ABSTRACT
This chapter charts Alana's transition from a sexualized child beauty-pageant contestant on TT to a more knowing child in her family's 2012–2014 reality show, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (HCHBB). It provides the constructs of Reality TV and shows how this genre has influenced the way adults interpret the authenticity of children's behavior, especially when they are sexualized. The chapter briefly establishes the conflicted messages about children and sexuality as well as clarifies the nebulous differences between children and adolescents. Next, it shows how Higonnet frames and complicates how children are represented in art and media, specifically through photography, and how her term, the Knowing child, relates to Reality TV. The chapter also investigates and applies Higonnet's discussion of child objectification. It is this contradictory interchange of mediated awareness—knowing but not—that makes Alana a fascinating representation of the twenty-first-century knowing child.
