Monday, December 10, 2007

From Cute To Creepy, In 4 Easy Steps!

I don't know where this comes from originally, but apparently it's a piece of salesmanship from some American children's pageant photographer. See how you can take a perfectly cute normal child, photoshop the natural right out of them and make them look like a 'glitzy' child/adult automaton! In just 4 easy steps!



I admit that I bring my own prejudice to this, because I think the child pageant scene is wrong on so many levels. However, my point being do you see much of the child is left? I sure don't.

12 comments:

Thombeau said...

I saw another site (for one of my previous kiddie-pageant posts) where they show even more in-depth how they make the eyes larger, lips fuller, etc. It was so very freakish and rather horrifying. These really are the End Times.

Cecilia said...

And they are advertising this as something people would want to pay them money to do? Disturbing. She doesn't even look alive in the last picture.

Mel said...

I think you're missing the point. They don't want to see the child at the end of it. They want a whore-doll, and that's just what they get.

Paul said...

The final picture reminds me of that Chucky doll in those horror movies. Very sad.

The Other Andrew said...

Yeah, maybe that is true that they don't want to see a CHILD at the end of it. Or maybe they do, but some stylised Bratz-meets-Hummel figurine version of a child. I think maybe the sky is falling...

Ur-spo said...

she looks like she just came out of the oven of the Wicked witch in hansel and gretel story.

bernard said...

Mel - get with it!

whore-doll sounds so... yesterday.

I believe the current term (and there was much discussion of this at a party I went to adelaide for this weekend past) is "Prosti-tot" (hyphen optional).

Goes well with the "kiddie pole dancing kit" sold last year (for a little while before they were pulled after public outrage) by K-Mart.

Anonymous said...

Stepford Kids......aaaiiiieee!

At least having the first picture there shows there was a real human child behind all the Photoshop gloss. I'm fascinated from a purely anthropological point of view by people whose aesthetic sense is so degraded they find such transformations an improvement. It's the same impulse (and probably the same people) that buys those Thomas Kincaid pictures of insanely twee of cottages, twinkling in the snow.

Fran Carleton said...

'Full glitz' looks like a Barbie doll not a child and the (usually) lardy mothers need to stop projecting onto their kids.

Whenever I think of pagents from now I will always remember the final scenes in Little Miss Sunshine when the unmade up girl gets up and does a strip tease that her grandad taught her. Too funny and real!

The Other Andrew said...

I think the whole aesthetic actually is designed to make them less like children. The capped and false teeth, the make up, the adult styled hair and accessories...

I wouldn't doubt that there is definately plenty of sublimation going on here on behalf of the parents. Living out their own fantasies of being 'beautiful'. Plus good old fashioned competitiveness.

I know they argue the kids WANT to do it, but really you only have to see the documentary footage to see how much coercion / guilt / threatening goes on to get these kids to toe the line. The behind the scenes pics show way more dead eyed and bored kids than I'm comfortable with.

worldpeace and a speedboat said...

it's the glassy shiny dead doll eyes that freak me out the most. and that's saying a lot because the rest of it freaks me out immeasurably.

what a dull life to have if ironing out individual character and beauty is what you do and/or aspire to.

Michael Guy said...

Daddy's little darlin'!

:: that is Creepy McCreepster ::