The original movie was based on the true story of a several beauty and talent pageants that were filled with scandals, including the parents of the young contestants bribing the judges by providing financial or sexual favors to the judges. Not only adults despite such ugly behaviors, but also the young contestants themselves were equally enraged, and more than once, fights broke out when the winner was announced.
People were fed up with such fraud when it was discovered the ugly behavior listed above was not just an isolated incident in a single pageant, but a widespread phenomenon in many similar pageants, and one of the result is the creation of satires like this movie.
However, the governmental censorship proved to be tougher on movies than books depicting the same matter, and the entire story had to be changed to what we see here in the movie. The official explanation of the censorship was that if the truth were revealed as the way it really was, it was improper for youngsters to watch, and changing to the current version would serve the same purpose in educating the public about the being fair in competitions while enabling the youngsters to watch the film.
People were fed up with such fraud when it was discovered the ugly behavior listed above was not just an isolated incident in a single pageant, but a widespread phenomenon in many similar pageants, and one of the result is the creation of satires like this movie.
However, the governmental censorship proved to be tougher on movies than books depicting the same matter, and the entire story had to be changed to what we see here in the movie. The official explanation of the censorship was that if the truth were revealed as the way it really was, it was improper for youngsters to watch, and changing to the current version would serve the same purpose in educating the public about the being fair in competitions while enabling the youngsters to watch the film.