Who's the True Little Miss Sunshine?

In John 12, we read of Mary’s anointing Jesus with perfume, which was commonly used to prepare for burial. Whether Mary understood that Jesus was close to giving his life, isn’t revealed, and it’s unlikely, as none of Jesus’ followers grasped the predictions of his death. What is clear is that Jesus uses her act of worship as another prophetic indicator that he is about to die. He interprets her actions for everyone in the room, and it seems that Mary said more than she realized with her actions. The picture is one of utter humiliation.

The humiliating effects of death had already been lifted from Lazarus as he had been brought from the tomb--where only the dead reside--to the dinner table--where only the living recline. And at that table, where Lazarus eats and drinks, partaking in the most basic symbols of life, Jesus takes his first steps toward death through Mary’s anointing. Humiliating. At this table--the dead is given life and the one who is “the Life” begins to take on death. Jesus’ coming humiliation is the seemingly paradoxical means of proleptically receiving the glory that Mary ascribes him. In other words, the reason he is worthy of the honor of her perfume is that it’s an oil of humiliation and death. And his humiliation is the reason we must all, with Mary, worship him.

“Little Miss Sunshine” is not only one of the best films I’ve ever seen, it’s also one of the most humiliating. The movie focuses on a family of misfits and losers--losing is a primary theme. In the opening scenes you meet each character and his/her hopeless dreams and failings.

Olive is a seven-year-old who longs to be a beauty queen like Miss America, but she’s awkward, strangely-dressed, and physically beneath the typical (and ridiculous) standards for beauty pageants. Her father, Richard, created a self-actualization program--the “9-step Refuse to Lose Program”--and claims “there are two kinds of people in the world: winners and losers … in the core of your being there is a winner waiting to be released upon the world. My nine steps can take you there.”

There’s Dewayne, the teenager who took a vow of silence for 10 months after studying Fred Nietzche, so that he may become a fighter pilot. Their grandfather has been kicked out of a retirement home for heroin. And Uncle Frank enters the movie having just attempted suicide because he failed in love and his career--outdone by the same man who took his love and the academic grant he had worked toward. Lastly, there’s the mom, Sheryl, who tries to hold her family together financially and emotionally, but can’t as they are bankrupt, unemployed, silent, self-medicating, and suicidal.

The primary storyline is that Olive has slipped, by default, into the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in California, and the family drives 800 miles to the competition. They finally arrive, and everyone realizes that Olive can’t compete with these professional pageant girls--she will suffer and be humiliated. She is not simply going to lose; she is going to die--figuratively of course; she’ll be the laughing stock. So, they try to persuade her to quit. Olive even has a sense of what’s coming, but she goes on stage and she dances … and she is humiliated.

This isn’t a “rags to riches” story. Olive isn’t “Orphan Annie”. People don’t love her or her dance; they boo her; they try to pull her off stage. But she dances on in her humiliation. She dances to “Super Freak” by the late Rick James, because she is a freak. But during her dance, something else happens—the climax of the whole movie occurs on that stage: her family is resurrected. They are brought together; they are given joy; they begin to live and dance with Olive while everyone jeers. Olive heals them; she doesn’t fix their lives or end their pain; they’re still losers. But through her suffering, she lifts them out of their pain and gives them new life. She is the true little Miss Sunshine because her light and its glory shines upon them through her suffering—her suffering for them.

The message of the movie is: recognize who is truly worthy of your praise. That’s also the message of this passage. Mary’s actions are a call to worship, to ascribe the worth, the weight, the honor, the glory to Jesus—glory that is due to him because of his coming death. A death he would die for them and from which he would rise, and we with him.

Comments

[Paul]

Tim,
Nice post, and timely for me as I just saw the movie for the first time. I enjoyed it too. Since I'm no longer in danger of ruining the movie for anyone who is reading here, and since the movie really got me thinking too, I want to ask your thoughts on this.

I had written a much longer blurb, but I will avoid that for now and only say this: I have now come to the conclusion the hero of the movie is Miss California. Without her character, the movie is only tracing the path of discovery from "we are losers" to "the measuring stick is flawed" so we aren't losers since "loser" has no meaning; and true freedom is found in recognizing the measuring stick is just a construct and not being taken by it any longer.

But with Miss California, the movie rises above saying "beauty is merely in the eye of the beholder." Because she is not a loser from the start, has satisfied the measuring stick, celebrates what is truly beautiful (the one other person outside the family who is celebrating their romp on the stage) -- she answers the question of what is worthy of praise. And to the extent Olive images her beauty, she is also beautiful. There are fragments of beauty in other characters, to which Olive is drawn, but they are echoes of a song she has never heard -- until she meets Miss California. There's a lot more going on, but I think she's the key to unlocking the movie.

There's my take (after a few cuts).
What do you think?
Paul