Little Miss Perfect On WeTV – Open The Floodgates

Despite the half-hearted efforts of Dr. Phil, child pageants live on, and given that truly psychotic behavior isn’t stopping a great many people from cashing in on life-by-proxy, WeTV figures they might as well jump into the ring.

Little Miss Perfect is a documentary series that follows two pageant families in each episode as they make their way to an upcoming event.  The girl in this picture is 8, by the way.

The show walks us through the ups and downs of life in a pageant family, and the road to psychosis that is the family schedule leading up to a big show.  There are dance routines to learn, gowns to buy or make, choreographers to hire, and if there’s time mom can mow a couple of lawns in the neighborhood to help cover the costs.  ???

Of course, we can’t forget the little details, like taking pictures in to be PhotoShopped, and painting our daughters with a $40 airbrush to save on fake tan costs.  Yeah, you wish I was making that up.

The show itself is actually well-made, for whatever that might be worth.  On the other hand, I couldn’t help but immediately feel that the show had two distinct audiences.  Much like Bring It On, it’s hard to tell who will like the show more, pageant families, or people who can have a decent laugh at their ridiculousness.  Speaking of Bring It On, that dance routine guy with the “spirit fingers” (or whatever) is on the first episode… well, the guy he’s based on is anyway.

It makes for a fairly sad commentary actually, because the mothers are shown in such a decidedly negative light that you would hate to imagine they aren’t embarassed.  But, you know it just isn’t so, and moreover, you know that pagaent moms everywhere are big fans of this wonderful show that finally shows what great lives they lead.

It makes you wonder what WeTV is after really.  Their website doesn’t make a case either way… it’s in fact rather vague about the whole affair, as though it doesn’t want to irritate the people it knows are going to be watching.  Which is itself almost as creepy as the show.  But, this seems in line with WeTV to some extent, because also hoping for a lot of attention on the network is Bridezillas, a show people know is called Bridezillas when they agree to be on it.

My favorite tell all minute of the show is when one of the girls was at the “answer a question” segment of the pageant.  Asked the question, “What would you buy if you had a million dollars?” her answer was, “Purses.”

8.  She’s 8.  Prompted by the interviewer/emcee to expand, she added, “and shoes, because I’m all about shoes.”

Now, where it gets good is when they go to the follow-up with the mom, and ask her how she thought that went.  ”Well, she could have expanded with that.  That’s a big question, a million dollars.  I mean, she could have gone into brands.”

Have a good time with this one, if you dare.

Are You Screening?