Miss Sunshine Research Articles

Mr. Active and Little Miss Passive? The Transmission and Existence of Gender Stereotypes in Children’s Books

Do popular children’s books tend to reflect gender stereotypes, and do parents prefer their daughters to read books reflecting this pattern? We explored these research questions using the popular Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Men and Little Miss collection of children’s storybooks, which is a series of individual stories all titled with and based on a binarized gendered character (e.g., Mr. Greedy, Little Miss Sunshine). Using a deductive content analysis approach, Study 1 revealed that the characters in the series’ 81 books tend to behave in gender stereotypical ways, with male characters more adventurous and active and female characters more domestic and passive. Books that had female leads were also more likely to have male secondary characters. In Study 2, participants rated the masculinity/femininity and positivity/negativity of the traits of each of the book series’ titular main characters without knowing the (gendered) book title. The traits used in Little Miss stories were associated with femininity, and the Mr Men story traits with masculinity. In Study 3, when faced with the prospect of selecting a Little Miss book to read to their daughter, parents preferred counter-stereotypical book choices (e.g., Little Miss Brainy). Perceived consistency with what parents wanted to teach their daughters about women predicted this book choice. Overall, although these books tended to reflect traditional gender stereotypes (Studies 1, 2), and people held these beliefs (Study 3), we found that parents wanted a counter-stereotypical book for their daughter. Implications for the transmission of gender stereotypes via children’s literature and parental choices are discussed.

Considering Societal, Psychological and Geographical Borders in Dayton & Faris’s 2006 film Little Miss Sunshine

When considering borders and boundaries, our initial interpretation often responds with a recognition of the geographical borders which divide and organize our world. However, often overlooked are the psychological and societal borders experienced by individuals and the ways in which these kinds of boundaries define our lives. Borders and boundaries of all forms are encountered in the 2006 road movie Little Miss Sunshine, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. As Ann Brigham notes, “Road stories themselves are plotted around unsettling processes: the crossing of borders, the courting and conquering of distance, the reinvention of identity, and the access, negotiation, and disruption of spaces” (8). This essay will consider the complex borders navigated by the Hoover family as they journey from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Redondo Bay, California in search of the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. As a road narrative, the film covers extensive geographical distance, emblemized by the yellow VW campervan the Hoover family travels in. But the Hoovers are a family of misfits, all experiencing their own psychological barriers and suffering under the societal boundaries of social class hierarchy and patriarchy. Thus, as a film embedded in mobility, this essay will also consider the ways in which boundaries are transgressed as well as responding to the resilience exhibited by individuals when faced with challenging circumstances.

Benign violations in the suburban ensemble dramedy

Peter McGraw and Caleb Warren’s benign violation theory (BVT) argues that humour is produced when three conditions are met: we perceive a situation as potentially violating, we perceive it also as benign, and the two perceptions occur simultaneously. This model is applied as a means to analyse comedy in screen media. BVT is motivated to describe the cognitive dissonances inherent to comedy spectatorship, and to perform hermeneutic readings of screen humour using a particular case study in dramedy cinema: the suburban ensemble film, including works such as The Kids Are All Right, Little Miss Sunshine and American Beauty. After surveying some of the key humorous stimuli recurrent across the genre, I then turn to other comedic texts that deal with family and domestic studies with a striking lack of pathos – in particular the cartoon series Family Guy. This comparison underscores an analysis of the ethics of benign violations in narrative media that is centred on the resolution of its fundamental affective dissonance, and the way this resolution might guide later critical thought. The article ultimately demonstrates the uses of BVT as a hermeneutic tool, and one that might help us isolate an ethics of comedy in media.

Émigrés: French Words that Turned English by Richard Scholar

MLR, .,   poetry. Rather than think about the stanzas of poems as deriving from the Italian for rooms, Steen encourages us to see poems not as highly dysfunctional rooms but as necessary spaces in between rooms. In the end, Steen helps us see the modern and contemporary ‘poem as a container of uncontainable feelings’ (p. ). C P, M H B S Émigrés: French Words that Turned English. By R S. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. . ix+ pp. £. (ebk £.). ISBN –––– (ebk ––––). e ‘émigrés’ of this engaging book, described by its author as an ‘experiment in cosmopolitan cultural criticism’ (p. ), are a very particular set of lexical borrowings which occupy an uneasy centre ground between donor and borrower language, being neither French nor fully integrated into English. is ambiguity, Richard Scholar argues, reflects a long-standing ambivalence in English cultural attitudes to things French, ranging from fascination to disdain, which can be traced back to the Restoration (–), when English aristocrats returned from exile in France and brought French manners and mores back with them. e book takes us on an eclectic journey from Restoration comedy to Winnie-the-Pooh’s companion Eeyore, John Le Carré and the Oscar-winning Little Miss Sunshine, with a passing nod to George W. Bush’s claim that ‘the French don’t have a word for entrepreneur’ (p. ). In Part , ‘Mixings’, Scholar explores à la mode, an expression which has taken on a life of its own notably in North America, where it has come to mean ‘served with ice cream’. Its émigré status in England, however, is underlined in two Restoration comedies, Dryden’s Marriage à-la-Mode () and Etherege’s e Man of Mode (), both of which seek to steer a path between slavish imitation of French manners (satirized by Etherege in the character of Sir Fopling Flutter) and discreet assimilation of French cultural norms. is tension is reflected in a semantic ambiguity through which à la mode denotes on the one hand that which is modern, and on the other that which is merely fashionable. In similar vein, another French import, galanterie, sometimes Anglicized as gallantry, combines both positive rural English notions of chivalry and more dangerous libertine qualities evoked by its French origins. A theoretical underpinning is provided by Raymond Williams’s concept of cultural keywords (Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (London: Fontana, )). Where Williams’s own schema allowed only for fully assimilated loanwords , Scholar argues for the inclusion of conspicuously foreign-derived items, on the grounds that they visibly embody the conflict between different conceptions of culture and society. Scholar also draws on the concept of creolization, in the sense of hybridization of identities. is might seem dangerous ground: creolization as defined by French Caribbean intellectuals implies a relationship of deep inequality, rather than rivalry between colonial powers. But creolization à l’anglaise is justified  Reviews in the author’s eyes in that both sides bear the scars of domination at the other’s hands, most painfully, from an English perspective, through the Norman Conquest. Part , ‘Migrations’, focuses specifically on three émigrés: naïveté, ennui, and caprice, which again bear the hallmarks of Anglo-French ambivalence. Naïveté has thus an appreciative meaning (loss of innocence) and a deprecatory one (lapse into idiocy), only the latter surviving in its Anglicized form naivety. An entertaining chapter on ennui, borrowed during the Restoration but not established in English until the late eighteenth century, links its prestigious French origins to its class connotations, as a term denoting a condition beyond mere boredom, afflicting a nobility forced to seek meaning in a life bere of any need for paid employment. ese lexical borrowings reflect the conflicted English mix of admiration and revulsion for our near neighbours, and the book could hardly have closed, in , without reference to England’s vexed relationship with that largely French-designed institution, the European Union. Scholar cites a popular  cabaret video entitled ‘e French Brexit song’, whose singers declare, vengefully, ‘We’re taking all our French words back!’ (p. ), leaving English as the loser. Observing the perennial struggle to make sense of what is alien and strange, Scholar concludes, optimistically...

Little Miss Sunshine de Jonathan Dayton y Valerie Farris. ¿Y el premio?, una corona de mentiras

Making a preamble to Pop music, the film Little Miss Sunshine is analyzed, which addresses the problem of dysfunctional families, a typical North American case, within the Road Movie genre. The characters are described who revolve around the story of a seven-year-old girl who wants to achieve her dream. It shows how, through a comic story, a critique is made of a society in crisis but, at the same time, unconditional love is revealed as the strength to face adversity.

The use of cinematherapy to illustrate systemic resilience.

Resilience is the process of coping with and overcoming adversity, finding purpose in the face of suffering, and preparing for the future with a focus on interconnections and personal strengths. Being resilient is the ability to flourish in the face of trauma or hardship. The traits and processes of resilience are woven throughout the film Little Miss Sunshine. As characters deal with suffering, they also embody systemic strengths, which align with the current resilience research. This paper explores the use of cinematherapy to illustrate concepts of resilience in systemic therapy and in training relational therapists.

Gender and Humor: Interdisciplinary and International Perspectives

Gender and Humor: Interdisciplinary and International Perspectives

Indie 2.0: change and continuity in contemporary American indie film

List of Illustrations Introduction: Discourses on the state of indie film 1. Quirky by design? Irony vs. sincerity in Little Miss Sunshine and Juno 2. Industry 2.0: The digital domain and beyond 3. Mumblecore 4. Social realism and art cinema: The films of Kelly Reichardt and Ramin Bahrani 5. The desktop aesthetic: First-person expressive in Tarnation and Four Eyed Monsters Conclusion: Indie lives! Notes Select bibliography Index

A Novel Method of Network Text Analysis

This paper describes a novel method of network text analysis, one that involves a new approach to 1) the selection of words from a text, 2) the aggregation of those words into higher-order concepts, 3) the kind of the relationship that establishes statements from pairs of concepts and 4) the extraction of meaning from the text network formed by these statements. After describing the method, I apply it to a sample of the seven most recent winners of the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay―Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, Milk, The Hurt Locker, The King’s Speech, Midnight in Paris, and Django Unchained. Consistent with prior research, I demonstrate that structure encodes meaning. Specifically, it is shown that statements associated with a text network’s least constrained nodes are consistent with themes in the films’ synopses found on Wikipedia, the International Movie Database, and Rotten Tomatoes.

가족 영화로 본 한국과 미국의 영화 스토리텔링

형식주의 서사이론은 스토리의 원 질료적 개념과 텍스트에 구현된 스토리 실체를 이원적으로 나누어 왔다. 질료를 뜻하는 파블라와 실체를 뜻하는 수제는 이 이원론을 이끄는 대표적인 개념이다. 최근의 스토리텔링이란 개념도 결국은 이 이원론의 영향을 받는다. 결국 스토리는 원 질료로서의 파블라이고, 스토리텔링은 텍스트에 그 스토리를 구현하는 모든 방법을 통칭하는 실용적 용어인 것이다. 스토리는 수용자 즉 관객을 만나러 나가면서 스토리텔링이라는 관객 중심의 서사방식을 차용하는 것이다. 이 스토리텔링의 방식으로 미국과 한국에서 구현된 대표적 영화 스토리텔링을 비교해 보는 것이 이 글의 의도이다. 미국 영화 <리틀 미스 선샤인>과 한국 영화<가족의 탄생>이 그 대상이 되는 영화들이다. 전자는 꽉 짜인 전체 구성을 가진 구조의 영화이고, 후자는 구조보다는 한 장면 안의 섬세한 디테일에 집중하는 장면의 영화이다. 전자는 객관적이라는 의미에서 공간의 서사를 차용하고, 후자는 복잡한 시간의 주관성을 중심으로 스토리를 전개시킨다. 캐릭터 역시 전자는 과거의 일들로 성격적 특징들이 고정된 캐릭터들이 중심이고, 후자는 현재도 끊임없이 변화하는 모호한 캐릭터들이 중심이다. 결론적으로 후자는 작가가 중심이 되는 주관적 서사이고, 전자는 관객 중심의 객관적 서사이다. Formalism narrative theory adopts the dualism of Fabula, story material and Sujet, story substance. The recent theories of storytelling convert the dualism into story and storytelling. This essay delves into the mechanism of contemporary storytelling by comparatively analyzing the storytelling of two films, A Korean film, Family Ties and A Hollywood film, Little Miss Sunshine, which are considered to represent contemporary storytelling. While the latter builds its structure through desire usually shown in the classical Hollywood films, the former has the structure which has nothing to do with causality by displaying fragmented stories. And the latter has typical characters, while the former shows totally different reality, using the obscure characters. In conclusion, Little Miss Sunshine has a storytelling which puts audience feeling in tune by controlling it, and Family Ties has one which delivers director's intention.

DVD Chronicle: Headhunters , and: Wings , and: Lawrence of Arabia , and: A Separation , and: La Culpa , and: Certified Copy , and: Footnote , and: The Tall T , and: The Pirates! Band of Misfits (review)

Reviewed by: DVD Chronicle: Headhunters, and: Wings, and: Lawrence of Arabia, and: A Separation, and: La Culpa, and: Certified Copy, and: Footnote, and: The Tall T, and: The Pirates! Band of Misfits Jefferson Hunter (bio) DVD Chronicle: Headhunters, directed by Morten Tyldum (Magnolia Home Entertainment, 2012) Wings, directed by William Wellman (Paramount, 2012) Lawrence of Arabia, directed by David Lean (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2012) A Separation, directed by Asghar Farhadi (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2012) La Culpa, directed by David Victori (Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiikS2xRSdE) Certified Copy, directed by Abbas Kiarostami (Criterion Collection, 2012) Footnote, directed by Joseph Cedar (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2012) The Tall T, directed by Budd Boetticher (amazon.com manufactured-on-demand DVD, 2012, or in The Films of Budd Boetticher, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2008) The Pirates! Band of Misfits, directed by Peter Lord (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2012). A recent radio broadcast of the BBC’s Film Programme—more about this in a moment—featured an interview with Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the husband-and-wife team who directed Little Miss Sunshine in 2005 and who brought out a new comedy in 2012, Ruby Sparks. In the course of the interview Faris said casually, as if stating the obvious, that Little Miss Sunshine appeared at the moment “when DVDs died.” My own view is that this handy device for delivering media content is going to be around for a while yet, not flourishing perhaps but at least surviving as one option among the many we now enjoy for seeing screen works. If “enjoy” is the word: with multiplied options come technological complexities, pricing questions, difficult choices. Blu-Ray? Regular DVD? Instant play? Video on Demand? Video on Demand rented or purchased? (All the options are available for Little Miss Sunshine, a funny movie which you should certainly watch or watch again; I have not yet seen Ruby Sparks.) In any case old-fashioned DVDs are still being produced, sold in stores or online, mailed out to Netflix subscribers, and in this Chronicle I will recommend new releases that seem particularly worth obtaining and watching. But first, about The Film Programme. This is a weekly production of BBC Radio 4, a lively thirty minutes of news about film and interviews with filmmakers; Francine Stock is the articulate and knowledgeable presenter. I’m happy to report that all the broadcasts are downloadable as free pod-casts (http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/film) and are a welcome resource for anyone who wants to know more about films—classic films as well as current releases, since the program often takes a retrospective view of its subject. You might be especially on the alert for commentaries by Neil [End Page 240] Brand, an expert on film music who often illustrates points by playing on a studio piano. Listen, for instance, to his perceptive commentary on recycled film music in the broadcast for September 27, 2012. The same program includes an interview with the young French-Arab actor Tahar Rahim, star of A Prophet, a superb prison drama which I discussed in an earlier Chronicle. It’s to The Film Programme that I owe my awareness of Headhunters. Morten Tyldum directed this crime thriller from Norway, a 2011 adaptation of a novel by Jo Nesbø. I saw the film on Amazon instant video; it’s available on DVD and Blu-Ray as well. Headhunters is about a gentleman art thief named Roger, a type who fifty years ago and in Hollywood would have been played by Cary Grant or David Niven. Roger’s cover is his job as an executive headhunter—hence the film’s title, though more sinister implications, about literal kinds of hunting, emerge in due course. Negotiating with business clients in an Oslo skyscraper, or breaking into somebody else’s living room, taking artwork down from the wall, razoring it from the frame and replacing it with a reproduction, Roger is resolutely suave. But confronted with a criminal much more violent than himself, he becomes desperate (as Cary Grant and David Niven never did), then as bodies begin piling up, he turns almost feral, scuttling from one hiding place...

Pequena Miss Sunshine: para além de uma subjetividade exterior

O artigo discute as relações entre cultura do sucesso e sexualidade, com foco na infância - tema caro às diferentes mídias, como a televisão e o cinema. Faz-se uma análise do filme Pequena Miss Sunshine, a partir de autores como Foucault, Alain Badiou, Ismail Xavier e Jurandir Costa, com ênfase nos conceitos de modos de subjetivação, imagem fílmica e subjetividade exterior. O objetivo é pensar questões de gênero e sexualidade na cultura do espetáculo, a partir de uma narrativa cinematográfica em que tais valores são questionados. A ênfase é dada à análise do olhar e do corpo infantil, na figura da personagem Olive, de modo a pensar a gestualidade própria da criança, em seu silêncio, enigma e mistério, mais do que mera revelação de sentidos. O texto aponta que tal exercício pode sugerir outros modos de pensar as relações entre mídia, infância e questões de gênero e sexualidade.

Notes From Hollywood: Little Miss Sunshine Finds Its Way

Anthropology NewsVolume 48, Issue 7 p. 22-23 Notes From Hollywood: Little Miss Sunshine Finds Its Way Sherry B Ortner, Sherry B OrtnerSearch for more papers by this author Sherry B Ortner, Sherry B OrtnerSearch for more papers by this author First published: 29 December 2008 https://doi.org/10.1525/an.2007.48.7.22Citations: 12AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume48, Issue7October 2007Pages 22-23 RelatedInformation

Here She is … and There she Goes?

Little Miss Sunshine (20th Century Fox, 2006) Pageant School: Becoming Miss America (CMT and PB&amp;J Television, original airdate January 26, 2007) 2006 and 2007 Miss America Pageant (CMT, original air-dates January 21, 2006, and January 29, 2007)

The Not-So-Straight Story

When his lawnmower breaks down in The Straight Story, Alvin Straight buys a new one and slowly makes his way from Iowa to Wisconsin. The bovine pace of this Midwestern odyssey made it a road movie like no other before, with some interesting encounters, a few laughs, talk of family and death, and a final reunion. Little Miss Sunshine has a similar agenda, with a lot more laughs. Maybe going cross country in an inadequate vehicle should be a genre unto itself, a formula for unassuming philosoph...