It is Okay to not be Okay

    When a 7 year old girl is chosen to compete in a beauty pageant called, Little Miss Sunshine, the dysfunctional Hoover family packs up the VW van to travel halfway across the country to California. The family includes her somewhat sane mother Sheryl, her father Richard (a motivational speaker who is stressing over whether his book will be published), her brother Dwayne who has taken a vow of silence and hasn't said a word in 9 months, her grandpa Edwin who has a heroin addiction and her uncle Frank, who recently tried to commit suicide. This family is considered “dysfunctional” in the eyes of society due to many problems that they all have. The family is constantly arguing, mainly it being the parents and their poor financial situation. The son “hates” the family and will not talk to anyone, at least in the beginning. The grandpa is a drug addict and the uncle is severely depressed; hence why he tried to take his own life. As they travel across the country nothing seems to go their way. The van breaks down, they forget Olive (the 7 year old girl) at a gas station, Richard finds out his book won't be published, the grandpa dies, and a few other bad things occur. As the film progresses we can see that this “dysfunctional” family is more like a “normal” and “real” family. 

    Little Miss Sunshine seems to be about a “dysfunctional family” who is traveling across the country for their daughter’s beauty pageant but what the film is actually about is breaking the societal norm that surrounds families and what beauty is. The ideal family that society views are one where members never argue and everyone is constantly happy. There also aren’t problems like depression and substance abuse in “normal” families. What this film is trying to show us is that sometimes it is okay to not be okay. This family has many battles and struggles like many other families. That doesn't make them dysfunctional, it makes them normal.  Real, normal families are not the ones that society presents, they are the Hoovers. At the end of the movie when Olive is performing and everyone in the crowd is judging her, the Hoover family joins in on her performance to show the crowd (and us) that they aren’t going to try and be a “normal” family as society would like but that they are a real family. This film also deals with the social norm that to be pretty is to be skinny. The father does a great job portraying the ridiculous message to his young daughter. When Olive orders her breakfast and it comes with a side of ice cream, he warns her by saying if she eats the ice cream it will make her fat, less pretty, and she will not win the competition as a result. These words stick with her for the rest of the movie. When putting on the costume, Olive sucks in her stomach as she reflects in the mirror. One of the best scenes in the movie is when Olive asks Miss America (her idol) if she eats ice cream. Miss America responds by saying that she loves ice cream and tells Olive her favorite kind. Olive could not believe what she had heard and was very surprised. This still didn’t “cure” her lack of confidence in her body but it showed her that she can eat whatever she wants. Her dad is the perfect representation of society on this matter and Olive is the perfect representation of how women/girls act and respond to comments like that. This film does a great job exploring many social norms in society and watching it now shows us that some of the societal problems of 2006 are still with us in 2021.