Toddlers and Tiaras

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Toddlers and Tiaras
Behold, the reality show that not only damaged TLC's reputation but also the moment where child exploitation turned into filmed media's national nightmare.
Genre: Reality Running Time: 42 minutes Country: United States Release Date: January 27, 2009 - November 23, 2016 Created by: Doug Mirabello Distributed by: Authentic Entertainment Starring: MaKenzie Myers June Shannon Alana Thompson Wendy Lee Dickey Isabella Gielniak Dawn Rochelle Warner Seasons: 7 Episodes: 120 Next show: Here Comes Honey Boo Boo

Toddlers & Tiaras, also known as Another Toddlers and Tiaras, is an American reality television series that aired on TLC from January 27, 2009, to October 16, 2013. After a three-year hiatus due to much controversy, Another Toddlers and Tiaras aired the sequel on August 24, 2016. The show follows the personal lives of families of contestants in a child beauty pageant. Like many shows about children's pageants, it generated controversy for dressing the children provocatively. The show led to other reality show spin-offs: Eden's World, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, and Cheer Perfection. On November 23, 2016, they decided to cancel the show after its seventh season.

Why It Lost the Pageant

Important note: This show is extremely controversial for promoting child abuse, child porn, and pedophilia. Because of that, no redeeming qualities will be allowed on this page.

1. This show along with several other panned reality shows severely damaged TLC's reputation.
2. The mothers are absolutely horrible. They are selfish, obese, and abuse their poor children by yelling, insulting, hitting, and bribing them to do something for the pageants they don't want to do. They always bicker with each other and complain about everything, making fun of their children's bodies, physically abusing, neglecting, and calling them spoiled just for being scared. We're pretty sure some of them have even been arrested after the show ended for multiple counts of child abuse. Also, one parent has said that she spent $250,000 on her twin babies' pageants.
   • There are also signs of animal cruelty. In one episode, a mother neglected her goat and forced her daughter to pick up its droppings, all while swearing at her.
   • Speaking of which, their mothers constantly force-feed their children Pixy Stix and Mountain Dew. That much sugar and caffeine can be really bad for someone that young.
   • There was even one mother who outright admitted that she had kids for the sole purpose of doing the pageants. She even stated that she didn't like her son because of it.
   • The infamous scene where a mother waxes her kid's eyebrows.
   • Another infamous scene where a mother demands her daughter to shake her butt.
3. Quantity Over Quality: Like another universally-panned reality show, it lasted way too long for a widely hated show, having a total of 7 seasons, 120 episodes, and had a lifespan of 8 years, showing how TLC was blind to the negative criticism of the show. It also shows how TLC was blind to the fact that they aired softcore child porn for 8 years.
4. Since this show is a pedophile's dream come true, what's worse is that it's also softcore child pornography. The girls are forced to wear scantily clad outfits, despite them being, as the title states, toddlers.
5. The girls aren't much better than their poor excuses for mothers. They are often spoiled brats and sore losers. Not to mention, their constant screaming and whining can easily get on viewers' nerves.
   • What's even worse is that each time the girls whine, scream, throw strops, cry, or have a meltdown in the show, they are often treated as if they're always in the wrong all the time by their mothers with their mothers constantly telling them off as "spoiled, whiny brats", even though that's not the case some of the time since most of the girls are often heavily traumatized by their respective abusive mothers.
6. The girls' makeup looks artificial, plastic, fake, and overall very painful and cringeworthy to look at. They're trying to make four-year-olds look more than five times their age.
7. The girls are probably heavily traumatized since the pageants took place and even in later years after they've outgrown child pageant age.
8. Misleading Rating: The show was rated TV-PG instead of TV-MA, meaning that children who didn't know what this show was about would get traumatized.
9. As mentioned above, it spawned many other equally atrocious spin-off series such as Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, Eden's World, and Cheer Perfection among others.
10. The acting is downright horrendous.
11. The soundtrack is laughably generic, so more often than not, viewers would forget that the soundtrack was playing 90% of the time.
12. The show is filled to the brim with heaps of cringeworthy and unbearably disgusting moments that would make you want to vomit if you would look at them for several minutes, even when not involving the actions of the girls' mothers, including (but are not limited to):
    • Yet ANOTHER infamous scene where a toddler girl dons the "Dolly Parton" look, complete with her stuffing her chest with cotton to create the illusion of "fake breasts".
    • Once again another infamous scene where a scantily clad toddler girl disco-dances on stage, followed by her father who strips down to only his underwear and joins his daughter onstage to do the same!

Reception

This show was universally panned by critics and audiences alike, both of which criticized the excessive usage of disgusting, cringe-worthy, and horrifying moments, the onscreen treatment of the young girls who acted in this show, the portrayal of mothers, and for promoting child pornography and pedophilia. It has a 1.8/10 on IMDb, making it one of the lowest-rated shows on the site. It caused the network decay of TLC and is known by many as one of the worst reality shows ever made. It was ranked #1 on WatchMojo's video, "Top 10 Controversial Reality Shows".

Trivia

• Kailia Posey, who's known for the evil grin GIF, was found dead at a park in Blaine, Washington on May 2, 2022, at the age of 16. Her death was ruled a suicide.

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