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Individuality is What Makes You Great

Little Miss Sunshine - Review - Movies - The New York Times 
The 2006 movie Little Miss Sunshine, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, is about an incredibly dysfunctional family caught in an unexpected journey across the country. The family of six consists of Richard and Cheryl (mom and dad), uncle Frank, Grandpa Edwin, and the two kids Olive and Dwayne. While Cheryl and Richard are at a difficult point in their marriage, Olive gets picked to be a contestant in a beauty pageant, the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. The trip that no one in the family was excited about only got more and more painful for them as their van would consistently break down. Before they could leave their current stop, it required the family to cooperate and push the van to start and quickly hop on. As more and more setbacks and troubles are sent their way, the family realizes that they need each other's support and have to stay strong for Olive's sake.

It gets worse when the family arrives at the pageant late and Olive is unable to participate.  After spending all those painful hours trying to get to the pageant, the family is distraught, only to be unable to compete.  However, a saving grace appears when a man named Kirby offers to sign Olive up.  Later, as Olive examines the opposition she realizes, along with Dwayne and Richard, that she is no match for the other girls.  Richard and Dwayne are unsuccessful at trying to talk her out of it and are caught by surprise when they see Olive's performance.  When she performs a striptease that was taught to her by her Grandpa, she is swiftly thrown off stage.

This movie has many scenes that explore the many norms that we have in society.  For example, when Olive is pressured not to eat ice cream by her father so she can keep a "perfect" body.  This idea that girls and women have to be super-skinny and attractive to gain any respect from anyone is an unfortunate and disgusting truth that still remains in our society.  Another norm explored by this film is that of sexualizing women and girls.  When Olive performs the striptease, the audience is horrified by her actions even though the entire pageant is overtly sexual.  While her actions aren't too much more sexual than the rest of the contestants, she is still disqualified and removed from the competition.  

To Watch Little Miss Sunshine:  Click Here

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