JonBenet Ramsey, a girl who never reached her seventh birthday, is fast becoming the most famous beauty queen in American history. Sadly, the reason for this renown is the way she died --- brutally slain in her Colorado home after being bound and sexually assaulted.
The media spotlight on this crime has been compared to the frenzy over the O.J. Simpson case. Certainly it raises questions about the priorities of journalists and the public. Even as two of the three senior officials in America face serious allegations about their conduct in office, a homicide that police call an isolated incident is the dominant story in many media.
There are several elements of the Ramsey tragedy that are undeniably fascinating: The mystery and cruelty of the crime, the innocence and helplessness of the victim, the wealth of her family. But the element that gives the story its edge is the fact that JonBenet was a child beauty queen. Millions of Americans have seen images of her prancing on a stage, coiffed and made up like a tiny adult. And Americans are debating what these images mean.
Changes in the wind
The Pageant News Bureau was created primarily to cover pageants as a form of entertainment. The Ramsey story goes far beyond that, and it has not been a focus of PNB coverage (although some of our staffers have worked on the story for other media). Still, PNB does see this case as a possible turning point in mainstream coverage of pageantry.
The "legitimate" media have traditionally had little interest in pageant news unless it involved scandals. A case in point: Vanessa Williams got more attention for losing her Miss America crown than she did for winning it. While the foibles of pageant winners have long been a staple of show business news, pageant results were usually harder to find.
The coverage of the Ramsey slaying has overtones of that old bias, but we have noticed in stories about the case, and in round-table discussions on television, a new openness to the views of "pageant people," contestants and coaches and representatives of the pageant press. They don't get kid-glove treatment, but they do get a chance to be heard.
It is also encouraging to see print and broadcast journalists examining an aspect of pageantry, the booming "kiddie" business, that has been ignored for too long.
Where do we go from here?
We at PNB want to restate a conviction that we have expounded informally many times: Pageants ought to get the same sort of news coverage that is extended to sports. Millions of pageant fans around the world want to know the results of their favorite contests, and there is no ethical principle to prevent newspapers and broadcasters from giving that information to them. With the value of the pageant industry estimated at $5 billion annually in the United States alone, this is an area that should not be ignored.
Pageant "scandals," comic or tragic, are a legitimate subject of news coverage, but they ought not to be the main course. Beauty queens don't have to be in trouble or dead to be newsworthy.
There will be resistance to the changes we advocate, and it won't all come from the mainstream media. The truth is, many pageant publications are in the publicity business, not the news business, and they will have to develop a greater degree of professionalism if they face mainstream competition. But that is all to the good.
One timely point ought to be made in the comparison of sports with pageantry: Neither industry has a monopoly on the exploitation of children. While sports is supposed to be founded on the principles of health and wholeness, too many children are trained to perform athletic stunts while their normal physical development is slighted. In sports, in beauty contests, in every subject that is worth being reported on, the press should take its responsibility of accuracy and thoroughness very seriously.
I do feel for the parents and family for JonBenet Ramsey. My heart goes out to them. She was a very beautiful girl. I am 17 and started competing when I was 11, and I love the competition. I really find that the press is knocking pageants for the murder of this young girl. Yes, there could be a possibility that this (crime) concerned pageants, but it hasn't been proven yet.
I have competed internationally, statewide and locally for quite some time now, and I have run into moms who go a bit overboard with the whole deal. (But) the press has its eyes closed and doesn't want to look at the good side of anything. Pageants give you more than a trophy or a crown; they help you face the world in many situations.
I have had a tough life, struggling with a birth defect involving my hips. I have been through 17 surgeries. Because I walk with a limp, (I experienced) years of mocking by my peers, and because of that, (I was) thinking I was below average. The best thing my mom could have done for me was to put me in modeling and finishing school and in beauty pageants. I am confident in myself walking down a runway, no matter how I walk. I can face an audience of hundreds of people and speak and be confident.
Think of what this can do young children. They get a day to dress up like a princess (little girls love that) and they build up courage, though they may not know it then. The press and certain others say (pageant mothers) dress up the children to look like sex objects and magnets for pedophiles, and that pageants are no good. Why do they have to think of a 3-year-old as a sex object anyway? I think there is something wrong with them if they do. A pageant is a performance, like a recital or a play. Though I do agree with pageants' setting certain standards on wardrobes, I don't think that they are wrong for young ones.
Jennie Lee Dumican, Massachusetts
After reading your article on the Internet, I felt that I must speak out. Your article was the first to really say that pageantry is not at fault here. What is at fault is the real issue facing our country, and that is the safety of women and children! The media is skirting that issue and instead, exploiting pageantry, and making it the scapegoat for an issue that no one wants to face.
Pageantry gives so much to those involved that it seems a shame that this is happening. I know that competing in pageants has returned to me the self-confidence that was taken from me when I was in a serious accident that left me with a physical disability. It has given me the opportunity to inspire others to reach for their goals, despite their physical limitations. Competing also allows us to meet new people and obtain wonderful public relations skills that will only help us in the future.
Why the media refuses to see the positive side of pageantry is beyond me, and I can only hope that the real issues will soon surface. Maybe then the issues of public safety will be addressed. Until then, I hope that all of the thousands of people involved in pageantry will stand strong against the media, and pray for the family of JonBenet Ramsey, that they will soon find resolution and some sort of peace in their loss.
Kim Emery, Miss Massachusetts Sunburst / Miss Massachusetts USA Petite
I feel pageantry can be beneficial for the participants as long as the parent is there to reinforce the positives, just as in any other activity. Pageants have been ONE vehicle used in the raising of our children. To think that my children could be summed up by this one activity is scary.
I think my kids are pretty neat people, not because of the pageants they have been in, but hopefully because of how we raised them.
Larry Todd, editor, Pageant World Magazine
As the mother of a 5-year-old who competes in pageants, I was horrified at the news of the Ramsey murder. What I have been hearing since has been equally disturbing. People are ready to lynch all pageant parents because of clips they have seen on TV. They think all "pageant moms" are dressing their little girls like this and applying heavy makeup to them.
These people have their facts wrong. I would never dress my child in anything that is not appropriate to her age, and we never apply a lot of makeup to her. She is beautiful without such things.
I do, however, feel that directors and judges need to lay down the law and demand that children be dressed appropriately for their ages. Also, heavy makeup and grown-up hairstyles should be cause for having points taken off. As long as judges continue to score inappropiately dressed children higher than others, some parents will continue to dress their children this way and allow the kind of gestures that are only appropriate for older models.
Don't take children's pageants away; make them better.
A Concerned Pageant Mom
I am tired of some journalists jumping on the bandwagon trying to find "dirt" about kids in pageants. Why can't they show the positive things that pageants do for these kids? Why does a child psychologist say that pageants are harmful and that we are "teaching our kids to (be) sexy, making them potential victims of pedophiles"? Why do these people complaint about the money being spent on competition?
What about the kids who are competing in gymnastics, ice skating, sports, dance recitals, etc.? Don't they spend hundreds of dollars on essentially the same things -- training, makeup, ice time, gym time, coaching, travel? Don't most parents "live through their children"? Is it only pageant parents who do that?
What about the little 3- year-old in dance class and doing a recital? What about the kid forced to take music lessons when she would rather be outside playing in the dirt?
Most little girls really want to do pageants. It is a chance for them to play ''dress-up" without getting yelled at for using Mommy's makeup. You can't force a kid to compete on stage. Most have no inhibitions and just love to perform for people. What about the confidence they gain, the learning about how to win and lose, the manners they develop?
Most kids who have competed in pageants know how to talk with adults because the adults don't baby-talk to them. Why can't journalists point out that money won by these kids is usually put into the bank and saved for college?
Not all kids continue in these pageants, only the ones that want to. The winners are not being forced into doing this. They do it for the love of it.
Penny Geiszler, publisher of Turn for the Judges
I have long been a strong opponent of these (children's) pageants. The general public is only beginning to realize the impact these contests have on little girls. My personal opinion is that these pageants are a manifestation of the parents' desires for a kind of fulfillment they were deprived of as children.
Of course, there are many girls who compete in these contests and are perfectly happy. But I don't see how making a group of innocent 5-year-olds look like artifical 30-year-olds is beneficial to the children. Aren't we forcing American society's male-dominated (view) of women on children who, under natural circumstances, wouldn't want to parade in gobs of makeup and teased hair and be judged by a group of adults?
A male pageant fan
