Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum

[Ronja]

The thread is inspired by the news about catching the probable murder of JonBenet Ramsey after 10 years of investigation.

For these, who have never heard the story before (I personally read about it today for the first time): JonBenet was an American girl known of winning many children beauty contents. On 26th December 1996 her parents reported kidnap of their daughter, seven hours later one of the policemen found her asphyxiated in the cellar. It became one of the most famous death, fascinating Americans for years - Mr and Mrs Ramsey had their part in it, telling whole world about their pain, giving interviews, attending in talk-shows. After some time it turned out that police suspect parents of pretending the kidnap and killing the girl on their own. Now they found the man who pleaded that he killed the girl "by the accident" and says he "loved her". The case is still discussed in media.

But that's topic for another thread - why people are so interested in other's tragedies. What I started to wonder about is another thing - beauty contents for children. My view is simple - I generally find all beauty contents idiotic. Even more idiotic when it comes to children, as I have impression that it's the way to realizing parents' ill ambitions using children. When reading comments to the article I've read I noticed people see also another aspect of such competitions - presenting a child as a sexual object.

To show an example:

The girl in the photo is six years-old JonBenet Ramsey.

Firs thought is - child is a child and anybody finding it a sexual object is sick, no matter how much make-up she has on her face. But on the other hand - isn't it ill to organize such contents, dressing little girls like adult women...?

My question is - what's your view: just not very clever play or something more?
And what's your general opinion about beauty contents?

[Finaero]

I don't care about beauty contests, I only accept my terms of beautiful in my mind

And children have no place for me there... and not really anywhere else. I don't like kids so much. And I guess having own kid would just drive me nuts

[jarrekid]

I think child beauty contests are wrong.

[GeeJee]

I think child beauty contests are wrong.

Agreed. Kids or their parents should (have them) focus on other things.

[Livgivare]

I think it is really sad when the beauty-preassure goes down to the ages of 6 years old girls. As it is now, one girl can never look into the mirror without feeling the preassure that the rest of the fashion industry is giving out. So this is just part of that sick culture. And the other aspect of this is ofcause that children are seen as sex-objects that is so sick that make one with true feelings wanna puke. Why is it so hard today for a girl (and boys too for that matter) to just be yourself, feel good about the tallents you own and feel that you can contribute to this world in the positive way. Sooner or later we forget what it is to be happy I suspect!

Love Leelene

[Durden]

The girl in the photo is six years-old JonBenet Ramsey.

sick, dude

All child beauty contests should be banned. Think, they are children. In those contests they loose part of their free childhood, start acting like adults and become as objects. The innocence disappears. Beauty-pressure among contents and normal life is enormous. And that can lead to many problems: eating disordears, problems in pubertity, self esteem and so on.

For example, a few weeks ago, I watched Oprah show on finnish television. Oprah showed a 5-year old child, who was worried about her looks and (over)weight. The child watched some fashion wear catalogs and was always thinking her appearance. That was shocking.

In general, about beauty contents, I dont care much about them. All the women in those contests aren`t even pretty, you can find more beautyful women in normal life. All the nominees are always so similar, no personalities can be found. No one can remember last year`s Miss Finland. They are all the same to me. It is just a cattle show.

[Big time]

Children beauty contents??


PLAIN SICK!!!

[Velodynamic]

I think it's just horrible and sad from the beginning to the end.

[Jarp2600]

Yes it is. It's only good for people from the NVD.
When I was at primary school, make-up was prohibited there for children on my school. A good rule. I think!