Oh Baby
Posted by Osagie K. Obasogie June 8, 2007
Biopolitical Times
A small brouhaha has been building over Bay Area radio station KMEL's online baby contest, whereby listeners can submit their babies' pictures and vote for their favorites. Apparently, not everyone was happy with the online voting and cut-off procedures that suggested that some kids weren't quite as cute as their parents thought.
Today's baby competitions are an odd continuation of the "better baby contests" made popular by the early 20th century American eugenics movement. Back then, infants and toddlers went through extensive examinations at county fairs and other public gatherings to determine which child exhibited the "best" characteristics. These competitions were tied closely to prevailing eugenic ideas of race betterment; contests were designed to give a pop culture spin on promoting hygiene, strength, and vigor among American families to improve their so-called breed.
What's interesting, as the KMEL firestorm shows, is how these same ideals remain latent in American society. We continue to judge babies and award prizes under the assumption that children can be placed on some hierarchy of attractiveness that speaks to their worth, if not also their family's. And, all of this centers around unarticulated yet celebrated norms of health and able-bodiness that reaffirms these characteristics as natural, normal, and good. These contests, like those in the past, generate a notion that good babies look a certain way and conform to specific social standards.
While today's baby contests aren't embedded in the eugenic ideology of the "fitter family" competitions, it's important to look at the interaction between popular culture and scientific practices that might lead to questionable outcomes. In today's case, it might suggest that the desire among some to use reproductive and genetic technologies to have designer babies that look a certain way doesn't come out of nowhere.
Today's baby competitions are an odd continuation of the "better baby contests" made popular by the early 20th century American eugenics movement. Back then, infants and toddlers went through extensive examinations at county fairs and other public gatherings to determine which child exhibited the "best" characteristics. These competitions were tied closely to prevailing eugenic ideas of race betterment; contests were designed to give a pop culture spin on promoting hygiene, strength, and vigor among American families to improve their so-called breed.
What's interesting, as the KMEL firestorm shows, is how these same ideals remain latent in American society. We continue to judge babies and award prizes under the assumption that children can be placed on some hierarchy of attractiveness that speaks to their worth, if not also their family's. And, all of this centers around unarticulated yet celebrated norms of health and able-bodiness that reaffirms these characteristics as natural, normal, and good. These contests, like those in the past, generate a notion that good babies look a certain way and conform to specific social standards.
While today's baby contests aren't embedded in the eugenic ideology of the "fitter family" competitions, it's important to look at the interaction between popular culture and scientific practices that might lead to questionable outcomes. In today's case, it might suggest that the desire among some to use reproductive and genetic technologies to have designer babies that look a certain way doesn't come out of nowhere.