Little Miss Sunshine: The Winner-Loser Pageant

In a world where motivational speakers and self-care influencers are becoming some of the most famous people on the internet, an environment of intense competition is emerging. While Valerie Faris and Jonathon Dayton’s film Little Miss Sunshine was released in 2006, a time before Tik Tok trends and the Instagram explore page, its exploration of failure, body image, and the winner-loser effect feels more relevant than ever. Just by being on social media, we are exposed to increasing numbers of extreme type-A figures, effortlessly beautiful people, and obscenely wealthy individuals explaining that “hard work” will make you easy millions. Not only is this “grindset” mentality spreading like wildfire, but so are extremely outdated perspectives about women feeding into a culture of toxic masculinity. Our culture is constantly in competition with itself and with online platforms. We can let everyone know the changes we are making to better ourselves and our opinions on everything from alternative milk to constitutional amendments. If consumerism has taught us anything, it’s that everyone is your competitor, and you should constantly strive for self-improvement. 

Although this culture is toxic, it’s also alluring. Who doesn’t want to become the best version of themselves, whether in your career, appearance, or assets? What’s so fascinating about Little Miss Sunshine is that it’s a movie about a family of “losers,” at least in the eyes of our chronically online competitive western society, who desperately want to be winners. When 7-year-old Olive Hoover realizes she's eligible to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant, the entire family hops in their camper van for the journey from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Redondo Beach, California. The members of the Hoover family include Olive (Abigail Breslin), who is dying to compete in a beauty pageant she sees on TV, her father Richard (Greg Kinnear), whose motivational speaking career trajectory has fallen off the path to success, Richard’s father Edwin (Alan Arkin), who lives with the Hoover’s after being evicted from a retirement home for doing heroin, Olive’s brother Dwayne (Paul Dano), who bows down to Nietzsche and goes on a vow of silence until he makes it into the air force, his overworked and underloved mother Sheryl (Toni Collette), and her brother Frank (Steve Carrell), who was just let out of the mental hospital after endeavoring suicide after losing his career and lover.

Little Miss Sunshine is both a family dramedy and character study that examines the winner-and-loser effect in our culture and highlights specifically its effect on men. The winner effect is a pattern seen in animal behavior that says an animal will prevail in future aggressive interactions, given its previous victories in aggressive interactions. In contrast, the loser effect is the heightened likelihood that an animal will lose subsequent antagonistic relations after conceding past defeats. While this trend is a key feature in the animal kingdom, it’s seen in each character’s flaws. This film doesn’t follow tropes, and each character’s shortcomings are not used for compassion from the audience but rather to provide said characters with circumstances to redeem themselves. These well-written character flaws mold smoothly into the narrative, which is fully realized at the film’s end. Little Miss Sunshine isn’t just about what it means to win and lose; it’s also a commentary on internalized homophobia, body shaming, mental illness,  the clash between society and family as social institutions, and what defines internal victory.

The Hoovers live a modest life in New Mexico, precisely opposite what Olive dreams of. As a child of the media, the glamorous reality television lifestyle engulfs her. It’s a classic Cinderella story; she constantly watches beautiful models winning pageants and fantasizes about being one of them. Her family supports her aspirations, and they all get into their yellow van to drive to the pageant 800 miles away. On the drive, this yellow van gets into some nuisances, a clear metaphor for the Hoover family’s dysfunctionality and quirkiness. 

Olive’s goals of competing in the beauty pageant create the backbone of the winner-loser effect in the film, which is primarily seen within the male protagonists: Richard, Frank, and Dwayne. Richard is a motivational rhetorician who, on paper, is completely losing at life. Frank just lost his job, his lover, and his sanity through a failed attempt at suicide. And Dwayne hates his family so much he vows not to utter a word until he becomes a pilot to get as far away as possible. These men believe that winning will give them the confidence boost they need and that they must keep playing this game of life over and over until they “win” at it. Richard is dealing with a significant career plateau, Frank is struggling deeply with mental health after tragic events, and Dwyane is trying to “win” a position in the air force. At the film’s beginning, Olive’s grandpa, Edwin, tells her, “A real loser is someone so afraid of not winning they don’t even try.” Edwin seems to be the only man in the film comfortable with his life’s circumstances. Olive competing in the pageant is the moral compass of the film, the journey that Richard, Frank, and Dwayne endeavor on while coaching her on how to be a winner exposes their tendencies as losers and how they can change to be better people.  The winner/loser effect can be tied to toxic masculinity in that it reinforces the idea that winning and dominance are necessary for male success and that losing is a sign of weakness. Regardless, it is crucial to remark that the winner-loser effect and toxic masculinity are not synonymous. The winner-loser effect can occur in individuals of any gender, and toxic masculinity can manifest in ways beyond the context of competition.

This movie ends on a happy note, despite Olive losing the pageant. She loses so badly that she and the other Hoovers are banned from entering a California state beauty pageant for life. But no one is heartbroken. No one sheds a tear. They share a laugh, and so does the audience. Olive’s loss illuminates how the male Hoovers discover that winning is much more than a golden ribbon. They realize they must act gentler toward the people around them and towards themselves. They finally understand that success is more about perseverance than about prizes, an encouraging message in a world of curated highlights. While Olive didn’t take home the trophy, she won her family a new perspective on life and a taste of the inner conquest of self-evolution.