In "Little Miss Sunshine," the Hoover family father, Richard Hoover, is quite frankly intolerable. With his obsessive nine step program to success, Richard's idealistic and fanatical behavior in the beginning of the movie is a big point of irritation to the family and the audience. One of the main things that he states is that being a loser (failing at something) is the worst thing you can ever do. Richard seems to think that the people who fail just didn't try hard enough, and have simply given up on themselves. He even goes as far as to say that Frank's attempt to kill himself as a result of his life going haywire is his fault and that Frank should have tried harder before giving up. But as I listened to Richard incessant babbling about this, I was met with the question of; is being a loser necessarily a bad thing? By the end of "Little Miss Sunshine," I had the answer to that question. The Hoover family fails in many different aspects throughout this movie as a collective, as well as individually. They are, by Richard's definition, losers. Yet, being a loser and failing is what brings this family closer together. It is only through their struggles that they can begin to relate to each other and bond as a family. This leaves them vastly happier than they were at the beginning. So in this case, I can safely say that being a loser is not a bad thing, it is just another part of life.
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