Looking like a Barbie doll that had suddenly sprung to life, Asia Mansur
started wiggling her tiny hips and belting out a song about a boy who had
given her “a special look”. If he had, it was not hard to see why: with her
face plastered in make-up and her hair lacquered and bleached, she was
clearly aiming to make an impact. Yet this provocative little vision,
already a veteran of beauty pageants, was just five years old.
Earlier, I had asked Asia what she liked about these events. “We like to go
where the money and the cars are prizes,” she said. “Grandmother really
needs a car and we really want money, money, money!” It was not only an
outrageous thing for a five-year-old to say but it made me concerned for her
future.
Asia and her fiercely ambitious, noisy, happy family came into my life 13
years ago, when I decided to make a documentary in the United States about
the child beauty pageant circuit - then a phenomenon unknown in Britain,
though that was all to change after the murder a year later of a
six-year-old contestant called JonBenet Ramsey. By the time the feature film
Little Miss Sunshine was released two years ago, there were few who were
unaware of these bizarre contests in which children are painted and
pompadoured to look like mini-hookers.
Back in 1995, I had chosen to film two five-year-old beauties - Asia, from
Louisiana, and her arch rival Brooke Breedwell, from Tennessee - and then
followed them to the Southern Charm pageant in Atlanta, Georgia, where they
battled it out for the $5,000 top prize and the glittering crown of the
Supreme Queen.
The result was Painted Babies, which not only launched my career but provoked
thousands of letters of complaint, most of which expressed the concern that
these contests bordered on child abuse.
But did they? Last summer I travelled back to the US to find out what had
happened to the two princesses who had spent their early years inhaling
indecent amounts of hairspray and singing sexually suggestive adult songs.
I wasn’t sure what I would find. Would Brooke and Asia - now nearly 18 - have
distorted egos? Would they be permanently damaged by the giddy highs of
winning pageants, followed by the inevitable lows that came from losing? And
what would they think now of their pushy mothers and grandmothers, who had
fussed over their false lashes and driven them hundreds of miles in pursuit
of cash and crowns?
At the time I filmed Painted Babies, thousands of these pageants were taking
place every weekend across the Southern states, featuring girls as young as
nine months. The women who constantly flapped around their preened daughters
seemed like parodies of the pushy mother, shrieking when their daughters
bumped and ground their way to a prize and always outraged and in tears when
they didn’t. Professional make-up artists were hired by some for $300 - too
expensive for some mums , who applied thick make-up to their babies’ faces
as they slept. It was easy to see why many viewers considered such contests
exploitative and shocking.
At five, Brooke Breedwell had already won a staggering 75 titles and prize
money of more than $10,000. An often sullen and inscrutable child, she
rarely spoke as she practised her routines on a makeshift stage in her
parents’ spare room in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her mother Pam and
grandmother Bunny Breedwell were obsessed with her. “Winners never quit. We
are the dream team,” said Pam.
Brooke’s daily training schedule was akin to that of an Olympic athlete.
Meanwhile, her mother spent tens of thousands of dollars on spangled,
sequined outfits and accessories, and drove her twice a week to Nashville
for singing lessons (a four-hour round trip).
“I want her to look like a Barbie doll - she is a little Barbie doll,” said
Pam, who glued false teeth into Brooke’s mouth when she lost three baby
teeth. You could see why: Brooke’s speciality was being able to hold a
dazzling smile onstage for up to 20 minutes.
Sadly, Brooke wasn’t all that easy on the ear. Her rather shrill rendition of
Everything’s Coming Up Roses had nothing on Asia’s confident delivery of
Bill Bailey.
Like her rival, Asia spent most of the time rehearsing for her big moments. I
filmed her pouting and gyrating in the back seat of her mother’s car,
repeating her routine for hours on end in 90-degree heat.
“We didn’t think we would get addicted, but we did,” said her father Boo, a
burly fireman. “We depend on judges to pick Asia over the other girls for
money.”
“We’re going for the cars,” said Asia’s granny Marie, who wore a T-shirt with
“I Am Asia’s Grandmother” picked out in diamante.
Over three days, Asia and Brooke competed in talent (singing and dancing),
beauty, swimwear, western wear and numerous other costume changes. When
Brooke was at last crowned Supreme Queen, Asia’s family looked on grim-faced.
Interestingly, both mothers had expressed pity for me because I’d left my
six-year-old with her father while I filmed for three weeks in the States.
They never asked me what I felt about pageants. After filming, we kept in
touch. Two years later, for example, I received a Christmas card announcing
that Brooke had come home from another pageant with a car and $7,000.
Then last year, after I was commissioned by the BBC to do an update on my
film, I finally met Brooke again. She had lost none of her determination but
was more serene than I had imagined possible. Now in her final year at
school, she is a sporty girl who rarely wears make-up or glances into
mirrors.
She had given up pageants when she was eight, she told me. “I was just burnt
out, and my mother used to bribe me after every competition to keep going -
I’m not going to lie.” Even her mother Pam had calmed down considerably, due
partly to the birth of a son - two years after the Southern Charm contest -
who has epilepsy and apraxia.
Brooke, though, had retained her cool exterior. Far from being freakish, she
was mature and self-contained; and I was struck by how seamlessly she
blended in with all her schoolmates at Baylor College, one of America’s most
prestigious private schools.
“I got tired of pageants and wanted to move on and do adult things. Change is
good,” she said matter-of-factly. Now a boarder, she says she still loves
her family but doesn’t feel that she needs to live with them: “The pageants
helped me . . . gave me confidence, helped me focus.”
Asia was a little harder to track down because her parents had divorced and
her mother had moved house. She had turned into a sunny-natured, shapely,
blonde teen-ager, with a steady boyfriend and a driving licence. At 17, she
still shares a bedroom with her two sisters. Her own corner is adorned with
pageant banners and crowns; and when we met again she was busy preparing for
the Darling Dolls of America pageant, which was offering a first prize of
$10,000. Unlike Brooke, she still does the circuit – and has won eight
titles in the past two years.
“Some heads are just made for crowns,” she joked, as I watched 12in hair
extensions being woven into her locks. “I just love pageants. As a little
kid, I loved the hair and make-up, and feeling like a big kid.”
She disputes any notion that a lifetime of pageants has harmed her. “It’s cute
when little kids tackle those adult songs. And I regularly teach pageant
techniques to young neighbourhood girls.”
Later we went to see her grandmother Marie, who adores Asia and never stops
praising her while reminding her of all the cash she could win. “She’s
blessed - she’s got a good upper body,” said Marie, approvingly eyeing her
granddaughter’s embonpoint. “You can’t have an ugly queen. Oh no.”
What struck me most about Brooke and Asia, the former baby goddesses of
Southern Charm, was that it was life itself, with its common ups and downs,
that had caused the most strife in their young lives. Asia is very bruised
by her parents’ divorce. “I don’t even have my dad’s phone number,” she
whispered. “It’s not right; we were a family and now we have no contact
whatsoever.” Marie added that, as a result, Asia now suffered from
anxiety attacks.
Brooke had been affected by her brother’s severe health problems. “It’s made
me more compassionate,” she said; and certainly she is wonderfully patient
and sweet with him. Her calm aura of self-confidence - which must owe
something to all those pageants - makes it likely that she will go far,
possibly even achieve her goal of becoming an anchor for CNN. “I’ve always
wanted to be on TV,” she confided.
Then she added: “I want marriage, but I don’t want kids. I don’t like kids
very much.” She may one day change her mind. Or it may be that her exposure
to competition against five-year-old peers has made her cynical about small
children.
Asia, however, was unequivocal. “I want to be an x-ray technician and I can’t
wait to get married and have babies - maybe five or six.”
To my relief, the two shocking little Dolly Partons whom I had filmed all
those years ago had both become poised, decent and disciplined young women.
Who knows? Perhaps some of that is down to the beauty pageants. They
certainly think so.
Painted Babies Growing Up is screened on BBC4 on Thursday at 9pm
