Creep Show

The thing that caught my eye was the ghastly head-turn of the little girl in blue. Creeeeeeaak. What dark spirit oppresses this child? Might I suggest ... the mother? A documentary on TLC. Part One here. Tiny little girls in "beauty" pageants.

I don't suppose I have much to say about it. People obviously find it bizarre, or they wouldn't have made a documentary about it. Or am I acting like a liberal, and reading my own take into it, as if it were reality? In this case, I think not. Parents pay up to $900 entry-fees to win $1000. The Lotto Mentality, only it's their children that they're spending. Such pageants are, per the narrative, a five billion dollar a year industry. It's bigger than Christmas -- another pageant about a child. Almost as big as Halloween. Indeed, it is Halloween, all year round.

No, I don't have much to say about it. It speaks for itself. Everything we'd ever dare see about bad parenting, right here in vibrant and lifelike HiDef color. There's nothing more to be said about it. It's like improv comedy -- a few rules: don't argue, don't be crazy or drunk. These things go nowhere. It's not about the relationship anymore -- it's about loud self-involved emotion, or about someone being completely selfish. An impresario does not work with an ensemble. See? It's the parent who is the impresario. The child is a puppet. All the emotion belongs to the parent, despite the tantrums and silliness of the little girls.

Ah well, it's nothing new. Sure, you remember. It was in the news a while back. JonBennet? So we've seen it before, and this time with a clear subtext. What's the lesson? It's just a study of the permutations of how little girls end up dead -- at best, it's only their innocence that gets strangled. We all lose our innocence, of course. It's just that five seems kind of early.

I've told you, long ago, about a classic case of disassociative identity disorder -- multiple personalities. A little girl is being raped by her father in bed, and she sees a spot on the ceiling, and projects herself into it, and becomes it. I'm not here. I'm not me. This isn't happening. I told that to a fella today, and sort of got teary, choking to a stop just before the word "spot", smiling and excusing myself by saying I was too empathetic. Well, I am. That must be why I got to thinking about this show, that clip, with its The Exorcist headturn.

No point. Just exercising the purpose of this blog. Have a nice day.


J