Dr. King's message of loving something that is the
opposite of an individual is present in Little Miss
Sunshine. From the basic start of the film, the characters in
the film represent diametric opposites of one another. The opposing forces in the film
demonstrate a healthy dislike for "the other." In this setting, Dr. King's basic idea
of how there is a fundamental combustible nature in the configuration of society at the
time of writing, "Loving Your Enemies." There is opposition in the way the family
interacts with one another. Cheryl is haggard and seeking to keep things together,
although recognizing both her own and her family's limitations within her own heart.
Frank and Richard possess fundamentally different and incompatible views of the world.
Dwayne disengages, refusing to be a part of the familial unit. Edwin has nothing but
scorn for his living condition and the phoniness in the world. Olive, though, represents
a sense of that transcendental quality of love, as she is able to interact with everyone
in an authentic and meaningful manner.
Over the course of
the film, the love of which King speaks begins to take over the individuals in the film
on a personal and collective level. It progresses in the manner that King, himself,
outlines. King says that in order to "love thy enemy," one has to love thyself, finding
a sense of resolve and commitment in the internal that will allow the individual to have
the moral fortitude and capacity to love another in the form of their opposite. Richard
and his faith in the "Nine Steps" are tested, realizing part of his own journey towards
self- help is to remain true to oneself and endure the consequences of not betraying
one's own sense of identity. Dwayne's rejection of the family is offset with Olive's
hug, a moment of transcendent love in which he learns to love himself. Sheryl
recognizes that her own form of self love comes in "letting Olive be Olive" and in doing
so upholding the values of her family. Frank comes to confront his experience with
betrayal and deception in order to believe what Marcel Proust, himself, argued as a form
of self love:
Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a
real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one
reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he uh... he
gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he
suffered, Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All
those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep
until you're 18... Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school?
High school-those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than
that.
It is here where each
of the characters represents a form of the self- love that King spoke. This is tested
in the pageant itself, in which the characters recognize that the real adversary is not
themselves, but the phoniness in society that Edwin railed against. In a display of
solidarity to both he and Olive, the family represents "loving thy enemy" when they take
to the stage and dance with Olive to Rick James, in what comes to be a moment of the
universal love of which King spoke. The family does not reject one another nor the
beauty pageant. Rather, they dance with one another, reflecting King's true sense of
love of self and the other.
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