Eden Wood doesn't want more lipstick than she's already wearing

If you’re not familiar with this bastion of child exploitation, Toddlers and Tiaras follows several spoiled children and their insane mothers as they participate in pageant competitions. The first episode of the new second season aired last night on TLC, and it was nothing short of a masterpiece of trainwreck television. I was repulsed, I was disgusted, I kept watching. There are plenty of stern words to be aimed at the individual participants, who included one mother who dressed her four-year-old daughter in a Vegas showgirls costume, and another woman who blatantly favored one of her twin daughters over the other. The first season was similar in format, but occasionally featured girls like Meaghan, who made a bet with her mother that if she won the pageant, she would be allowed to visit a snake farm. (You rock, Meaghan). Now, though, Toddlers and Tiaras has learned from our national fascination with the borderline/dangerous parenting featured on TLC’s current bread and butter show Jon and Kate + 8. Behold:

Mom talking about BreAnne smiles, Mom talking about AshLynn grimaces

“BreAnne does look a lot like mommy, and [is] probably the prettiest out of the five. And then AshLynn, she’s really skinny, and a little bit larger nosed than BreAnne. She’s very timid, she’s very reserved, she usually takes the backseat when it comes to BreAnne. BreAnne stands out because BreAnne is out-going and fun and full of life and AshLynn is just AshLynn.”

My initial impulse would be to say that it’s far more upsetting that an entire industry exists to teach girls how to be judged on their beauty than it is to make a television show about that industry. And yet, that’s clearly not the case here. While these babies grin and twirl, the camera clearly focuses most intently when they weep and scream. Rivalries, temper tantrums, and pouting (or as one pageant mom calls them, “diva moments”) take precedence over self-confidence and happiness. Even worse, much of the focus is on the excess necessary to participate in the “glitz” pageants, and the camera delights in closeups on fake eyelashes, hairpieces, crinoline, and tanning booths. It’s pleasant to read this attention as an indictment of those unnatural, preternaturally mature kindergarteners, but it’s also too easy. Just as on Rock of Love, screen time is the reward for bad behavior. I fear the Meaghans of the world will no longer have a place on this show, and I’m sorry about that, but not surprised.

Me too, Meaghan. Me too.