ABSTRACT
Child beauty pageants gain legitimacy within what might be called the myth of innocence in which children are often portrayed as inhabiting a world that is untainted, magical and utterly protected from the harshness of adult life. Innocence in this scenario not only erases the complexities of childhood and the range of experiences different children encounter, but it offers an excuse for adults to evade responsibility for how children are firmly connected to and shaped by the social, economic and cultural institutions run largely by adults. The child beauty pageant is an exemplary site for examining critically how the discourse of innocence mystifies the appropriation of children's bodies in a society that increasingly sexualises and commodifies them. Rather than being an aberration in American society, child beauty pageants are symptomatic of the tragic disconnect between those public values essential to democracy and the well-being of children and the market-driven commercial values that turn everything, even young kids, into a commodity.
