Toddlers and Tiaras has been continually controversial, but when Wendy Dickey dressed her 3-year-old daughter, Paisley, like Julia Roberts' streetwalker character in Pretty Woman. Complete with thigh-high black boots, white tank top, skintight blue mini skirt and lookalike blonde wig, Paisley imitates the character. Although Dickey told TMZ that Paisley's provocative pageant costume was "meant to be funny [and] not sexual at all," the Parents Television Council isn't laughing.
The Parents Television Council has reacted with outrage. "Whether you love or loathe child beauty pageants, everyone should agree that sexualizing a three-year-old little girl is wrong," Melissa Henson, the director of communications and public education for the PTC. "But that is exactly what the TLC network has done.
"Such brazen and wanton material should qualify as child exploitation or abuse," Henson added. "Instead of creating ratings-friendly buzz, TLC engendered outrage among millions of parents and grandparents who are tired of seeing children exploited for ratings and robbed of their innocence by a greedy entertainment industry that will stop at nothing to make a buck."
According to RadarOnline.com, the Parents Television Council stated, “We have a serious problem when a network formerly known as The Learning Channel features a toddler, who probably hasn't learned to read is showing off her sexy strut. The Parents Television Council went on to say “There's no question, TV executives are complicit in robbing these small kids of their childhood. For years we've seen adult sexuality being inappropriately and aggressively foisted on innocent young children, but children today are being sexualized at younger and younger ages. All available data suggests they will suffer for it later in life.”
The audience and judges enjoyed her performance and expressed it with cheers and applauds. But not everyone agreed, one mom whose daughter was competing with Paisley also slammed the tot's tight, midriff-baring costume. "Us pageant moms already take a huge rap for what we're doing to our little girls," she said. Most of the young girls featured on the TLC show wear fake hair, "flippers" (fake teeth), heavy makeup and get professionally spray tanned. "[But] it's outfits like that the give us a bad rap... I would never, ever do that to my little girl."Despite her objections, Paisley went on to win the highest title -- "Grand Supreme" -- in her age group of the pageant.
