW was the time (LA Ink was/is her reality show on A&E, in its 4th year).

So, Kat Von D, my latest media darling (despite the fact that I’m a Norwegian who recoils at the thought of getting a tattoo). When I started watching LA Ink this season, I had no idea that it had been cancelled (or, more disturbingly, in my opinion, that Kat had pulled the plug herself to marry her new sweetheart). Last season ended with Kat expanding her shop and opening an art gallery next door.  Though she had lost her best friend and “go-to” tattoo artist, she was moving forward, doing okay (“Right on!” I thought, “She really doesn’t need the man to make a go of her shop!”). She had even re-done the murals on the exterior of her tattoo parlor – symbolizing a new beginning for all of her employees. Her shop was THE prestige shop to work at in LA., hands down.

I’m still a bit dismayed… as the clips leading up to the last 4 shows would have us believe, Kat is going to close her extremely successful tattoo shop in L.A. and move to Texas to be with her new fiance, Jesse-James(the biker who divorced Sandra Bullock & at least one other woman).

Now, I have no problem with true love & all that (well, actually I do, but I DO know people that have stayed together and genuinely seem to adore each other 20+ years down the line…so it does seem to work for some people. I just think that it is much rarer find than our culture would have us believe — the “there’s someone out there for everyone” idea. My experience has taught me that the pusuit of romantic love has ruined many a great woman’s life!

This year, as I watched LA Ink , it seemed like this new “in-love” Kat was a different woman than I’d seen in previous seasons…slightly distracted, somehow, from her spectacular gift as a portrait artist (her portrait tattoos, in my opinion, are absolutely unmatched). Now, granted, her views of life may have changed given the loss of her beloved house & cat in a fire, but this was a woman who last year had a pact with her previous boyfriend (Nikki Sixx) that she did not want marriage or children. She repeatedly stated (even in the show’s opening) “Tattooing is my life.” Then, suddenly, this season, she showed up all atwitter about designing her wedding dress and helping to raise Jesse’s kids (she also took in a homeless “daughter” of her own).

 

See, I like this “take a walk on the wild side” woman (this was an ad that ran on Sephora for one of her perfumes — the other was “Sinner”), who was tattooed head to toe, ran her own business w/ 98%male employees (simply because most women are not raised to pursue tattoo art– there’s a shortage of them; it’s still a male-dominated industry), spun it into a TV show but could still love makeup and perfume and be featured on the homepage of Sephora. And she was a poor kid from Mexico who recv’d recognition for her ART, not her romantic dalliances (Nikki Sixx came later, after Kat was already established at her shop, L.A. Ink.)

To me, she was a striking (and refreshing) contrast to the Paris Hiltons, Heidi Montags, Lauren Conrads and even Snooki types who seemed to be dominating the airwaves as either celebutantes or silly bimbos. Those girls seemed to me to divide neatly into the old-fashioned, tried and true view of women into “two types”(the Madonna/whore thing).  Kat had a talent, she was a trendsetter and (in some ways like Lady Gaga) represented girls who’d never fit “into the box.”

This season, to see her show up “transformed” by love to the point where it looks like she’s willing to close down her shop to move to Texas to be with her true love, was really disappointing to me. To some, I’m sure it seems to point to a happy ending (the Disney kind), but to me it seemed to send a message that a woman was “incomplete” somehow until her Prince Charming came along. The fact that he “dumped” her — tho rumors have them back together now, so in a way it’s beside the point, other than illustrating the risks that women take when they “throw it all away” for true love. I don’t know a woman my age who doesn’t feel like they’d be SO much more successful in life if they had pursued their talent with the energy with which they’d pursued the white-picket-fence dream (in whatever permutation) of a husband and children. Personally, I turned down some fabulous Grad-school offers to stay near my long-term boyfriend — only to have him move several states away from me because he got a killer, career-advancing offer from a band (he was a musician). For me, it was too late. I’d turned down all 5 of the prestige-school offers (“full ride” offers to live on campus and study writing with some of the greats). Within a few months, boyfriend& I weren’t together, his band had fallen apart and I was stuck with a lousy offer at the University of Michigan. I’m know SO many women of my generation (or even my mother’s) who have a similar story.

Not that men don’t make choices they regret, based on their idea of what they had to do to be a “man”(joining the military, for example — not that I’m implying that all, or even many, regret it…). It’s just different. What women sacrifice for romance just seems to me…I don’t know, you tell me! There may be a DNA component in terms of wanting children, but Donald Trump has kids, too, right? Why does it seem to be such an either/or for so many of us?

Or is my whole argument blown because Kat Von D is still a skinny girl with a beautiful face that makes her “media acceptable”? Or is it some kind of mid-point?

Sweet Dishonesty(or Sex, 70′s Style)

I hope that this image is clear enough for all of you to make out the details! It is a picture of a mid-1970′s Avon powder container, showing the image they used to market their hip, new “young” fragrance, “Sweet Honesty”. As you can see, it depicts 2 young people in a natural setting, seemingly in love and, in my reading of the image, looking as if they’d just had some variety of “splendor in the grass.” Neither of them is dressed provacatively — in fact the girl is very conservatively dressed . The photo is, in fact, downright wholesome by today’s standards. And, to be fair, it is perfectly innocent. Just 2 young people taking a walk in nature as the sun is setting. So maybe it’s just me.  Maybe it’s just word association. But every time I look at it I laugh, because it reminds me so much of that old ’70s song “Sometimes When We Touch” (you know the one…”sometimes when we touch, the honesty’s too much/ and I have to close my eyes and cry/…I wannna hold ya til I die/til we both break down and cry/I wanna hold ya til the fear in me subsides…”). It’s a really, really drippy song (sorry, those of you that like it…to me it epitomizes the very worst of the “free love” anthems from the time….the guy is so “moved” by the end of the song, he breaks into a falsetto that sounds as if he is really ready to weep over the “honesty” he feels when he “touches” his lover).

To me, this Avon image is suggestive of the same kind of thing. Remember, this was a time when sex was being taken from the “dirty hippie” image of free love and being introduced by Madison Avenue to the mainstream as a pure, natural expresssion of love between two (always young and beautiful…the chubby or over 20 set neeed not apply) people. Everything, from Herbal Essence shampoo to musk oil to moccasins to denim and muslim was being marketed as “the closer to nature, the better”. The idea of “getting back to the garden” (of Eden..part of the chorus to the song “Woodstock” which captured the spirit of the whole deal) was being co-opted as a selling tool for those of us who missed the fleeting “Summer of Love” or the mudbath at Woodstock. So if you take a fragrance, call it “Sweet Honesty” and depict 2 slightly dishevelled young people holding hands as they emerge from some remote setting, am I wrong to think that one might asssume they’d just engaged in some…honest communication of maybe the intimate kind? Why the remote setting if all they were doing was talking? “Sweet” has an obvious inference to romance, as does the hand holding (he, of course, is leading her). And they seem a bit euphoric to have just been on a stroll (just my opinion…I’m sure no one at Avon ever had such impure thoughts… but they were trying to be “not just your Grandma’s Avon” anymore). Maybe the guy in the ad just told a great joke….but then why isn’t it called “Sweet Humor”? I’m sorry, but I think the implication is pretty clear. And remember, this was during the very brief period of years AFTER the pill, but before any STDs of note (other than the rare, curable ones) made sex a dangerous thing with consequences. There wasn’t even herpes yet(that the general public knew about). This is around the time an X rated movie won an Academy Award for Best Picture!

I guess what I found so striking is 1) how short this time period was 2) how quickly Madison Avenue jumped on the “Age of Aquarius” bandwagon for Middle America 3) how “sex sells” in all time and in all places 4)how they always sneak that subliminal subtext in there. We’ve all seen the ads that have been dissected to show positioning of fruit, etc. to illustrate subliminal sexual images in advertising and I just wonder if anything is really different now or if it’s just more out in the open? Am I reaching here?

Big Love, Sister Wives & Idealism

As many of you may already know, I’m fascinated by polygamy — not as a religious concept, but as a practical way to live. Leaving religion out totally (I have no desire to offend anyone, nor do I intend to discuss marriage from MY religious POV) even monogamous marriage in the 21st century often seems troublesome to me anyway, given the divorce rate. I’m not sure that I’ve been to a wedding where the parties involved are still in the union that they swore to uphold before God, family & every one else. So, up front, you should know I have issues with taking these sacred vows that seem to mean :” that is, so long as we still love each other and don’t have any major issues.” Or, “we swear to these things so long as we remain exactly as we are today”(as if people don’t age, change, bicker, have financial difficulty, job problems, issues with children, find out that their spouse isn’t who they thought they were or doesn’t become who they’d intended to be or people living together just plain get sick of each other etc.). Life is chalk-full of curve balls and we all change. We disagree. And if there is one thing that I think we could all work on, it’s agreeing to disagree gracefully (or accepting others opinions as something other than personal attacks). Somehow this idea that being married means that you’ll always see eye-to-eye, won’t change, not become bitter, not go through long stretches of disliking your mate, always be sexually attracted… you all know what I mean…essentially, that you’ll stay in the romantic stage forever, sort of undermines the idea of taking a vow in the first place. In my opinion, the whole reason that you take the vow is because it’s a given that these things WILL happen, and you take a vow that you’ll tough it out regardless. Otherwise, why not just go from one romantic stage relationship to another in a serial fashion? Why take the “for better and for worse” vow if things are never going to get worse, sometimes horribly worse?

Not that I don’t understand that there are circumstances where divorce becomes necessary (I’m divorced…though I never was the one who “pulled the plug” , so to speak). I don’t judge it at all. I’d just like to explore and be open to looking at why so many kids have it so tough and why there are so many single mothers working their tails off (literally, into the grave, since stress-related disease is killing us off in record numbers) to provide a home for our kids. We could look at myriad reasons (since cultural phenomenons tend to have myriad reasons), but right now, I happen to be interested in looking at some form of idealized polygamy (conceptually, of course).

I guess this comes from the fact that, until very, very recently, a normal,middle class woman (which is not to get into the fact that the requirements for middle class have changed drastically) had help around the house. A maid or nanny was a given, even as late as the time that I grew up (which is about the time that they began to get phased out). The idea that even a non-working woman was supposed to take care of the house AND the children was unheard of in the middle class (lower class women have always had it rough…but even they often had relatives nearby, or even living with them). At the very least, there was a cleaning person, a yard person, laundry was sent out, tailoring was sent out, tutors were common, etc. A woman was not expected to bring a newborn home and take care of the baby, the other kids, the housework, the cooking, the laundry etc. A nanny or help around the house was something a middle class woman could EXPECT. Now it’s a luxury reserved for the upper class.

Which brings me to this idealized form of polygamy that fascinates me. I say idealized because I recognize that, like anything else, there have been so many abuses that it is hard to see the concept for what it is, or could be. Since no one has the money for hired help anymore and we all live so far away from our relatives or have become so intolerant that we couldn’t stand to have them stay with us, having a sister wife begins to look pretty good to me. Image having around to care for you and your kids when you were ill simply in return for you doing the same for her. Or

having someone run your errands while she was out in return for you doing hers while you were out. And trading off grocery shopping weeks, or dinner-cooking days. I’m not really sure that polygamy is REALLY what I’m grasping for, but I really do like the concept of sister wives. Because it takes more than one woman to do all that is needed in a home. At this point, I wouldn’t mind sharing a husband at all, since it turns out that in my supposedly monogamous marriages, I was doing that anyway, without the benefit of help w/ the kids or the house! At my age, I’d be happy to let a man support me and get his ******somewhere else (since I’ve accepted that that would probably be the case, anyway…the most beautiful women in the world, as we know, often have issues w/ faithful husbands), especially if she was around to help me and my kids.

Since I happen to be heterosexual, I don’t want a female “partner” in that sense. I want a sister-wife (or two). It has nothing to do with Mormonism(who are not the only practitioners of plural marriage in the world). I know it’s been popular in the media, and I see the potential problems, as well as the sexist roots. But what if the man was not the “spiritual” leader? What if it wasn’t a religious thing, but a practical one? I’m talking about some kind of situation where women help other women. Is it possible? Could we set aside our jealousy and (let’s face it, culturally we were positioned this way) pettiness to bond together and make each other’s lives easier? Thoughts?

I Know Motherhood is Biology, but…

Serene, right? My friend Mary, who couldn’t have been more than 19 or 20 at the time, reading to her darling toddler. I saw this picture when her daughter posted it on Facebook and wrote, “Mary, get that that picture off of there! It’ll make teens everywhere want to have babies!” Of course, I was only half kidding. I’ve spent all month exhausted with all of the details of trying to get my own 18 year old ready to graduate High School (he has “senioritis” and can barely stand to go to his, admittedly, dreadful HS everyday, making up classes he missed and dealing w/ girls and basic teenage BS that just a few years ago, he would have been right in the middle of…I mean, weren’t most of us “over it” by Senior year?) and it’s a lot of WORK. There’s the college stuff…the FAFSA, the SAT/ACT, the applications, the research. And then there’s the announcments, the class ring, the checking on final credits, getting all these people at his school to do their job. It just seems like a lot…but at least, after 13 years, the public school thing will be over. And it’s been a struggle from day one. I’m sure everyone has their own horror stories of their kid’s school problems, but I’ve had to retain an attorney to deal w/ his school for 2 years because the schools are so bad here. I don’t know if I would have made it through in today’s public school systems…so many RULES! I believe him when my son says the place is like a prison.  Then, there’s my friend T.B., who (at 50) has a 6 year old w/ behavioral issues in the first grade. The work he doesn’t get done at school eats what’s left of her life, not to mention the times that she has to go and get him from the principal’s(sp?) office. And Mary’s kids? All of them have gotten past high school, but the one pictured above (now 30 something) just broke up w/ her boyfriend of 7 years and moved back in w. Mom,who already had her 20 year old 3rd child w/ her and just got her 1st grandchild placed back with the mother (Mary’s 2nd child, who is in her late 20s). And these are just 2 of my friends and I. And we’re all 50.

It really is the job that never ends. We couldn’t all have been bad mothers, and none of us are at all alike when it comes to childrearing. What we do have in common is the perennial question of where’s the father? I’d had my child at 32, after being married for 2 years. T.B. had her child at 43, with a man she’d been with for 20 years. Mary’s girls have different fathers and she started when she was a teenager. Still, all of the fathers are gone by now.  Both Mary and I had other men in the picture for awhile, but they’re gone , too. So we remain, at 50, single moms. All of us have different family backgrounds,so you can’t blame it on the way we were raised. Yet, something is wrong with this whole picture. We’re mother’s for life (Mary dreams of the day when she’ll be an adult without a child at home) , so why aren’t the father’s “dads for life” in quite the same way? Yes, I know there are men out there who actually ARE, but frankly, I don’t know any. Not in quite the same way.

And this pattern seems to continue. Looking at the girls on Teen Mom 2, the father’s always seem to feel like their participation is an option for them. And the girls have no idea that these days, anyway, very few of us have “empty nest” until we’re quite advanced in years. And sure, part of it is economics and the fact that kids seems to grow up slower (that prolonged adolescence thing they tell us about on the news). But Mary’s oldest was on her own for many, many years and then the divorce hits her and she’s back at Mom’s. These Teen Mom girls (who I see coming over to my house all the time with their little bundles of joy), in my opinion, have no idea that it really, really is such a game-changer. That you’ll be doing it when you’re 50.That you’ll be struggling through college (at whatever age) with a child making airplane noises in the background, or worrying about them drinking or (god forbid) getting a girl pregnant or getting pregnant  (are they gonna live at Dad’s house? With his new wife? Tell me if I’m wrong, but I think not). No wonder our careers get cut short, or we struggle just to make money enough for all the stuff our kids need, while the state says that Dad can chip in a few hundred a month and he’s good (that’s if he pays it!) Is it the law? Seriouslly, is there any way to legislate our way out of being the one at the emergency room at 2 AM while Dad goes home because his work is “more important”? If he’s there at all? If he even knows?

I don’t mean to sound like I’m on a giant rant, but between my kid and talking through the issues my girlfriend’s have with their kids, I started to think about if fathers spent this much of their life on the endless details of raising a human being. Or do they get by with a passing “Yeah, my kid’s fine. He’ll be in 2nd grade next year”? Why has so little changed (or gotten worse)? Excuse me for using non-media images, but what we see on TV w/ these reality shows is too much like it really is…or maybe I’m wrong. Please, anyone, thoughts?

Beauty:A Matter of Economics

This Sunday, they had a marathon of Toddlers & Tiaras on TLC. One of the things that struck me that really hadn’t hit me before (catching snippets of the show here and there, as I usually do) was the economics of the whole thing. I guess it’s easy enough to get get caught up in the shock value of seeing 2, 4 & 6 year olds wearing makeup, false eyelashes, spray tans & in some cases, what I’d consider showgirl-wear(the glittery halter bras…one episode even showed a toddler wearing a copy of the John-Paul Gautier Madonna bra…you remember: the pointy gold bullseye boobs out-to -there one? It’s in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame.). And I’ve always wondered why a little girl contest needed a swimwear competition. Its just creepy….the little girls don’t even have figures yet (still, God, forbid they’re “overweight”). And we feminists, back in the day, fought to get swimsuits out of Miss America…one of our more popular stances.

Then, I always get hung up on the parents that believe that (as one mom said), “Competition is good for the soul!” I could write a whole blog about competition, because  I have issues with Americans’ fixation on competition and the way it is used to “normalize” us into certain molds with pre-determined symbols of success — grades, certain types of jobs, Ivy League schools, cetain standards of beauty (since studies have shown that “attractive” people do better in job interviews etc.). Yet competition is a reality as you get older. BUT I have as many issues with ideas & systems that reward everyone. I mean, what would happen if everyone who submitted a record demo or book manuscript got a record contract or was published? I couldn’t buy & read every book that everyone ever submitted, so there has to be some kind of filter. I also know that I worked my tush off for my college degrees, and the competitive awards I recieved meant that I never had to pay for school. I’m not implying that grades and essays are the “thing” for everyone…I’m just saying that I suspect that everyone excells at SOMETHING and at some point, we’ll all have to compete….because I DO want the best mechanic working on my car and I DO want the best possible surgeon doing brain surgery on me, not just some person who barely made it through medical school. But at 2 or 4? About beauty? And some hokey “talent?” And being a better show-off and booty shaker? (Not that good booty-shakers don’t have their place, later on…)

But, as one mother pointed out, it seemed like the rich kids always won because they could afford to have professional coaches, buy really expensive gowns, get the best makeup& hair people etc. You could tell they were rich by looking at how the parents were dressed, what they drove, their luggage and all the basic signs of affluence. (Tangent:I’d defend the show because it allows me to understand some of the cultural values that drive all facets of this bizarre world.  It takes a person like me inside a multi-billion dollar industry that exists right under my nose but I know nothing about ( for instance, I had no idea that the director of one of these pageants can make upwards of $200,000 per pageant), which doesn’t even include the ancillary businesses of the dressmakers, trainers, spray-tanners, makers of “flipper” teeth etc. and with a half million girls nationwide participating in these pageants, it really is a large subculture.) Just think about the most famous 6 yr old beauty queen in history, the late Jon Benet Ramsey. She came from a mega-rich family (one has to be rich, by my standards, to even live in Boulder, Colorado, where I went to Grad. school& most of the professors could not afford to live anywhere even near campus.) What hit home about this mother’s comment was how true this remains throughout most women’s lives. It takes a lot of money to be considered refined and beautiful in our culture. Look at the ridiculous prices of cosmetics& at-home skin care products. I’m not even talking about salon facials, waxed eyebrows, salon haircolor, extensions and professionally done manicures or the retail price of clothes at even, say, a store like Kohls (which is supposed to be a lower-end store). Then, as you get older, all the youth stuff like Botox, facial resurfacing, brow lifts, Restalin…who can afford that stuff? No wonder there is no Real Housewives of Toledo, Ohio.  Even the diet industry, which pushes how easy it is to lose weight on Jennie Craig, fails to mention how terribly expensive their program is (I used to work at a Jennie Craig when I was a size 6 and got to be a manager because I could get women to plop down hundreds to thousands of dollars because they assumed I was tiny because of Jennie Craig…I failed to mention the prescription diet pills that I’d been taking since I was 13, which were expensive enough, but at least you didn’t have to buy food (sick joke). Yes, I quit over a guilty conscience).

The point is, they’ve got us coming & going. To “score” a rich husband, you’ve gotta be model-pretty. To get a good job, you have to be “well put together” — you know, well groomed (salon) & well dressed (probably beyond Kohls level). God help you if you go to an interview like one of those “before” ladies on What Not to Wear.

I promised myself I’d write less, but just as a final comment, there was one mom/kid combo who had to go to the estranged dad for money for pageant stuff, which he thought was a stupid waste of money. As they were driving to go see him, the mother was coaching the toddler on how to squeeze cash out of her father. Her advice? “Give him your ”pretty” face” “Put your arms around his neck” “Pout a little” “You know he can’t say no to you!” Long-term lesson? Use your “feminine wiles” at all times to get what you want…

And I’ll be the first to plead guilty.