Mixed Moss

Just saw the movie Little Miss Sunshine. For a move about failures, it is a surprising success. Probably because literally everybody in the world can relate to failure.

I loved it. I really did. Why? For exactly that reason: it’s about a bunch of failures, and I can relate. There’s a great line in it:

“You know what? F— beauty contests. Life is one f—ing beauty contest after another. School, then college, then work… F— that. And f— the Air Force Academy. If I want to fly, I’ll find a way to fly. You do what you love, and f— the rest!”

I’ve always hated beauty contests. This is lame, I know, but I was in 4-H for ten years. (Sorry, California; you may never understand. It’s just a rural fly-over country thing.) And every year at the county fair they had a Fair King and Queen contest. And they always said that it was mostly about service and leadership, but in all those years I never saw somebody who wasn’t skinny and extremely pretty win. Most of the girls who won only cared about leadership because it meant they were Important and Popular and didn’t care about service at all. I think like one year somebody that I knew and thought deserved it won the thing.

My sister was a runner up once, and she was so very nice and gracious about it (unlike the girl who won), and honestly she would’ve been a much better queen than the girl who won. And I’m not being biased. The chick who won didn’t even want it; she was a pain in the ass and didn’t carry out any of the responsibilities she was supposed to have (and believe me, we don’t expect much of the fair queen. You don’t have to be nice; you don’t have to be smart. And you certainly don’t have to work. All we really ask is that you show up, look cute, smile pretty and pass out the darn trophies).

So anyways. That turned me off from beauty pageants and they’ve gone up on my list of vendettas alongside supermodels, Mattel (as the inventor of Barbie), and casting personnel in hollywood who perpetuate the anorexic ideal.

But until I heard that line in this film, it never occurred to me to me that life truly is a series of stupid contests. It’s one long string of people judging you; and it shouldn’t be that way. It shouldn’t be that way. I’m sick of it. And I wish I had the guts to just go “do what [I] love, and f— the rest.”

But unfortunately, when I tried to do that it all turned out to be just one more beauty pageant: one more opportunity for people to reject the things I could have contributed, devalue who and what I am, and, in the end, judge me.

Life happens, man. And it takes you by surprise sometimes; it blindsides you. And then people decide to kick you while you’re down by judging you. Well it’s wrong. We’re all just out there trying to do our best, you know? And I think we should be a little kinder to each other.

So whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you’ve done, and however well you’ve done it, kind thoughts are wafting your way from Cincinnati.

Life is bittersweet. And I figure it’s us who make it bitter for each other at times. The things God has put into the world, they’re what make it sweet. Sweet enough to cut the bitterness, at any rate.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 12th, 2006 at 11:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.