Girls line up to be ‘Little Miss Perfect’

In reality television, to film something is to judge it: The chattering contestants of “The Bachelor,” the hair products of “Jersey Shore,” the gruesome piles of “Hoarders”: They’re there because someone deems them sufficiently other, sufficiently disruptive, to gain a viewer’s attention -- and presumably, disdain.

Everything about “Little Miss Perfect” (We TV, 10 p.m. Tuesdays), the child-pageant reality show that begins its second season this week, is curated to look foreign from a distance: the spookily-makeupped-and-spray-tanned young contestants, the overbearing and overinvolved stage mothers, the discomfitingly keen pageant organizer and host Michael Galanes.

And yet this show feels benign, a reminder of how high reality television has placed the bar for shock: 8-year-olds in sparkled dresses with fake teeth just don’t cut it anymore.

The murder of JonBenét Ramsey a little more than 13 years ago helped thrust the child-pageant subculture into the spotlight, and it appears little has changed since then. Young women still get unreasonably dolled up in pursuit of trophies, and an entire coterie of leech-like figures -- coaches, dressmakers, makeup artists -- are there to expedite the process.

“Little Miss Perfect” focuses on glitz pageants (natural pageants forswear makeup and tanning and the like, and what kind of TV show would that make?), though what’s overwhelming on this show is the sheer averageness of the proceedings, which take place in hotel ballrooms on makeshift stages while an audience of decidedly unglamorous parents and supporters look on.

Tennessee tussle

This week’s episode features Madison Bowles, 8, and Angelina Kurtyak, 10, friends from the small town of Crossville, Tenn., who are competing for the title of Little Miss Perfect Music City. (There are multiple Little Miss Perfect Pageants in various cities; each episode of the show focuses on a different one, following two contestants from preparation through coronation.)

Angelina, a bright, slightly awkward girl who seems uninterested in glitz, is shown feeding her family’s goats and showing off her “top reader” medal from school. Madison is shown carrying her own luggage and getting a home spray-tan, wearing contact paper on her palms and soles of her feet to avoid spillage. At the pageant, Madison is the clear pro, while, hilariously, the judges deem Angelina’s homemade wow wear insufficiently “authentic.”

“Little Miss Perfect” has been innovative in introducing new terminology to the TV lexicon. There’s wow wear -- flashy clothing meant to capture a judge’s attention -- and a flipper, essentially the cosmetic version of an athletic mouth guard, or dentures for tweens, worn so that unsightly gaps between teeth won’t be seen when a contestant smiles, though as seen on Madison this week, the effect can be cartoonish.

At the center of it all is Galanes, part ringmaster, part booster, part puppeteer. He gives tips on routines, issues proclamations on the creation of young beauty -- “When the hair and makeup is done, and the spray tan is right, she’s on her way to success!” -- and holds the contestants captive on stage, just before announcing the pageant’s results, with a spooky rendition of its theme song. He’s fascinating but painted as almost naive.

Beyond the wow

But “Little Miss Perfect” doesn’t bother with motivations (the young girls just want to be pretty, and the adults have a need for enabling), making this show more notable for what it leaves unanswered.

Children are plenty complex, as other reality shows have proven. “Kid Nation” was a success for its earnest portrayal of the innovation and humanity of young people, and “I Know My Kid’s a Star” was at times harrowing for its unapologetic depiction of the destructive symbiosis between stage parents and stage kids.

By comparison, “Little Miss Perfect” is tepid: These days, just showing the wow isn’t enough.

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