Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you!
Sooner rather than later, India will launch its own version of beauty pageants for kids. We are half-way there with those obnoxious reality shows that exploit underage children and expose the naked ambitions of their misguided parents. We have seen what happens to rejected contestants, but we are still at it – ruthless judges shredding the self-esteem of sensitive performers, illiterate parents egging them on to win – it is a ghastly and frankly obscene platform that has more to do with greed, money, fame than talent.
But when I read press reports of an 11-year-old British girl whose 31-year-old mother spent over Rs. 25,000 a month on ‘beauty treatments’ for the tot, I had had enough. Sasha Bennington, the little girl with gigantic ambitions, competed in fiercely fought beauty contests for pre-teens across the world. Anyone who has watched that jewel of a film directed by Jonathan Dayton called Little Miss Sunshine, will immediately recall the trauma and pathos of the plump girl who wants to win the crown in the face of cutting edge competition.
America seems to be entirely comfortable with these awful contests. But for Britain, it was a fairly new phenomenon, which is why Sasha hit the headlines. Her mother Jayne was anything but apologetic about her daughter’s participation. Jayne told reporters that Sasha had her first set of false nails glued on at the age of eight. Then, Sasha moved on to hair extensions, fake tans, facials and manicures. The precocious-looking beauty describes herself as ‘blond, pretty and dumb’! How do you like that? Her mother insisted the girl made her career choice and as a parent, it was her duty to support her. Jayne added: ‘I am just helping her do what she wants, like any good parent would. I hate it when people say I am a pushy mother. I’m not.’ The scary thing was, Jayne may have been right.
I was at a shopping mall in Dubai recently and looking for a mint spray for my tired feet at a Boot’s outlet. Most of the other avid shoppers present were adolescents closely examining the cosmetics’ counters for the latest teen make up. These were school girls, still in their uniforms. I’d witnessed the same scenario in Hong Kong, where 12-14 year-olds were made up like professional models … to attend school. I was told it wasn’t uncommon for those girls to offer sexual favours to strangers in the loo of the mall, in exchange for the latest mobile phone! Walking through equally glitzy malls in Mumbai, one can also see similarly dressed and made up teenagers strolling aimlessly through the food court, often flirting with older men who follow them around hungrily. India is one of the world’s largest destinations for child pornography. And yet, we are not sensitizing ourselves to this kind of blatant commodification of innocent kids.
The worst culprits are the organizers of aggressive reality shows that encourage painted up children dressed in cheap clothes to gyrate suggestively and mouth offensive lyrics of the latest Bollywood hits. Where are the watchdogs of public morals when we most need them? Is it poverty alone that pushes the parents of some of these contestants to exploit their own kids in this grotesque way? Poverty … and ignorance, of course?
In America, the pre-teen beauty pageant business is huge and generates a lot of lolly. Since we have borrowed virtually every other concept on television from the West, one knew that it was only a matter of time before someone announced a kiddie contest that would see pre-pubescent, painted up, doll like creatures walking the ramp in revealing gowns and skimpy swimwear. I am all for encouraging self-expression in kids via dancing and singing competitions. But what we are witnessing certainly does not qualify as healthy entertainment. We are projecting children in a distorted and sexually charged light by dressing them up in adult gear and getting them to strut their bodies for gain.
God knows what sort of a woman Sasha will grow up into … a gorgeous-looking angel or a hideous, angst-filled monster. What about her attitude to her body – the one she has been peddling since her tender girlhood? And the mind that has been programmed to accept physical assets as currency to be traded in the marketplace? Sickening? For sure. Suddenly, I could connect Raakhi Sawant with Sasha’s story. But then again … is it such a terrible life?
Must ask Raakhi (Sawant) … or her mother, and all those who live off her.