Pop Culture
Toddlers & Tiaras Play-by-Play: “Where’d My Ni-Ni Goooooo?!”
In the Season 3 premiere of Toddlers & Tiaras…
:01 – The Le Maison de Paris (or, in proper French, La Maison) pageant director says we should expect to see lots of beautiful girls, beautiful faces, beautiful smiles.. and lots of happy little girls at the end of this pageant!
Clearly, she hasn’t met Makenzie yet.
:01 – Why is the Louisiana-based pageant called Le Maison de Paris? The pageant director explains: “So many people would like to see Paris… Louisiana, French, it goes together. That is our native. You know. That is our, um, language… here.”
She had me at “that is our native.”
:02 – We meet 4-year-old Makenzie. “I am a beauty queen,” she smiles, adding that she needs to be in pageants because “you get to dress in fancy clothes.” Awwww. What a sweet girl. Then her tiara falls off. Makenzie SCREEEEAAAMS. Whoa.
:03 – “I do whatever I want to,” the little diva smirks as she huffs and puffs and bosses her mom around. Somewhere, Tyra and Mariah are bowing down to this girl. Her mom explains that she’s an only child. OH! OKAY! No wonder. Carry on then.
:04 – Six-year-old Daisy makes her show debut. Her mom crows that all little girls like to get spray tans and glue five-foot eyelashes to their eyes. And Daisy…? She also likes to shake her booty to Hip-Hop like she’s a back-up dancer for Snoop Dogg.
:05 – Alex, 9, has been in more than 300 pageants. Which, if she started competing the day she was born, equals about 33 pageants a year. I’m happy to report Alex enjoys competing for all the right reasons:
Money, money, money. “You did really good there. Look at that little hunk of money!” her mom compliments her, as they get nostalgic looking at this picture from a past pageant. A real heart-tugger, for sure. Alex even has jeans with her likeness painted on them, surrounded by dollar signs and the words, “Give me the dough!” And people think pageants send the wrong message to kids. Pishaw!
See? Even Santa Claus approves this message.
:06 – Makenzie and her mom are going to the spa for “Diva Day.” Makenzie realizes she forgot Ni-Ni. “WHERE’S NI-NIIIIIIIIII?” Makenzie has a meltdown. Oh no! Not Ni-Ni! Um… who’s Ni-Ni? Her “paci,” explains her mom. AH! Um… what’s a “paci?”
Oh, dear lord. The four-year-old still uses a PACIFIER?
We tried to take it away when she was three, says her mom, but she “felt so bad” that she gave it back to her. This is also how kids end up living in their parents’ basement when they’re 35.
:13 – “Makenzie can be a handful, yes she can,” says her aunt/spa owner in the Understatement of the Century as Makenzie SCREEEEAAAMS that she doesn’t want a chocolate facial. “Putting nails on Makenzie was like putting nails on a Tasmanian devil,” her aunt adds.
Yeah, I could see that.
:15 – Daisy’s mom, who bought a tanning machine just for pageants, doesn’t agree with sexualizing little girls and dolling them up. But thinks Daisy’s attire is just fine.
Yes, very… natural-looking.
:18 – Makenzie, being cooperative as always, throws a tantrum as her mom tries to get her ready, sticks out her tongue at the camera crew. “Whatever she wants to do, she kinda just goes with it,” Makenzie’s mom shrugs. With that kind of parental iron fist, I’m surprised Makenzie gets away with so much. *Ahem*
:19 – Daisy goes to pick up her “flipper,” which is a super-fancy term for dentures fake pageant teeth that “make your teeth more bigger,” according to Daisy.
:23 – All of the mothers admit they don’t know how to pronounce the pageant’s name or what it means. (But I thought French was their “native”..? You know, their um, language there…?)
:24 – “Makenzie is a little firecracker,” says the pageant director diplomatically, before giving us the inside scoop on the competition: “The toughest part will be Beauty. We’re looking for facial beauty. It is a beauty pageant.”
That’s right: FACIAL beauty. Screw inner beauty, kids!
:33 – Despite her pre-pageant meltdown, Makenzie rocks it on-stage.
:33 – Daisy, whose fake teeth make her look like a smaller, prettier version of Gary Busey, gives us her humble impression of her own performance: “I went so slow and graceful… they just love what I did.”
:36 – “You are driving me nuts!” Makenzie SCREEEEAAAMS at her mom after dissing the costume her mom spent big money on and refusing to do anything her mom tells her. This is followed by another SCREEEEAAAM.
:37 – Daisy drinks her third Red Bull, starts growling with her big teeth. Apparently they should put a warning on the label. WARNING: Excessive Red Bull consumption by kids under the age of 10 may cause them to act like rabid dogs.
:43 – Makenzie PUSHES her mom to the ground as they try to get her ready to go on stage. Screaming for her Ni-Ni. “Where’d my Ni-Ni gooooooooooooo?!”
Makenzie’s mom tries to go to her Happy Place.
:44 – “Your hair’s a mess,” says Alex’s mom, disgusted, after the hairdresser rushes the job. Alex tries to brush it off (no pun intended), but her mom won’t let it go. The hair is going to make her lose! The hair is going to ruin her life! Worst of all, IT MAKES HER FACE LOOK FAT!
:55 – In an aside to the camera, Alex confesses that she met Makenzie: “She tried to bite me!” Well, she should consider herself lucky that Daisy didn’t bite her with those Gary Busey chompers.
:56 – “Let money rain down,” declares a confident Daisy. But, sadly, there is no cash shower for Daisy, who only wins Divisional Queen and Prettiest Hair.
:59 – None of the girls win the big title. However, they can rest assured that THIS woman had an even worse day:
Behold the human toddler tiara dispenser! That woman is so hating her life right now.
