"Miss You Can Do It"

Miss You Can Do It, 2013

Dir.: Ron Davis

Prod.: Ron Davis

"Accomplishment begins with two words: 'I'll Try'" - Abbey Curran

I hate beauty pageants. I've expressed my very obvious disdain for them when I reviewed The Good Mother. I feel like they're antiquated, useless and promote the wrong kind of values. I'm especially against child beauty pageants. Do I need to go into why? Google "child beauty pageants" and you will see picture after picture of very young girls in overdone hair and make-up far too old for their faces, spray tanned, false eyelashed, plumped, corseted, wearing high heels, doing sexy dance moves...it makes me gag.

Why? Why are we doing this to these little girls? Don't they know that perfection is not the only thing in this world?

But I think I've finally seen a beauty pageant that is worthy of the word  "beauty".

Abbey Curran, Miss Iowa 2008, began the Miss You Can Do It pageant in 2005, and this documentary follows its eighth season. It's geared towards little girls as young as four years old who have special needs. Abbey herself was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at the age of two, and became the first woman with a disability to enter Miss USA. Her cerebral palsy effects her legs and can walk unassisted, but during pageants walked with an escort.

Abbey in the Miss USA pageant in 2008

"Having a disability doesn't make me different," she said during a pageant interview in 2004. "It just means I have to overcome more challenges."

As for the pageant itself, one of the pageant coordinators says, "Miss You Can Do It is about seeing the beauty behind the challenge."

Abbey pays for the entire pageant herself - they have no sponsors, no financial backing. Everything from throwing pizza and cupcake parties for the contestants, to the professional hair and makeup each girl receives, to the trophies given out to every single girl who competes comes from volunteers or from Abbey's own pocket.

Among the contestants are: Meg and her adopted sister Alina, who both have Down Syndrome; Delaney and Teyanna, who each have different types of cerebral palsy (Delaney's is spasmodic, Teyanna's is seizures); Tierney, who has Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a progressive muscle weakening disease; Ali, who has spina bifida, which is a disorder that causes the spine to not be fully formed during development in utero (at age six,she has had nine surgeries); and sisters Tasha, who has cerebral palsy, and Kenna, who has a cognitive disability that affects her memory. 

There's an interview process before the pageant, and it takes into account the different types of disabilities there are. There are two different interview rooms: one for those who can talk and one for those who have difficulties speaking. Miss USA 2008 and Miss America 1975 are on the panel of interviewers. They ask them questions like, "What's your favorite color?" and "Do you have any pets at home?"

Each girl gets a chance to show off their personalities. Alina, age four, whose father describes as "a fireball", spends most of the interview playing with the boom mike and then tries to make off with a magazine that Miss USA has on the table in front of her. However, she is quickly distracted by a lollipop. Ali talks about how much she loves Mustang convertibles and sings a Justin Bieber song. Delaney, who is ten, and one of the judges discuss their favorite High School Musical characters (Delaney is also the cutie featured on the movie poster):

Here, I did you a favor so you don't have to scroll back up :D

The most meaningful interview is twelve-year-old Teyanna. The judges ask her about an essay contest she'd won. The topic was about people with disabilities. She reads some of her essay to the judges: "The meaning of being disabled is not having any power but I have the power to do anything I am willing to try."

Teyanna modeling her sportswear during the pageant

As for the actual pageant itself, there are three categories: sportswear/casual wear, formal wear and interview. Nobody, not a single girl, goes home empty handed, and there's an award for everything: Best Formal Wear, Best Sportswear, Best Interview, Miss Congeniality, etc. The girls are thrilled to be going home with a trophy.

Abbey says, "It's not about outfits, it's not about the hair, it's about the girl on the inside...it's truly going to make a difference in her life."

Of course, I am not going to give away the ones who take away the big trophies. I'm going to let you watch and discover for yourself. Because honestly, though I pretty much cried my way through this documentary, I had a huge smile on my face. Director/producer Ron Davis does a wonderful job at letting the pageant unfold, at capturing the indomitable spirits of the contestants and the wonderful stories all the parents - and Abbey's too! - bring to the table. To them, their children are beautiful. But now it's time for those girls to believe it themselves. There is so much beauty in this documentary - from the contestants themselves to their wonderful parents to Abbey's kind, generous spirit - that it can move you to tears. That is why this really is a beauty pageant.

"The Good Mother"

The Good Mother, 2009

Dir.: Sarah Klein

Prod.: Anne Labro and Tom Mason

The tagline on Sarah Klein's study on suburban motherhood reads, "What makes a good mother?"

Well, that's a loaded question if I've ever heard one. Bravo, I'm interested. How many times have you heard someone refer to another as "mother of the year" with those oh-so-sarcastic undertones? Turns out there is an actual Mother of the Year award. I am not kidding.

The Good Mother goes inside the competition and the selection process of the American Mothers Incorporated's Young Mother of the Year award. The concept of the film is good. Klein obviously was trying to make some sort of satire out of this film by cutting scenes with archival footage of the archetypal 1950's stay-at-home mom: smiling until her cheeks hurt as she makes the beds, vaccuums and serves dinner to her family before they all bow their heads to pray. But to be quite honest, I alternated between being bored and shaking my head in disbelief. 

Apparently, for the past 70-something years, American Mothers Incorporated has been electing the Young Mother of the Year. They select one mother from each state that's been nominated by her peers, then, after three days of "rigorous examination", they compete for the national title by reading aloud an essay they have each written on what being a mother means to them.

At one point in the film, Connell Branan, a former recipient of the Young Mother of the Year Award describes the feeling she had when she was given the title: "All I wanted to be was a good mom and this says, 'Yes you are!'"

Is this the level we're at now? Women need a title to believe they're a good mother? Like how a driver's license says you're a good driver?

There's no monetary prize, only a title and an opportunity to be the spokesperson for mothers all across the country. It was actually founded by none other than J.C. Penney during the Depression era. Married women were taking odd jobs and struggling to keep their children fed while their husbands were out looking for work. So Penney wanted to award the "unwavering sacrifice of mothers" for their family and children. The first Young Mother of the Year was crowned in 1935.

I'm starting to see what they were doing there. But still, the question still stands: what makes a good mother?

Well, according to American Mothers Incorporated, to qualify for the competition, the woman must fit the following criteria: she must strive to improve her mothering skills; be married to her husband (a man), in a legal ceremony; all her children must be under the age of 18; and she must be an active member of a "faith-based organization". Each mother must submit a portfolio and answer a series of questions about motherhood, such as: what do you do to nurture each child? What has influenced your decisions as a mother and a wife? Do you have a family activities time?

When asked by Klein what would disqualify a woman in the competition, one of the organizers of the Young Mother of the Year competition admitted that lesbians have never been accepted. Yeah, saw that coming from a mile away. Fun fact: Hillary Clinton was a nominee for the Young Mother of the Year in the early 1980's but didn't win nationals. 

The film focuses on four of the competetors: Tonia, the Nebraska native with two children who persuaded her to quit work and stay at home; Kimberly, the New Hampshire mom who gave up a high paying career to raise her two children; Renee, the Indiana mother of five who cries as she packs her suitcases when it's time for her to leave for the competition; and Maria, the Oregonian Type-A mother who organizes the lives of her five children to a T.

Over three days, anonymous judges evaluate the mothers on several criteria, such as the ability to relate well with others, their devotion to motherhood, and their devotion to God. The afforementioned former Young Mother of the Year, Connell Branan, who also acts as a judge in this competition, digs her hole a little deeper by announcing that American mothers have gotten "lazy and selfish...Moms need to focus on their children and not let others tackle that job."

Okay, let's pump the brakes here. Lazy and selfish? Holy hyperbole, Batman. Are you trying to tell me that just because a mother decides to put her child in daycare because she needs to work 40 hours a week to put food on the table, she's considered lazy and selfish? Right then and there Connell Branan loses all my respect.

I really lost it during a judge's deliberation. The judges are all women, of course, of varying ages. The nominated mothers have just given the speeches on which they are being judged on. One of the head judges reminds the group: "We always like to involve prayer in our decisions. We will at some point be asking the help of our Creator because he knows who should represent young mothers."

What. No, seriously - what? Okay, I'm starting to get a clearer picture of American Mothers Incorporated now...

Meanwhile, we see a glimpse of what the husbands of Tonia, Maria, Kimberly and Renee are dealing with while their wives are away, and it's almost laughable: clueless men fumble around their homes amidst crying babies and picky toddlers, wading through piles of laundry to locate their child’s favorite belt or hairbrush. It honestly shows men in quite a poor light.

When the time finally comes to announce the winners, the head judge annouces to the room that "it was kind of hard for the selection committee. We had all these leaders jumping out at us. We each spent many hours...reading portfolios and speaking with our Lord about what he wanted us to do." Okay, what?

Well, the winner is announced, there's a ton of boo-hooing and forced smiles. The women are congratulating the winner but it's so very obvious what they're thinking as they hug one another. One of the women the documentary follows goes to her room, chugs a huge bottle of Mountain Dew and tries to hold back tears as she removes her eye makeup. She contemplates to Klein what she could have done better, or differently. But then she decides that no one is perfect. Oh. Shocker.

I think Sarah Klein's efforts were valiant in The Good Mother. I think she wanted to show that this was a somewhat antiquated competition with ridiculous guidelines and that every mother is a good mother. When this was filmed in 2008, only twenty-three states nominated mothers for the competition. However, only sixteen of them actually attended the conference. Perhaps that's a bit of a signal to the organizers that not everyone feels this is a relavent competition anymore. Not to mention the fact that they are isolating a huge amount of the population - for example, the guidelines say she must be married to the father of her children. So are we saying that widows aren't good mothers? What about divorcees? In my opinion, those women work twice as hard to be good mothers to their children, and yet they won't be recognized by this committee because they're not "married". 

Overall, The Good Mother frustrated me. It was a well edited documentary, but I didn't find the subject matter completely interesting.