Little Miss Sunshine

The Hoover family wins

Little Miss Sunshine is categorized as a 2006 comedy-drama and adventure movie directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. It is a story about a dysfunctional family who puts everything aside regardless their differences and heads towards California in their VW bus to support their young daughter Olive as she wishes to win the beauty contest. The Hoover family consists of Sheryl, Richard, Olive, Dwayne, Frank and Grandpa.

Sheryl is an over-stressed mother and she runs the house with her income. She loves and cares a lot for her family although they make her go crazy sometimes. Richard is a struggling father who is trying to bring up his business and to get his family out of financial crisis. He hates losers and failures.

Self-esteem, self-confidence, family and childhood are the main things that we should value from the film’s perspective. For example, on their way to California, the family stops by for breakfast and when Olive asks for ice-cream; his father tells her that she will be fatter if she eats that and Miss America cannot be fat. Olive is sad that she has to avoid her favorite desert for her dream. Another example is the major differences between Olive and her competitors. The beauty contest’s little girls are hypersexualized, slim and they are portrayed as adults with heavy makeup, lipsticks, swimsuits and glamourous gowns for their performances. Olive is represented as a simple chubby girl with ordinary swimsuit and hair style. Richard and Dwayne try to stop Olive from participating because everyone will laugh at her, but Sheryl tells them that they have to let Olive be Olive. When it is her turn to perform, Olive dedicates it to her Grandpa. She is full of innocence and when the host asks her where her Grandpa is, she tells her that he is in the car trunk. She starts dancing as the latter choreographed and she is enjoying every moment of it. It does not take much time for her to become laughter and out casted. However, to show their support, each member of the family goes on stage and dances happily with her even though the judges ask them to get her out of stage. At the end, the family was let free at the condition that they never enter the beauty contest again. They get in the van and leaves for their home place smiling. This whole scene demonstrates how the family builds up Olive’s self-esteem and self-confidence by supporting her so much throughout her whole journey to the beauty contest. Olive does not let her childhood lose over the beauty contest. Although she is seem as an amateur in front of the other little girls, she is beautiful as she is. It is not makeup, clothes or hairstyles that defines a person. It is their personality and actions. So, we should stop