Monday, February 26, 2007
I’ve sociologically validated “Little Miss Sunshine’s” four Oscar nominations.
The atypical, dysfunctional, eccentric, eclectic, rag-tag team of players that make up the fictional Hoover family is no longer atypical or overly fictitious in the American landscape. It represents the reality of a changing family dynamic in this country.
Who doesn’t have a despondent, sullen and mute teenage brother; a junior-beauty-pageant-participating sister; heroin-addicted grandpa or an ancient, clutch-less punch line of an automobile in his or her family?
Perhaps your grandpa likely suffers more from a Fox News obsession than a heroin addiction, but the former can be just as divisive. There’s something in the film that America and the kind folks at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences find appealing, even relatable.
I applaud “Little Miss Sunshine” and the cultural movement that took us away from the age of “Leave It To Beaver” to a time when we can portray our familial shortcomings accurately instead of sweeping them under the rug to the tune of some unreasonably cheery sitcom theme song — think “The Andy Griffith Show.”
Using the old standard of domestic perfection as a measuring stick for today’s family is ineffective. Some of us come from the families of yore, in which the wife wears a frilly apron and has dinner on the table at 5 p.m. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it isn’t an accurate representation of what typically happens in this country.
What’s more common is bickering, fighting and nagging. People lose jobs and get in trouble at school. Fiscal pressure creates family pressure. Maybe the problem is just a lack of communication, making families doubt they fit any acceptable model worthy of the term. Instead of covering up dysfunction, as a culture, we’re learning to effectively deal with it.
Evolving entertainment have taken some of the pressure off average American families. Movies like “Little Miss Sunshine” show American family dysfunction in all its glory. They show us dysfunction is a norm we shouldn’t be ashamed of. Most importantly, they show us that, despite imperfection, there’s still love and a strong family bond. A family is no less a family just because of a few problems, a lack of communication or the occasional argument.
Seeing domestic dysfunction on screen gives confidence to those who struggle with it. Of course, there are many Americans who still fight to present themselves with perfection at the company picnic or neighborhood barbecue. It seems today it’s the “perfect” families that stand in the way of progress.
My family isn’t perfect, and I see some families that try to be. Maybe we don’t communicate as well or as often as some. Maybe we don’t get along all the time. Maybe we don’t present ourselves to the world with utter perfection, but for us it’s better to be who we are than to go through life whistling the Andy Griffith theme and pretending we don’t have problems. We’re a family and that’s most important.
There’s no instance of perfection in the American family. Finally the entertainment world is getting the idea. We’d all be better off accepting our drugged-out grandparents than locking them away to become skeletons in our closets.
Ervin is an Overland Park junior in theatre and film and psychology.
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