EVER since 6-year-old pageant winner JonBenet Ramsey was found murdered in the basement of her Colorado home, we've been subjected to an onslaught of videos and photographs of the cosmetically enhanced, blond-haired, blue-eyed little girl. We've also been selected as jurors in a public trial. Kiddie pageant organizer
sings its praisesIn the defendant's box is the seemingly sordid business of children's pageants, whose producers exploit little girls' dreams of scholarship money and public attention by making them look grown-up and sexually provocative.
Whoa! Whoa! Hold on a minute, pleads Fred Mateo of Petite Productions. It isn't like that at all, at least not for the eight pageants that the 35-year-old Aiea resident directs in Hawaii, he says.
In fact, according to Mateo, all of that TV footage makes him feel queasy and disgusted, too - little girls on mainland stages, winking, strutting and shimmying their hips in elaborate, hooker-like outfits.
Mateo and his wife, Malia, first became involved in "charm" pageants when their 5-year-old daughter, Crystal, entered one to overcome shyness. She gained so much confidence and poise from the experience, and the whole family had so much fun, that Dad began to research the industry.
Mateo estimates that there over 200 local contests whose winners are selected primarily on appearance, speech and stage presence.
When he's not at his full-time job at a printing company, he produces pageants including Little Miss Hawaii, Miss Lollipops and Roses, Miss Hawaii Pre-Teen and Miss Hawaii Teenager. The victors of the latter two represent the islands in national competitions.
There are no JonBenet Ramseys in his crowd. "Our pageants encourage parents to let children remain children," says Mateo. "Judges are simply told to carefully choose a child who can communicate well but, most of all, who is trying hard and having fun. We are not looking for a future Miss Hawaii or a super model."
In fact, he points out, a girl or woman who is solely interested in a crown as an ego trip would feel very uncomfortable in one of his productions.
Most of his queens agree to take on a heavy schedule of community service during and even after their reigns, including performing at Kapiolani and Shriner's hospitals, packing boxes for the Community Clearinghouse, participating in nonprofit fund-raisers and picking up litter, he says.
Past winners and their families even started their own "just say no" club, Hawaii Youths Against Drug Abuse.
"Imagine what our girls are thinking after many hours of community service to be labeled as 'child beauty queens' - especially like the one seen on television," says Mateo.
THE truth is there are many more pushy parents and stressed-out kids at Little League games, ice skating exhibitions and other sports events, he says, than at any of his scholarship pageants. That's why Mateo wanted to set the record straight.
His contests have provided over $50,000 in scholarships and prizes to women and girls since 1991. They have prepared young women to blossom and mature. They've taught them how to walk, talk, groom themselves and perform - but most importantly that they can do anything if they try really hard, he says.
Mateo is sick and tired of the entire industry of children's and women's pageants being indicted because of the murder of one little queen in Boulder.
Yeah, what a royal pain.