The film Little Miss Sunshine directed by Valerie Farris and Jonathon Dayton tells of the Hoover Family’s emotional and physical journey from New Mexico to Florida for the youngest member, Olive’s beauty pageant competition. The viewing audience is introduced to several characters in the beginning of the film and are able to see their development and change as the film progresses. Richard Hoover is the father of the dysfunctional Hoover family who shows an important change in values and viewpoint of life and people. He is introduced as a narrow-minded and arrogant character, however as a result of his emotional journey he encounters he is later viewed as a respectable family man after re-evaluating his own perspectives, and priorities in life.
Richard shows the change in thinking and life philosophy, from narrow-minded to accepting of those around him and himself. In the beginning Richard is very concerned about his status, and lives off his definitions of losers and winners. “There are two types of people in this world, winners and losers.” This shows the extent of his narrow-mindedness as he does not acknowledge or understand that an individual could exhibit traits of both a winner and a loser, and that we should not be defined by a superficial title. The diner scene is a key scene in the beginning of the film that shows Richard’s narrow-mindedness through his black-and-white perspectives about the controversial issue of concern for one’s appearance throughout the pageant society. Richard shows a clear bias towards those thinner through his words of “fat…or nice and skinny.” He is portrayed as a dislikeable character in the beginning scenes of the film. However, when faces with the difficulty of Olive’s eccentric character that does not fit in with the strict expectations of competitors in the beauty pageant, Richard accepts that fact