Accept to Lose: A Nine-Step Program
Film and Philosophy: Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Dream Journal of the Family Hoover
- (Step) Father Richard:
- Dream: publish and reach a big audience with his nine-step ‘‘Refuse to Lose’’ program, which is focused on following nine steps to achieve your dream, to be successful in life.
- Mother Sheryl:
- Dream: keep her family together and make her marriage work.
- Seven-year-old Olive, Richard and Sheryl’s daughter:
- Dream: participate in a beauty pageant for six and seven-year-olds.
- Fifteen-year-old Dwayne, Sheryl’s son from her previous marriage:
- Dream: become an Air Force fighter jet pilot. He has taken a vow of silence until he reaches this dream.
- Richard’s father, Edward:
- Dream: use heroin and be high.
- Sheryl’s brother, Frank:
- Dream: lost his dream of having a relationship with one of his grad-students, and of being the preeminent Proust scholar in the U.S. Even his dream to commit suicide ended in a failure.
Jonathan Dayton (director of Little Miss Sunshine): ‘‘Our culture is so built on the idea of chasing our dream. […] But then this [film] is about what happens when those dreams don’t come true and what’s left’’ (Cinema Therapy 2024, 6:14).
‘‘Little Miss Sunshine teaches us that it’s okay to feel sad, that it’s okay to lose, to fail, to cry, to scream, [to swear,] to be you’’ (MovieSketch 2021, 0:46).
What do you want to be in the future? What do you want to achieve? What dreams do you want to chase? What do you want to do after your studies? How are you going to use your studies during the rest of your life? The answers to these questions that we ask each other and ourselves involve a job, an identity, or an individual goal you will spend the rest of your life chasing and maybe, hopefully, one day achieving. But who decides that you have reached your dream? What if you don’t reach it? What happens, what do you do, what are you left with? What if you find out that what you have always wanted is simply not possible? It is not yours to become, to one day be? The existentialist, nihilist, tragi-comedy Little Miss Sunshine (2006) gives possible answers to these questions. For this review, along the lines of Richard’s nine-step ‘‘Refuse to Lose’’ program, I have made a nine-step Accept to Lose program, based on what the film tries to teach its audience.
Step 1: Realise that it is bullshit to ‘‘Refuse to Lose’’
‘‘You say to me: ‘Life is hard to bear.’ But wherefore would you have in the morning your pride and in the evening your resignation?’’ (Nietzsche 2005, 36).
Together, some of them more willingly than others, the family Hoover goes on a road trip to California to make Olive’s dream of participating in the national Little Miss Sunshine pageant come true. During this journey, every character is also on their own journey, chasing their dreams. None of the family members truly reaches the goals they set for themselves, none of them become who they wish they could be. On their individual journeys they are confronted with this failing and the questions that come with it, questions that push them to develop themselves: When have you actually reached your goal, your dream? Do you play by society’s rules while chasing your dream? Do you need recognition from other people? If so, from whom? Do you want to accept it when you fail? Can you accept it when you fail? Do you really need to ‘‘refuse to lose’’ in order to win, or can you also win when you lose?
Step 2: Realise that not achieving your dream doesn’t make you a loser, a failure
‘‘There are two kinds of people in this world: winners and losers’’ (Dayton & Faris 2006, 1:25).
There are those who get what they want and those who don’t, those who never give up and those who do, those who achieve their dream and those whose dreams end in failure. If you make your dreams come true, you are a winner, you are successful, you are hard-working, you are a go-getter, you are an example for other people. If you don’t, you are a loser, you are lazy, you gave up on yourself, you gave up on your dreams, you haven’t sacrificed enough, you are a failure. If that is true, Little Miss Sunshine (2006) is a film about a family of failures. The members of the family Hoover are divorced, suicidal, bankrupt, colour blind, addicted to heroin, and not the prettiest girl in town. They all have dreams they are chasing, but none of them achieve their dreams. What does it really say about who you are when you fail? To what extent do our dreams make us who we are? Winning or losing has nothing to do with where you end up, nor with achieving your goals, nor with being better than other people. You can lose big, but still be a winner.
Step 3: Set boundaries on what you are willing to sacrifice for your dreams
‘‘Whatever happens, you tried to do something on your own. […] You took a big chance, that took guts, and I’m proud of you’’ (Dayton & Faris 2006, 40:58).
Is betting everything you have on your dream, sacrificing everything for it, the way to achieve it? And what happens if you bet and sacrifice everything, but still don’t succeed? What do you do with the emptiness and the void you fall into after that? In his dream of making his nine-step program work and receiving recognition for it from a big audience, Richard bets his family both financially and emotionally. The rest of the family loathes him for his demands. He doesn’t bring in that much money with his job, driving his family to bankruptcy and putting the strain of providing for the family entirely on his wife Sheryl. After her first marriage ended in divorce, and her family fell apart, Sheryl is trying to keep this family together, to make it work. In doing so, she sacrifices her own wants and needs to support her husband with a dream she actually thinks is nonsense, pointless and doomed to fail. I think it would have given her character more depth if she would also have had a dream that isn’t related to her being a good mother, wife and sister. A dream she had to push away or sacrifice to be able to provide for her family. This is implicitly mentioned in the film, but it would have been better if the directors had made it explicit as well.
Sheryl’s son, Dwayne, also makes big sacrifices for his dream. He focuses on nothing other than his goal of becoming a pilot for the Air Force. In order to achieve this goal he sacrifices his relationships with other people, isolates himself and takes a vow of silence. When he fails, he has nothing left to fall back on.
Step 4: Focus on being YOUR best, not on being THE best
‘‘There is no sense in entering a contest if you don’t think you’re gonna win’’ (Dayton & Faris 2006, 20:39).
Richard is blind to his family’s needs and keeps pushing them to always be THE best, he strains them in his demand for perfection. Jonathan Decker (therapist) describes the situation as follows: ‘‘The family starts tearing at the seams because of this perfectionism. Because we’re not focused on being YOUR best. We’re focused on being THE best.’’ Valerie Faris (director): ‘‘As if that’s even an achievable goal’’ (Cinema Therapy 2024, 6:49-6:57). Therapist Jonathan Decker and director Valerie Faris make an interesting point here, because is it even possible to achieve a dream that is based on the idea of being THE best? That is based on winning? When do you achieve your dream? What and whom does it depend on? What can you control? You have to focus on what lies in your power, not of what is outside of your power. You are in control of being YOUR best, what you can’t control is being THE best, because you can’t control other people. You are in control of how you see yourself, you aren’t in control of how other people see you and whether you will be recognised as having achieved your dream by others. You are in control of trying, journeying, chasing your dream, you aren’t in control of the specific outcome that you are trying to achieve.
Step 5: Realise that success isn’t permanent
‘‘I just want everyone here to know that I am the preeminent Proust scholar in the United States’’ (Dayton & Faris 2006, 32:00).
‘‘Did I mention that I am the preeminent Proust scholar in the U.S.?’’ (1:00:06).
Even if you have achieved your goal, have reached your dream, this isn’t always static and permanent (MovieSketch 2021, 2:29). This becomes clear in the character of Frank. He had reached his goal and became the preeminent Proust scholar in the U.S. Not only did he see himself that way, he was also recognised as such by other scholars. He didn’t merely do HIS best, he became THE best. So, shouldn’t he have been introduced as the example for the rest of the family? As the achiever of the nine-step program? The one who reached his dream, who can now tell the others how it is done? No, instead he has hit rock bottom at the very beginning of the film, he has attempted to take his own life. It is only a matter of time before he also loses his dream, gets dethroned and someone else becomes the number one Proust scholar in the U.S.
Step 6: Realise that failure isn’t final
‘‘Fuck beauty contests. Life is one fucking beauty contest after another. You know: school, then college, then work, fuck that. […] You do what you love, and fuck the rest’’ (Dayton & Faris 2006, 1:24:02).
So if you have achieved your dream and then lose it, or if you don’t achieve it at all, where does that leave you? What if you lose everything you have and all hope is lost? What is still in your control? Sometimes you hit a wall, you are obstructed in achieving your dream by your own incapability, or by the rules, regulations, and expectations of society. But just as achieving your dream won’t last forever, failure isn’t the end, it’s not final. You can find another way, dreams can change. Life isn’t about trying harder than you actually can, sacrificing everything to ensure a certain outcome, to achieve your dream. It is about dreaming, about hoping, about accepting failures and seeing them as stepping stones, as teaching moments, not within a nine-step program to success, but within your development as a human being. Life isn’t about individually trying to chase your big hopes and dreams. Of course, those can give direction, but eventually it is about finding hope and dreams in the small things, in your everyday life. It is about failing, learning not only to accept failure, to accept set-backs, but to embrace them, learn from them, be aware of the opportunities they give, and see them as a part of your life.
Step 7: Support each other’s dreams and failures
‘‘Whatever happens, we’re a family. And what’s important is that we love each other’’ (Dayton & Faris 2006, 51:55).
Little Miss Sunshine (2006) shows that no one exists in a vacuum. Chasing your own dreams, achieving them, focussing on your individual goals isn’t enough. Life is about connection: connection to other people, connection to the people you love, and who love you. It’s about supporting each other, helping each other work for your dreams, being there for each other when there are set-backs. None of the family members achieve their goals, except maybe Olive and Edward, of whom you could say they made their dreams come true, even if it’s in a way they hadn’t envisioned. In the end, the family members are able to be there for each other, support each other, and accept each other, and in turn feel supported and accepted by the other members of the family. Helping those close to you chase their dream in addition to chasing your own dream and being supported in that dream makes that you can share the happiness when that dream is achieved, but also that you can share the disappointment and sadness when that dream fails.
Step 8: Accept others for who they are and accept yourself for who you are
‘‘We gotta let Olive be Olive’’ (Dayton & Faris 2006, 1:28:14).
Human beings are dynamic, they change. A future you envision now, may not be the future you want when that future becomes the present. Dreams change all the time. Dreams, success, failure, they all build the road you walk during your life, every moment again. Instead of keeping your eyes on the future and thinking about what life will be like, what you will make of yourself, who you will, maybe one day, be, instead of asking questions like: What do you want to achieve? What do you want to become? What/Who do you want to be? More interesting may be to keep your eyes on the here and now, on how you are developing yourself, on what is happening in the world in this moment, on who you are, and to ask questions like: Who am I right now? What is my life like? Is that the life I want for myself, or do I want to change something? What do I want to change? What lies within my power to change? What drives me? What interests me? Whom do I support? Who are the people that support me? Whose support do I want or need? What is happening in the world right now? How do I want to relate to that? What am I willing to sacrifice now for achieving my dreams in the future? How far am I willing to go and what lines do I not want to cross? What are my smaller dreams? What are my big dreams and goals in life? When have I achieved those, if ever? How do the dreams I have for the future influence how I live my life now? Is that what I want? Is that who I am?
Step 9: Accept that there are only 8 real steps in this Accept to Lose nine-step program. I could have come up with a 9th one, but that’s not the point…
‘‘A real loser is somebody that’s so afraid of not winning that they don’t even try. And you are trying, right?’’ (Dayton & Faris 2006, 2006, 45:30).
Bibliography
Cinema Therapy. 2024. ‘‘Therapist Reacts to Little Miss Sunshine with Directors Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris.’’ Youtube Website. Therapist Reacts to LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE with Directors Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris – YouTube.
Dayton, Jonathan & Faris, Valerie. 2006. Little Miss Sunshine. United States: Searchlight Pictures, Big Beach, Bona Fide Productions, Deep River Productions, Third Gear Productions & Major Studio Partners.
MovieSketch. 2021. ‘‘Why I Watch Little Miss Sunshine When I’m Sad.’’ YouTube Website. Character Teaser – Vala | AFK Journey (youtube.com).
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 2005. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sohn, Jin-Young. n.d. ‘‘How Does ‘‘Little Miss Sunshine’’ Reflect The Philosophies Of Proust And Nietzsche?’’ The Take Website. How does “Little Miss Sunshine” reflect the philosophies of Proust and Nietzsche? | Read | The Take (the-take.com).