Little Miss Monkeyshine


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SPOILER ALERT

Yeah, I am going to spoil this piece of crap while I rant about it. You don't have to read it and I don't care whom I tick off.

I saw Little Miss Sunshine the other day and I was not impressed to say the least. If I had to sum up the theme of this yucky comedy, it would be: It's OK to be a total loser so long as you find ultimate happiness and fulfillment in the bosom of your family.

Now, I have nothing against family values. Hell, I'm very happily doing one right now after years of bouncing all over South America. I have nothing against family values in movies, either. I read a book a long time ago (can't remember the name or author) that described the two themes that keep Hollywood afloat in riches: The Circus and The Family. If you think about it, most films either deal with freaks (physical and psychological) or they deal with family life. There are some fine exceptions, but the bread and butter goes to the big two.

Now I cannot sit back and watch as ALL of my Objectivist values get trashed in order to raise up the glories of living in a family tribe of losers. The whole "dysfunctional family" part of this mess was only a smokescreen to show how really important family is and how little success matters in life—and that means success at anything else at all outside of the family. Every last goddam member of this idiot family, all of them, accept failure in attaining their most precious values as OK as they embrace the joys of familyhood.

Here is the rundown:

Sheryl Hoover (Toni Collette), the wife and mother, is probably the most successful person in the film. She is stressed out, but at least she keeps the family glued together by appeasing one, ignoring another, bullying another, manipulating another. Everything for the family. (Especially excellence.)

Richard Hoover (Greg Kinnear), the husband and father, is a pie-in-the-sky go-getter who is ultimately a failure at selling his book after sewing up an agent. To stress the failure angle even further, his book is a self-help motivational "become a winner in so many steps" type book.

Frank (Steve Carell), Sheryl's brother, is a gay Proust scholar who has failed at achieving his professional goals, losing to a less-talented rival, failed at his love affair, and even failed at committing suicide.

Edwin (Alan Arkin, who won an Oscar), Richard's father, can't even keep in a retirement home. He started becoming a junkie (snorting heroin of all the goddam things) in old age and got thrown out. He is charming, at least, because he is so foul-mouthed and rebellious. But ultimately it's all an act because he is stuck in the family. He's got nowhere to go and it's obvious he doesn't want to be there. But he's too old to do anything else. He also dies halfway through the film before seeing his granddaughter, whom he has been coaching, perform in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. Another failure.

Dwayne (Paul Dano), the son, is a total failure—apparently at everything. His dream is to become an Air Force pilot and he even takes a vow of silence, thinking somehow that this little bit of appeasing unreality and superstition will help him attain his goal. He fails before he even gets a chance because he discovers he is colorblind. To emphasize the failure, he spends the film reading Nietzsche and pretending he is better than everyone else.

Olive (Abigail Breslin), the daughter gets a shot at glory in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant, but she is not only disqualified for performing an erotic number, almost a strip-tease (and the little girls in the contest are all about 7 years old), she is forbidden to ever enter a contest in California again.

I don't know how many you you have read Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell, but it is about a group of hillbillies who takes a brand new car on a journey and wreck the hell out of it along the way. This movie borrows a lot from this theme, except this family has an already old rusty van. The movie is essentially about the trip this family makes to see the little girl perform and present their respective failures (including the van falling apart) and redemption through family life along the way.

Some of the gags are funny, but I have to admit that the beauty pageant, with all those hot young little seven-year-old girls dressed up as sexy adult models, was a pedophile's dream. If you want to catch the neighborhood pedophile, see what man saw this movie by himself more than once, or made multiple rentals of the DVD. The final striptease must really tickle his itch.

But when the entire family (except the dead dude) all jumps on stage to boogie down with Little Miss Sexpot (as the prudish judges were trying to kill the number while acting like they were sprouting painful hemorrhoids) is the heroic climax of this Odyssey to the glories of mediocrity. Family solidarity saves all in the end. Frankly I wanted to vomit.

Achieving your goals is important, damn it.

Bah!

Michael

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I'll risk being thrown out of here by having the chutzpah to challenge you, with only 28 posts under my belt, but I really can't keep quiet. That's because I can't believe you and I saw the same film.

(And I saw it in the theater. You clearly rented the DVD. Why didn't you simply stop the disc when it first became intolerable, return it, and insist on your money back?)

I might as well start at the top, with your thread title saying this film "is for losers and worse." With having just read how you took Victor to task in his "Love in Bloom" thread for making nonspecific criticisms about "some people," I have to wonder at your phrasing here. Were you trying to classify anyone who sees some value in this movie as being a "loser"? Doesn't that risk being a double standard?

In any event: What I saw was a wry comedy about an extended family that doesn't worship its own mediocrity, but instead strives against the mediocre people (and their expectations) that are being pressed down upon it. The resistance, often less than conscious, ends up being what matters. Not their own shortcomings, of which each person — except the young daughter, who's understandably swept up in her pageant monomania for most of the story — is almost painfully aware.

You say, with unnecessary ranting (and at least you're admitting it), "Every last goddam member of this idiot family, all of them, accept failure in attaining their most precious values as OK as they embrace the joys of familyhood."

None of them are stupid, as you imply. None of them accept failure. All flail against it. Most of them take the further step of questioning whether others' expectations of them are worth following, especially in regard to the daughter's aspirations in her pageant. I even saw an implicit egoistic streak in their stubbornness.

Only the grandfather ends up articulating it consciously to the rest of them (and the uncle, very late in the story). The rest at least silently know that something is wrong, that commitments to what they'd valued weren't working because they weren't consciously choosing their values. And the daughter, who was doing so but without context, by following her enthusiasm, doesn't know why everything goes wrong, but at least can clearly see that her desires aren't getting anywhere against others' obtuseness, and are causing her family some pain.

So, by character:

Sheryl (Toni Collette) is juggling too many expectations, but doesn't want to disappoint her daughter if at all possible. She fears trampling on the girl's aspirations, and what it might do to her idealism. I can't really fault her for that. It's the facts of their situation standing in their way which she misses seeing that drive much of the comedy.

As for being "probably the most successful person in the film," what's your criterion for success? We see nothing of her professional life, if any. You end up berating her as "appeasing one, ignoring another, bullying another, manipulating another." I saw her as trying to conscientiously balance what was going on in her family to keep it from flying apart. I've been there. It's difficult. She's not up to the task, but she knows that she doesn't know how to do any better. Striving to keep the others from coming to blows, or worse, can take all of one's energy.

By the way: I've been trying to find what may tie together all your strident decrying of their "failure." Is it, perhaps, bothering you that this is a lower-middle-class family? Should this not be the source of such film characters, in your estimation? Does their economic stratum disturb you? The film makes no bones about their trying to manage with what they have. I don't see any reason why this struggle, even if misinformed, has to be discounted or dismissed. Not everyone who is more economically "successful" has half the tenacity — often comically misdirected, true — of these people.

Richard (Greg Kinnear) doesn't put up with an agent and associate who is patently manipulating him. He takes the consequences and cuts his losses. I've seen too many people persisting with what doesn't work professionally for them, even after knowing that they'be been used and abused. This man at least finds the self-respect to discard what doesn't work and move on.

Maybe doing the clean-up on one's mistakes isn't as much of a forward-looking achievement as you might prefer, but it also means he's trying to not foist them upon his daughter and the rest of those who care about him. That much self-awareness is rare in itself these days.

Frank (Steve Carell) finds out that the less-talented Proust rival has "won" through misrepresentation and manipulation, and similarly cuts his losses when this is revealed to him on the road. As for "failing at committing suicide," how is that something with which to decry a character? He couldn't, it appears, go ahead with thus obliterating every remaining possibility in his life. Would he have been "heroic" to go through with it?

By the time the family gets to the pageant, Frank has everyone else at least looking at their assumptions about how the world works, in a decent dose of skepticism, perhaps reclaimed from an academic setting that he's clearly been fed up to the gills with anyway. I saw little remorse in the wake of this having collapsed on him, and gave props for that. I was reminded, even in the theater, of an old aphorism: "Conflicts in academe are so bitter because the stakes are so small."

Grandfather Edwin (Alan Arkin) doesn't like being put in a box and being told to shut up, which is what many retirement "homes" do to their "clients" routinely. Nothing's wrong with that, I'd say, if others aren't being imposed upon by taking on the costs and needs of caring for him. They're willing, despite his quirks. And he clearly delights his granddaughter.

("He doesn't want to be there"? The girl would say otherwise. And have you never heard or met someone elderly complaining because of having high expectations for the lives of those he cares about, rather than simply not liking what he has at hand? I certainly have. It's easy to confuse the two, especially when you're in a later generation and distracted by other pressures.)

Yeah, the grandfather dies partway through, before they conclude their pageant odyssey. Does that mean they're exalting "another failure"? Not at all. He never lowered his flag of (at least psychic) independence. He kept his peccadilloes to himself, such as the heroin, and didn't impose them on others. Sometimes the body can't match what the mind intends to do. Quelle surprise.

Dwayne (Paul Dano) isn't portrayed as making much sense as a son, I'll grant that. He's seized on ritual in his vow of silence that does nothing, though I gathered that he'd been misled by authorities in his life to think that such asceticism is a productive virtue. (Sounds like some of the New Age flakes on the faculty of my '70s high school.) As a teenager, he didn't get enough context, and proceeded to misapply what he did have. So what else is friggin' new?

As for his becoming a pilot, you don't like seeing how he supposedly "fails before he even gets a chance because he discovers he is colorblind" — and you say this without even alluding to how well the plot and characters come together, unexpectedly, to inform him about this? (One of the reasons this film deserved its Oscar for Original Screenplay.)

The kid didn't know such a fact about himself. It alters his plans, with understandable anger and regret. Such a realization is a "failure" only by making the facile assumption that we should embark on a quest only after every fact is sussed out in advance, where no place is left for passion, let alone serendipity ... and that's not the kind of life I'd like to lead. Dwayne clearly doesn't think so, either.

And Olive (Abigail Breslin), the daughter, is indeed wrapped up at her "shot at glory," wherein you seem to have entirely missed the satire in just how unglorious, tacky, and pretentious the setting is. Olive doesn't miss it, once they've arrived after much travail. She's glad to see her father and uncle standing up to the concrete-bound (gotta get that Objectivist epithet in {rueful smile}) true mediocrities who run the pageant. They won't take the family's mishaps into consideration, putting the fine print of the rules ahead of their professed goals for these girls. Olive gets the message: You have to be very careful just whom you accept for writing the rules about your life.

She won't knuckle down to their esthetic and performance expectations, either. What she performs, after having been coached by her now-gone grandfather, is neither "erotic" nor anything more than mildly risqué. (At that age, she doesn't grasp any of the subtext, but she clearly knows that it delighted her grandfather, and can you seriously fault her for having such priorities?)

What's important here, though, is how this punctures the carefully coiffed, lifeless pretense of the mannequins that the other girls have been turned into by their parents. She'll have no part of it. Olive doesn't come to this realization in so many words, as she doesn't have the vocabulary, but she gets the gist of it: "Succeeding" at the pageant by being that much of a fake about one's own drive and interests just isn't worth it.

(Oh, and as to your suggesting a "pedophile's dream": You are being grossly unfair to the parents who actually do put their daughters into these competitions. That is the furthest thing from their minds. They want glamor, poise, and, yes, probably too much in the way of "glory" for their girls. Yet none of this effort is made for the sake of sexual ends. I was probably as disgusted as you were by the circumstances of the over-famed Jon-Benet Ramsey murder case, and how it was played up as to how the parents pushed their daughter into this milieu. That doesn't mean their motives involved suggesting any inappropriate sexuality. It was supremely tacky, even highly unsettling. That isn't anywhere near its being abusive. ... End of digression.)

So, I went on at length, perhaps too much. Yet I saw more subtleties, by far — and certainly more clever plotting and admirable character construction — than you did. It's no masterpiece, though I would class it among the best films of the last few decades using the "on the mishap-laden road" theme, a strong and rarely admitted theme in American movies.

And in that respect, playing up the possibilities of such odysseys for both comedy and relationships, it was as ingenious and entertaining as the Academy voters thought it was. This "loser" intends to rent it and see it again.

Edited by Greybird
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Steve,

I have no problem with someone liking the film. I agree that there are many subtleties, good character development, etc.

I don't agree that the intent of the parents in dressing up their little girls as almost Playboy models with their clothes on and exhibiting them like that has much bearing on the result of the final product for pedophiles. Olive's bumps and grinds are still bumps and grinds, regardless of whether she wants to please her grandfather or not. I do agree that the organizers of the event are mediocre.

Believe it or not, I can empathize with everyone of these characters, much for the same reasons you gave. I certainly would not want to be any of them, though, nor would I want to live in that family. For some reason, their little concerns and trials and tribulations reminded me of Babbitt, but it has been years since I read that book.

Sure, the message success-wise is "You gotta try." But the practical result is "Don't ever expect to achieve your goals. Trying is enough. Don't expect to get anything from achievement, anyway. It's not important. Fulfillment is not gained from chosen values. It is only gained from sticking together as a big happy family."

Note that the message is not "Fulfillment is gained from achieving your goals and having a family to share it with." Achieving goals is pitted against family as a kind of false either-or.

On Frank not taking it anymore from a manipulative agent, I have been in that agent's shoes (with pop singers). I can assure you that after you have given it your best shot and offered the product to everyone you know and it has been refused, and then you tell the person (like this agent did) that you cannot place it, they still worry the hell out of you because they have no one else to worry (like Frank did). They think you didn't do your job well and accuse you of all kinds of nasty things like incompetence, selling out to another artist, not trying, etc., but they sure as hell can't place their own product either. I don't really see what Frank achieved with that agent except provide him with a big measure of relief. His gesture was good for his own self-esteem, maybe, but in practical results for the rest of the world, it was a big pfffffft.

I knew a music publisher back when I did my stint as an agent who was aggressive in the beginning about signing on any songwriter he could get. He learned the hard way that signing on artists is a two-edged sword and he grew old before his time because they worried the living daylights out of him, day and night. I don't know if his firm closed or not. I do know that it has never been successful.

I just noticed that I started writing about something else instead of the film. Hmmmm... This might be because I don't want to write anymore about it.

I normally don't write such a harsh review. But this film got to me on a visceral level. Too much failure and too much complacency about failure. I work my butt off to achieve my goals and trying is not enough for me. I have to finish what I start and it's usually tough going all the way. I HATE the message that you don't need to get there. I have fought this in myself all my life. I personally do need to get there.

But let me stop. If you liked the film, don't let me spoil it for you. My reaction is my reaction. Knock yourself out and go for it. It's still a film, it was competently made, there are values in it other than what I wrote (although what I criticized is glaringly there, too) so you aren't necessarily a loser if you like the film (sorry about the insinuation), and I love motion pictures.

Different strokes for different folks.

Some of the aerial shots were good. There. I said something good about the film. :)

Michael

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Thanks for your reply, Michael. It merits a further note.

Sure, the message success-wise is "You gotta try." But the practical result is "Don't ever expect to achieve your goals. Trying is enough. Don't expect to get anything from achievement, anyway. It's not important. Fulfillment is not gained from chosen values. It is only gained from sticking together as a big happy family."

It seems that we'll never come to any consensus about this film, because I didn't see one particle of your "practical result" in it. Not in characterization, not in plot, not in dialogue, not in resolution. Especially not the "only."

So I'll have to leave it at that. I will point out, though, what directly set me off and made me go on at such argumentative length. From your original post:

"If you want to catch the neighborhood pedophile, see what man saw this movie by himself more than once, or made multiple rentals of the DVD."

No movie deserves this kind of dismissal. No viewers of it do. Hell's bells, I was thinking of buying the DVD. What kind of moral sewer would that have made me, if I were to ever take this seriously?

This is what made me fear — inaccurately, I'm relieved to see — that you wouldn't put up with dissent over your appraisal.

Such insinuation about what one detests belongs at the ARI or at SOLO Passion. It's typical of them. It's not typical of you, and I knew that even in my only having spent two weeks here, mostly reading hundreds of messages.

[...] It's still a film, it was competently made, there are values in it other than what I wrote (although what I criticized is glaringly there, too) so you aren't necessarily a loser if you like the film (sorry about the insinuation) [...]

Thank you for saying so.

Edited by Greybird
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Steve,

You are in good company because Kat doesn't agree with me either. She liked the movie (and so did Inky).

Sill, I would be HARD money and BIG bucks that this film is making the pedophile circuit. I have no doubt some in-house jargon will arise in the underground. (Just off the top of my head, how about a Sunshine Girl? :) ) Seven year-olds doing bumps and grinds is just too much to imagine them not salivating over it.

But it's no problem to like something pedophiles like. It's a big world... :)

(OK. I stop. Kitten's getting ticked. Just joking...)

Michael

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Steve,

One other thought.

If you ever see me coming out Randroid, it's because I'm grumpy, not because my categories have hardened. Going Randroid is good for venting because it's so... er... hmmm... consistent. You don't have to think. Once you've learned the jargon, just let 'er fly. Then go, "Aaaaaaaaahhh..." in relief.

When I get really angry, I tend to resolve the situation, not just rant.

Michael

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~ Hadn't seen the film...in its entirety, that is. --- Got the DVD and my wife found (especially with Joey watching) a real prob with Alan Arkin's non-stop foul language. I thought he was funny (I have little 'PC' probs re language that 5-yr-olds already heard); she thought he was a loser-louse (and the rest just losers). As they started their travel in their van, Arkin's character wouldn't let up...end of watching THAT boo-boo, and seeing what all the reviewed praiseworthiness was supposed to have been all about.

~ So, Mike, Little Miss Sunshine was a Jon-Benet 'Barbie'-doll performer in the penultimate contest for closet-pedophiles? And the (we all agree, from what I'd seen up until 'eject') dysfunctional family characters never saw this aspect even in the contest? Yet, they all lived 'dysfunctionally'-ever-after, I gather?

~ The actors were good; the story seemed barely interesting. The g'father died? The girl did a near strip-tease? --- Guess I won't re-rent it to see that there's nothing worth seeing/understanding/learning-from.

LLAP

J:D

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John Dailey wrote:

"So, Mike, Little Miss Sunshine [presumably you mean the girl who wanted to enter this pageant] was a Jon-Benet 'Barbie'-doll performer in the penultimate contest for closet-pedophiles?"

No. Precisely the opposite.

"And the (we all agree, from what I'd seen up until 'eject') [...]"

No. ("We" don't "all" agree, and you thus were leaving a door for me to reply to you.)

"[...] dysfunctional family characters never saw this aspect even in the contest?"

No. Because no such aspect existed. Period.

"Yet, they all lived 'dysfunctionally'-ever-after, I gather?"

No. They learned that they ought to avoid living within illusions. Including the little girl, without having lost her idealism.

If you're going to use this sweeping "we," please at least acknowledge that, for instance, someone (I) wrote at length, more than Michael did, to contend that every element of his evaluation was mistaken. I'd rather not be swept into such "we" statements.

... I'll have to note here that John Dailey's post gives an example of how a false "meme," once started, can wreak havoc. And can end up sticking like tar to its opponents, like me.

Any "pedophilia" is all in Michael's head, and from his choosing to be — as he admits, and, again, entirely out of his demonstrated character elsewhere — snarky and Randroidish. There is no insinuation, suggestion, allusion, or even remote background or foreground reference to this in the actual movie.

I apologize for letting my own buttons get pressed. I now have truly said enough. All I'll conclude with is this:

I may have only 30 posts of street cred around here as yet (if you don't remember me from 30 years of other O-forums, as noted here). Yet I hope you, the OL reader, will take my advice to rent this movie yourself, if the talented cast or well-turned story line at all interest you, and make your own judgment.

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Greybird,

I look forward to hearing about some your favorite movies and your analysis of them and the reason why you love them. Big movie buff here. You’ll have a reader in me.

Little Miss Sunshine? I was indifferent to it.

-Victor

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Greybird:

~ EVERYTHING I said was in response to MSK's post/review. When I used *we*, I was responding to *his* post re *his* arguments with an, in effect, 'editorial' *we.*

~ *Your* arguments against my response amounts to implying that all I said should have been in a private-em. Think Twice about that.

~ NONE of my *we* implied that *I* thought all readers should agree with me (a super-insinuation of your post) any more than with MSK's. All implications and insinuations of my post were only about MSK's views and arguments, to the extent that any/each of us accepts such; I do, but, never implied (anymore than MSK did) that all (including *you*) should. --- Let's not turn personal disagreements into publicly-put personal-denigrations.

LLAP

J:D

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... I'll have to note here that John Dailey's post gives an example of how a false "meme," once started, can wreak havoc. And can end up sticking like tar to its opponents, like me.

Any "pedophilia" is all in Michael's head, and from his choosing to be — as he admits, and, again, entirely out of his demonstrated character elsewhere — snarky and Randroidish. There is no insinuation, suggestion, allusion, or even remote background or foreground reference to this in the actual movie.

Steve,

I was going to let this rest, but I want to register a precision observation here. (I am very hard on myself to make my own words mean what I want them to mean, so I try to correct something when my words are misunderstood and presented with an unintended meaning.)

I did not say that there were any pedophiles or pedophilia in the movie. I said it was a pedophile's dream. What I meant was that little seven year-old girls were being exhibited in a manner that was sure to appeal to pedophiles. Dressing up seven year-old girls as sexy fashion models and parading them on stage as such, and having one do an imitation of Demi Moore's strip in Striptease (at least in parts), is not in my head. And it's not insinuated, suggested, etc. It's blatant and it's there on the screen. In fact, the striptease part was precisely what the Little Miss Sunshine organizers were objecting to, so it's even a plot mover. Once again, that was not in my head. If there is any doubt that a striptease was staged with a seven year-old girl (although she obviously did not remove all her clothes—she only removed the pullaway clothes and threw them into the audience or the side of the stage like strippers do), I also suggest renting the DVD and looking. I will let the images speak for themselves.

If this creates a meme, so be it. That's not the intent and I don't engage in smear tactics. That would be if I stated an untruth, but I did not. Facts are merely facts. Look at them (and this is essentially what I said): (1) pedophiles like watching seven year-old girls do a striptease, (2) pedophiles like watching seven year-old girls dressed up as sexy fashion models and paraded on stage, (3) there was a seven year-old girl doing a striptease in the film, and (4) there were seven year-old girls dressed up as sexy fashion models and paraded on stage in the film. I also stated that the stripper's family went on stage with her to boogie down amidst the bumps and grinds at the end.

Is any of that untrue?

I admit to some wisecracks about identifying neighborhood pedophiles based on how many times they watched the film alone. I thought the tongue-in-cheek spoke for itself. After all, we are speaking about a movie that won a couple of Oscars and has an R rating and is widely advertised as such.

Another thing. You stated: "from his choosing to be — as he admits, ... snarky and Randroidish." That is not precise. I did not admit to choosing to be snarky, although I did admit that the tone of my review was Randroidish (meaning aggressively condemnatory in an orthodox Objectivist manner). I understand snarky to mean purposely insulting a specific poster you are interacting with. I was not interacting with anyone, merely giving a review for the general audience.

I admit to a poor choice in the title (which I have now corrected), but to tell the truth, this was one of those places where I was not precise. I certainly did not want to insult people who enjoyed the film. (Why would I want to do that?) So I did not mean that ALL people who liked the movie were "losers or worse." I only meant that there were elements in the film that would appeal to losers or worse. To remove the unintended insult but maintain my dislike of the film, I changed the title from "Little Miss Sunshine is for losers or worse" to "Little Miss Monkeyshine." :)

If it's any consolation, I agree with you about the aspect of each character giving up illusions and facing reality. That is one of the finer themes in the film. (My objection is to what that reality is, but this is another issue and I have dealt with it above.)

Michael

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With the genuine risk of pounding it all too much into the ground, I had to add these notes, since I was mistaken more than once.

I'm glad Michael changed the thread title. The original title was what I saw as being especially "snarky," but he hadn't actually said so himself, and I apologize for not having been more precise.

As for meme-making, I'll try to be more direct: I still don't believe it was appropriate, useful, or fair for the idea of "pedophilia" to be brought up in a review, even in broader comments. Critiques of what's displayed and encouraged in the girls'-pageant culture, or of what others do with it all, really belong elsewhere, as I see it.

That meme was tossed into the fray, nonetheless. It appeared to suggest, to John Dailey, that such content may have been a part of the movie — in the portion he hadn't seen. (I'm glad he may re-rent this.) Memes can do that. I didn't want such an implication or suggestion to spread to anyone else. Thus the bold type.

I hadn't suggested, or so I thought, that Michael was imputing this to the movie itself, but I was less direct than I should have been, and it might appear that I was doing so. I regret any misrepresentation.

As for John's own comments: I didn't have any cues that he was only responding to Michael's review, and at least one suggesting otherwise — the "we all," when a more limited response would have called for "you." Yet I made a broader conclusion than was warranted, without asking him to clarify this, and I should have done so.

Edited by Greybird
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~ Clearly, as in most blog 'arguments', mis-interpretation hinging on even one word is the order-of-the-day.

--- Can't help but think of paraphrasing Lennon's

"*I* am *he*, and *he* is *we*, and *you* are *me*, and *we* are all together..." (Like, who's whom, and who's meant by which said by whom?)

~ Some see pedos relevent here; some don't. Is there a need for hostility re the different viewpoints? Methinks that, the need/appropriateness for hostility, there is in this subject, not (as Yoda might put it.) --- Man, I REALLY gotta re-check this movie now. (Always did like Arkin, vulgar or not.)

LLAP

J:D

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Mike:

~ Careful! You're starting to sound like a certain 'Louis' (and I don't mean Satchmo.) --- Don't want to promote K(iss)ASS wannabees here.

LLAP

J:D

P.S: Uh-h, who's 'Olive'? Do you have her ['Olive' IS a 'her', right?] phone number? Oh, uh, my wife wants to know.

Edited by John Dailey
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First off, let me praise Michael for being man enough to admit when he's wrong (about the implications in the title). That, let me say, is NOT common among the more rabid Randroids, who think that the main puropose of principles is to make baseball bats with which to bash people's heads in.

Greybird: I'm with you, almost 100%. I've seen "Little Miss Sunshine" three times already, and I'm VERY uncomfortable that someone would even think I could even be capable of paedophilia for this. I saw it three times because it's a great comedy!

Further, I found your observations about the movie to be spot-on.

In fact, as the movie reviewer for The New Individualist, "Little Miss Sunshine" was the movie I most regretted not reviewing. When picking films to review, I often see four or five movies to get two reviews. Most movies, however, just aren't terribly relevant to the mission of TNI and since I review them within the framework of rational individualism, they have to make that "cut."

"Little Miss Sunshine" didn't make that cut. That, however, didn't make it any lesser movie in my *personal* estimation, mainly because I don't go to the movies to see my personal philosophy of rational individualism validated (although, it's nice from time to time). I go to movies to get out of the house and have a good time.

In that respect, "Little Miss Sunshine" passed with flying colors. What a charming movie!

Before we go too far over the deep end analysing its "implications" and "unspoken premises," let us be reminded that "IT'S JUST A MOVIE." In particular, it's a comedy, NOT a "message movie." Sure, there's a message (one that too many uptight Objectivist types, present company excepted, ignore), namely that you should give your family unconditional love. Yet, beyond that, the movie rang true with me: YES, in many ways, these characters ARE losers. THAT'S PRECISELY THE POINT: To the extent they were losers is to the same extent their family was messed up. The lesson I got from it was "Having survived this bizarre odyssey, and having grown faith in each other as family members, and as parents becoming a little less self-centered and caring a little more about our kids, perhaps now we'll have something to build on to start winning for a change."

Did I hear somebody wince at the phrase "unconditional love"? Then let me humbly suggest, with all due respect, that you've never lived on the receiving end of Objectivist parents. I have.

I don't hold it against my father or mom now, but try to imagine, if you will, growing up having to hear your parents make statements qualifying their love for you as a child. To hear, growing up, that my father's love for my mother, because *chosen,* is on a higher, more *worthy,* plane than their love for me, because I -- after all -- was not planned. I just "happened."

Tell me I'm wrong! Maybe most Objectivist parents never utter those words to their children, and I pray they never do. But, this "applying" Ayn Rand's ideas to every goddamned thing in life (which, as we know, has caused a lot of anger, hurt and pain to others when zeal for righteousness overrides such trifling concerns as paternal/maternal instincts, tact, and just plain human decency) left emotional scars on me until well into my thirties, because I heard this shite as a young child, and didn't realize its source until my dad lent me a copy of "Atlas Shrugged" at 17.

Well, for the next 15 years or so, I knew where my parents got that wrongheaded garbage about qualifying *levels* of love, but repressed its inherently damaging nature because it "made sense" to me, "logically."

But, I did some soul searching when I realized one simple thing: That the evidence of my experience said totally otherwise. I loved my father because he was kind and gentle to me, despite those crackpot ideas he picked up from Ayn Rand and Objectivism about placing a higher value on love for the "chosen" over love to "unchosen" family members.

To be fair, let us say that my parents "misapplied" those ideas of Rand's. That said, anyone who tells me that notions like that weren't, and aren't, in the air in Objectivist circles is a bald-faced liar.

Another thing that was damaging to me as a child was all that Objectivist judgmental crap my parents absorbed from reading Ayn Rand's books and newsletters and listening to lectures, especially the part on the evils of withholding judgment.

At an IOS conference, I even heard an audience member question Nathaniel Branden about the moral necessity of pronouncing moral judgments (again, tell me I'm making this stuff up). After the questioner sat down, I just had to rise, and say to Branden that where does everybody get off thinking they owe other people their *unsolicited* moral judgments and opinions, particularly in a personal setting? While I thought this observation would draw some sounds of recognition and resonance, you could really hear the crickets chirping on that one! It's like I stepped off a rocketship from Mars and right into Rand World, so naive was I in my belief that people should just mind their own business, unless their obnoxious and nosy moral judgments really *are* solicited by others!

Thinking about it, considering the damage done to me as my parents improperly "applied" Objectivist "principles" in raising their children, Objectivists are lucky that I'm even giving them the time of day. But, one thing I picked up from Rand, Objectivism and other Objectivists was the value of thinking for myself. There is much in Objectivism of great value, and over the years I've learned to be "objective" about Objectivism. However, I know more than a few damaged souls who've washed their hands of the whole sordid messes their lives have become because of the almost Puritanical, humorless and obsessive judgmentalism that's the ugly baggage of Objectivism.

The reason I loved "Little Miss Sunshine" is because, at the end of the day, these family members still love each other, *and are there* for each other, unconditionally.

I look at my own boy, who is eighteen months old: How could I as a father, in good conscience, ever give him any message other than that I love him unconditionally? How could I ever say those hurtful, confidence destroying words to him that he wasn't "chosen" and that my love for him is not as "great" or as "special" as my love for my wife?

I plan to raise my boy to be a good, decent, moral and productive man. I will teach him about honor and use many opportunities to teach him right from wrong. I will push him to excel in his passions, but never live vicariously through his achievements.

But, to help him grow strong and independent, there is a need that must be fulfilled, a need that all children have in the marrow of their bones, and in their heart of hearts: That, his daddy will always be there for him, that his daddy may judge his actions but never his soul, and that, no matter what, his daddy will always love him.

Edited by Robert Jones
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First off, let me praise Michael for being man enough to admit when he's wrong (about the implications in the title).

. . .

The reason I loved "Little Miss Sunshine" is because, at the end of the day, these family members still love each other, *and are there* for each other, unconditionally.

Robert,

(sigh)

We're getting a regular Ziegfield chorus line locked and loaded and ready to kick.

Well hell. Go on, now. Admit it. You know you want it. You know you want to bump and grind on stage in fishnets. This uncontrollable urge has been keeping you awake at night and the movie gave form to the...

(ahem... Oops... Kitten's looking over with a scowl...)

:)

From the general reaction to my review, it looks like I was actually woman enough to change the title, except I am not a woman.

:)

I fully agree with you about the importance of unconditional love between parents and children. That's a dirty word in Objectivism and it's a damn good one for the ethics section. A child deserves all the love he can get because he cannot control his needs and he certainly did not ask to get born and come with all those needs.

Seen in this light, the unconditional love portrayed by the family at the end is another plus for the movie. Still, I stand by my comments for Lil' Ol' Miss Whatserface. As I agree with your point and some of the good things Steve mentioned, I hereby add them to my comments (to be fair). But still, I HATED the film because of the constant failure. Hated it.

Probably the reason for such different reactions was our different histories. My reaction was visceral and completely sincere and I will not disown it.

I find your own history of being brought up under Objectivist parents fascinating. If you have any more to say about that, I am all ears.

Incidentally, I am now functioning as a father and it is filling a hole in my soul that was left over from losing my own boys. Sean has an autistic spectrum disorder, but I swear, I haven't been able to detect it once the horsing around starts. I think he needed to be seen and loved by a father figure. I am giving him that in spades.

Unconditionally.

Michael

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Michael,

You know what your problem is?!???

You just don't get American humor. This was a off-beat comedy, not a reality show. It was a family on a road trip and it was a hell of a lot better than RV, which was another comedy where a family took a cross country trip, and although it starred Robin Williams, one of my favorite comedians, it wasn't nearly as funny as Little Miss Sunshine. It simply didn't have the edge.

Nobody in the movie aside from Grandpa knew what kind of dance she was going to do onstage, and considering the costume she had picked out, certainly would not have expected her to do a striptease. Yes, it was very inappropriate for the talent competition in a kiddie beauty pageant, but that was part of its comedic charm. Remember, it was the plain little chubby kid doing the strip tease, not one of the overdone mini-sexpots. There was nothing remotely sexy about Olive bumping, grinding and growling to Super Freak. It would be a rare, pathetic and miserable failure of a pedophile who would even find her remotely hot. Do you think that any guy who likes musicals or Madonna is gay, too?

Little Miss Sunshine was light entertainment and you read some kind of sick and twisted pedophile agenda into it which simply wasn't there and somehow triggered a display of Randroidism I have frankly never seen in you. Weird.

Steve and Robert got it. You didn't.

~ growl ~

Kitten

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Mike:

~ Oh! THAT was 'Olive'! Forgot that was her name. 'Twixt Joeys giggling everytime Arkin spoke and Jane's exasperated "Is this going to go on like this? It's as bad as 48-Hours" I guess I missed LMS's actual name. Uh-h, nm about her phone-number.

Robert:

~ That subject you segued into about 'O-ist parents' would probably make a fascinating separate thread. I'd caught references about the 'problem' which I'd say you correctly identified as 'mis-application' of ideas. --- P.S: Not all 'parent's are really cut out to be such, O-ist or not, 'conditional-love' or 'UN-'; indeed, I'd say most, historically.

Kat:

~ Uh-h, from what Mike says, regardless your pointing out that Olive wasn't exactly groomed as Jon-Benet's clone, ntl, if she was doing a near s-t, I think he's correct that there may be a prob glossed over here; but, I'll say no more here 'till I see it.

LLAP

J:D

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Well, definitely not the film for me, 5 minutes of that stupid music is more than I can stand.

Rick James's "Superfreak" is hardly "stupid music" IMHO. It's the apotheosis of Funk! A true funk MASTERPIECE! Not even George Clinton or Earth Wind & Fire could touch it (pun and props to M.C. Hammer intended).

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