The aim of this essay is to analyse the film ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ by using Christopher Vogler’s framework for ‘The Hero’s Journey’ as outlined in his book ‘The Writer’s Journey’.
Little Miss Sunshine, released 2006, was written by Michael Arndt and directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. It tells the story of the dysfunctional Hoover family trying to get 7year-old Olive to the “Little Miss Sunshine” beauty pageant on time, in their unreliable combi van. The film is a comedy-drama which uses the theme of ‘winners and losers’ to explore the personal journey of each character.
Although the film has an ensemble cast, it is Olive that is really the protagonist since it’s her desire to participate in the beauty contest which provides
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These are developed from Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces and they outline a pattern of narrative principles that describe the typical journey of the archetype called ‘The Hero’ in a film.
These 12 basic plot points fall within the 3 Act structure and begin with what Vogler calls The Ordinary World (Vogler, 2007, pg 83-97) which introduces the hero, the opening image, the main theme and the backstory.
In Little Miss Sunshine, the opening image is a close up on Olive’s bespectacled eyes transfixed on the tv screen watching and re-watching the image of the winner of Miss America being announced. A wider angled shot shows that along with the glasses Olive is slightly tubby and nerdy looking as she imitates the winning beauty queen’s reaction. The audience immediately understands Olive’s desire to be the winner of a beauty pagent but also that she already doesn’t fit the usual image.
The beauty queen represents the expectations of society and the way we compare ourselves to others and the symbolism of this whole scene is the flawed social construct that being beautiful equals winning. Olive is cast as the unaware, naïve hero, who doesn’t know or understand that her physical limitations might not match up with her
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Grandpa wants to see Olive perform, Uncle Frank can’t be left on his own and Dwayne wants everyone to leave him alone. This obstacle is resolved when Richard decides he will drive everyone in the beat up VW Kombi van. The risk involved is somewhat financial for the family, but more than that it’s emotional since the family at this point can’t get along and can’t work together.
Grandpa represents the archetype of the Mentor in this film although that isn’t always immediately apparent. Despite his drug use, swearing and general inappropriateness he brings the ‘underdog values’ that oppose Richard’s ‘Winner/Loser’ values and offers advice, usually unsolicited, and comfort where needed.
The end of Act 1 and the beginning of Act 2 coincide with the hero Crossing The Threshold and it symbolises that the hero is committed to the journey. This means they will leave the Ordinary World and cross into The Special World where the rules and values are unknown (Voytilla, 1999, pg
After Campbell studied a lot of the great myths and realized this pattern, he published his findings in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Ever since then, authors have used “The Hero’s Journey” as an outline to tell their stories. “It is important to note that not all of these individual steps are present in every hero’s tale, nor is it important that they be in this exact order” (Vogler 20). The Hero with a Thousand Faces gives a sense of significance as it looks into the inner mind and soul. The author, Joseph Campbell, performs two extraordinary accomplishments: compelling his readers that myth and dream, those are the most effective and everlasting forces in life and a unification of mythology and psychoanalysis with a gripping narrative.
Most myths have a common pattern between them. Today, this pattern is often seen in some of our most beloved motion pictures. Joseph Campbell-a respected 20th century American mythologist, lecturer, and writer- observed this and created a theory based off of the similarities he saw. He showed the world that almost every story with a hero follows the three stages in his theory he called “Monomyth” (Campbell). The monomyth, often times called “The Hero’s Journey” or “The hero with a thousand faces”, includes the departure, initiation, and return stages (Campbell). In these stages the hero leaves his normal life behind, fulfills him/herself in some activity, and returns as a hero (Campbell). These stages can be applied to a smash hit released in 2009, a science-fiction film titled Star Trek. James T. Kirk in Star Trek closely follows Campbell’s theory as he departs from his childhood home in Iowa, fights a rogue Romulan enemy, and returns to Earth as a Starfleet captain.
This paper examines the argument and theory proposed by Richard H. Tyre of the six basic movements of a plot in a hero story. Although Tyre’s theory does seem too narrow focused, fixed and direct to fit with the plot structure of all hero stories, he makes a great point and provides adequate evidence to support his statement.
In “Creating the Myth,” Linda Seger outlines the essential aspects that make up the hero myth, and why movies that follow this outline are generally successful. In her analysis, she begins with the idea that every hero myth revolves around a hero who is called upon to accomplish a feat that nobody else in the story is able to do. The hero’s journey begins with an unlikely person being called upon to serve a purpose greater than themselves. Along their journey, the hero is influenced by several archetypical characters that either help the hero, or try to deter the hero from accomplishing their task. The hero’s journey ends when they have accomplished their task, and in doing so, become a greater person than what they were in the beginning. A film that found tremendous success by following this outline was “Kung Fu Panda.”
Humanity has created this “universal story” of what a hero is, or at least the myth of it, time and again. Different tasks and encounters with a variety of villains all lead the hero to the prize, to a new life (Seger). This person deemed the hero is as ordinary as the next but what makes them different is the drastic test that they must face. Individuals admire this character because the hero stands for something, something bigger than themselves. Whether it be the compassionate act of Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games or the death of the oldest brother in Brother Bear, as an outsider, an individual sees the human side of these heroes and relates. Connor Lassiter from Unwind by Neal Shusterman is an ideal example of the myth due to the
The mold of the heroic template is evident throughout various types of media. Within movies, novels, and poems the hero’s journey is present. Of course, not every piece of literature or movie follows the cycle. However, the idea of the monomyth arose from Joseph Campbell. He wrote his own book, The Hero of a Thousand Faces, within his writing he describes that heroes’ follow the same basic procedure throughout their quest(s). This is where the idea of the hero monomyth arose. In Michael Lewis’s novel, The Blind Side, he portrays “The heroic monomyth.” The Blind Side consists of the basic characters and archetypes that accurately reflect the heroic template.
To fully appreciate the significance of the plot one must fully understand the heroic journey. Joseph Campbell identified the stages of the heroic journey and explains how the movie adheres meticulously to these steps. For example, the first stage of the hero’s journey is the ordinary world (Campbell). At the beginning, the structure dictates that the author should portray the protagonist in their ordinary world, surrounded by ordinary things and doing ordinary tasks so that the author might introduce the reasons that the hero needs the journey in order to develop his or her character or improve his or her life (Vogler 35). The point of this portrayal is to show the audience what the protagonist’s life is currently like and to show what areas of his or her life are conflicted or incomplete. When the call to adventure occurs, the protagonist is swept away into another world, one that is full of adventure, danger, and opportunities to learn what needs to be learned. T...
...vides a stable offer of advice to his adolescent student. What Mr. P presents Junior with is the same “mentor” qualities that all mentors provide for their mentees. And by no means does Mr. P “go easy” on Junior for his actions; he wants him to be built tough and strong because he knows that Junior is perfectly capable of reaching those capacities. For instance, Mr. P says to Junior, “’But I do forgive you,’ he said. ‘No matter how much I don’t want to. I have to forgive you,’” (Alexie 28). This demonstrates the amount of maturity that Mr. P wants to exhibit to Junior, in hopes of earning more respect from him. I believe that Mr. P provides the strongest sense of a mentor, beside Grandma Spirit, in this story because he pushes Junior to strive for greatness no matter what.
Throughout the years, certain writers were able to set off a deep sympathetic resonance within readers by their usage of archetypal patterns. One of those patterns is known as the hero's journey, which Joseph Campbell gave an understandable idea of in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. According to his book, while comparing world's mythology, he found that no matter how far cultures are from each other, they will still have the same structure of hero's journey in their legends (Voytilla vii).
Marguerite reveals and says that she is a “too-big Negro girl, with nappy black hair, broad feet and a space between her teeth that would hold a number-two pencil." She implies that that she is representing ugly. In my vulture, being beautiful for a female is having long straight hair, being tall and having a lean body.
Refer to specific examples. What sets your hero’s journey in motion? What elements of the hero’s journey does it conform to? Use distinctive examples of what you see on the screen. Include quotes from the movie.
In Toni Morrison’s story and in real life, beauty is described by people as having blond hair, blue eyes , perfect figure, etc. It’s been said that if you have good looks, you can make it in life with just looks alone. People only strive for becoming beautiful because they want attention. As is the case in Toni Morrison’s story. The characters in her story think that they are ugly , by others opinions of them , and want to become beautiful so they will be recognized and be the center of attention. But the harder both characters try, the worse things get.
An Analysis of the Ten Stages of the Hero’s Journey in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces
A set of practices concerning the narrative structure compose the classical Hollywood Paradigm. These conventions create a plot centering around a character who undergoes a journey in an attempt to achieve some type of goal (). By giving the central character more time on screen, the film helps the audience to not only understand the character’s motivation but also empathize with his/her emotional state. Additionally, some antagonistic force creates conflict with the main character, preventing immediate success(). Finally, after confronting the antagonist, the main character achieves his or her goal along with growing emotionally(). This proven structure creates a linear and relatively easily followed series of events encompassing the leading character and a goal.
Works CitedMcLellan, Lizzy. "New Pageant Focuses on Inner Beauty." Frederick News-Post, The (MD) 18 June 2013: Newspaper Source Plus. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.