Painted Babies Documentary

The further construction of interview also positions us against the priorities of the parents, and how they live vicariously through their daughters. The Southern Charm Organizer, Darling Burgis talks about how the world revolves around beauty, and how beauty gives an edge in competitive areas, like job interviews. Brooke’s mother also describes how Brooke manages to maintain her smile. This tells us that the pageants are revolved around fake beauty, and that the ability to ‘fake it’ is being rewarded. This is teaching the girls the wrong lesson, and shows the wrong priorities for life. We are positioned to see how Beauty Pageants can distort reality, and how it works. The parents also seem a lot more serious about the pageants, often taking things more dramatically than their daughters. Brooke’s mother also describes her appreciation of Tim Witmer during the ‘dream girl’ stage, which show how she lives vicariously through her girl, and wishes Tim was serenading her instead. Therefore the interviews that have been taken place have been edited to position the viewer about certain issues.

Many techniques have been used in the documentary Painted Babies directed and produced by Jean Treays, such as costume, scene selection and characterisation in order to position and persuade the viewer to respond to issues such as the damage that beauty pageants can cause at such a young age. In my opinion the competitions and beauty pageants such as the Southern Charm Pageant express the wrong message to the young girls about life, potentially damaging their futures.  How the girls are exploited is certainly immoral, no matter what excuses the judges or parents can fabricate. Painted Babies has effectively surfaced important issues about beauty pageants for girls as young as five.