I never said Alan Arkin's character *should* have called Steve Carell's character something anti-Jewish or anti-black or "more shocking" than the quite socially acceptable slur "fag." The obvious point I make is that *had he done so* NO ONE would have laughed. The "fag rag" line is in the movie for laughs. That's the only reason it's there. Ugly. Vile. Both on the part of the filmmakers and on the part of those who find it humorous.

I didn't despise Carell's character because he's a "coward," as you put it. In fact, I didn't see him as such. I saw him as an amoeba. I don't care for human-looking amoebas, male or female or hermaphrodite, gay or straight or anything in between. In other words, gay male characters don't have to be portrayed as heroes for me to like them. That would be going to the other extreme — as you point out. That would also have turned "Little Miss Sunshine" into a box-office disappointment, sort of like "Milk." Whether at the movies or in life, most mainstream audiences either want their gay characters invisible — not there — or played as spineless morons for laughs. Like Carell's bereaved Uncle Amoeba.

By remarking that "Little Miss Sunshine" plays it safe doesn't mean I wanted Dayton and Faris to have Gramps graphically abusing his granddaughter or blowing up the VW van and killing everyone on board, with blood and torn limbs everywhere, or shooting up at the dinner table and then vomiting in his minestrone soup. An edgy film isn't necessarily a shocking film.

But considering the subject matter and the film's "dysfunctional" characters, all I wanted was a pointed critique of both families and society in general. *That* "Little Miss Sunshine" doesn't deliver. In fact, it takes the safest route so as to make both plot and characters as unchallenging as possible.

I shared an apartment for a year with a man who is gay (and now, incidentally, is married to a bisexual woman) and I fully appreciate the pejorative use of "faggot". What your review seems to say is that it would have been edgier, more authentic as a movie and a script if it had had gramps use another more socially unacceptable term. The fact that "faggot" is somewhat socially acceptable does not make it right but shows the insensitivity of the general public. But your review does not help the problem but makes it worse because you want the truly independent films to push the boundaries a little more so that people can be shocked, instead of laughing at something they ought to have been ashamed at.

The only thing I like about your review is that you state plainly your allegiance to a "no limits", a thoroughly unrestrained, and movie industry. Your take on the spineless gay uncle may be slightly accurate (insofar as his character is as shallow as your own perspective) but it seems that it's difficult to portray any male character these days to anyone's satisfaction. Gay or not. The thing is, you want a strong gay character in a movie that shows a coward. In reality there are many straight men who are as cowardly as Frank in movies and out, but I suspect you wouldn't find that to be a problem. Now we have Milk, which shows a strong gay character, and look at the reviews it got! Besides receiving many nominations and awards (which it richly deserved) there are many people SO upset because it makes a gay man an admirable hero. So again, I ask: what good would it have done had gramps said anything else? And, what would it have achieved had Frank been less spineless? Cannot a gay man go through grief the same as a straight man? I think you reviewed this movie, and a few others, with a thick cowl over
your eyes – a deficient worldview. And I don't think it is so illogical.

Your perspective on this movie and some others shows that you hold an opinion which inhabits one extreme in society: an unrestrained, no-taboo, no need for self-control, post-modernism. If you want to see the OPPOSITE perspective to yours (which in many ways is just as bad) then watch – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0rxlBc7.

Also, don't you think the point of the movie was to critique general American society, such as the rather apparent vulgarity of the Little Miss Sunschine beauty pageant? You didn't even mention that or seem to notice that the film moved towards that pageant, and used an extremely awkward and inappropriate routine to point out how subtly the whole pageant was inappropriately derogatory to the participants and their parents? To me, I think that was the whole point of the movie. To show a family that, although it is incredibly dysfunctional and full of odd-ball characters, it is better than the families who, out of a serious desire to win at all costs, put their daughters into the pageant as almost little pole-dancers, miniature whores. -> Obviously that is strong language -> The other participants' dresses and routines were exposed to be vulgar by the very extreme vulgarity of Breslin's routine.

I say "good work", Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.

I see no difference between "faggot," "kike," or "nigger." All three are nasty, ugly, vile words, used to offend, to hurt, to demean others.
Apparently you think "faggot" is just fine. The audience with whom I saw "Little Miss Sunshine" surely did, as they laughed in a way they'd never have laughed had the anti-black or anti-Jew slur been used for comic effect.
People like you would only change your minds if you were gay and someone called *you* a faggot.
Trust me, then my remarks wouldn't sound at all "insipid." My review would also sound quite "logical."

By the way, I watched "Little Miss Sunshine" at the Writers Guild. Some of those people laughing at "faggot" jokes were quite possibly among those who chose "Little Miss Sunshine" the best written movie of the year.

And finally, there are hundreds of movies about families that I like — or even admire. Just because I didn't like "Little Miss Sunshine" doesn't mean I don't like movies about families, period.
Now, *that* is an illogical extrapolation.

Thanks for writing.

Your review seems predicated on the assumption that a film about a family already begins at the wrong place (who crafts art around an archaic form of society?), and can hardly get better if it had less phony characters, and less insipid writing. But why then did LMS earn the Best Original Screenplay? What are you missing in your pedantic worldview that the judges of the Oscars deemed worthy of an award?

Also, why would gramps tell his grandson to go buy a "kike rag"? What would that do for the film? And what is the point that the filmmakers would make if, instead of that socially unacceptable comment, he commanded an even more socially reprehensible thing like buying a "nigger-rag"? How would that make the film less phony?

In the end, it is your kind of review that makes me sick of reading film reviews. It isn't even logical. And it is your own insipid perspective on the gay uncle that inhibits people's slowly developing attitude towards an inclusive family. And yet you didn't even seem aware of the pejorative social and familial implications of several of those scenes.

I wouldn't watch that movie again, either. But for entirely different reasons.

If you look at my list of favorite films, you'll see quite a few that could hardly be considered "world-weary jaded." (And I never say in my review that people should only go to the movies to be challenged.)

My chief problem with "Little Miss Sunshine" wasn't that it lacked Dreyer's starkness, Bergman's psychology, or Antonioni's sense of ennui. As far as I'm concerned, "Little Miss Sunshine" fails because it pretends to be something it isn't. It's phony.

As to your question about my getting upset if others find my writing "predictable," the answer is, No, that doesn't upset me.

Now, the two hours of my life I wasted watching "Little Miss Sunshine." Well, *that* made me mad…

But hey, thanks for sharing your opinion. I'm sure most people will agree with you — not with me. (I'll grant you that.)

I read your review of Little Miss Sunshine (only recently released in Australia). You are the sort of film reviewer that I have become accustomed to in my reading of 1001 films … The choice of favourite films is calculated to tell us about the reviewer not the film. Your review sits nicely in this genre – does that upset you that your writing is predictable?

I am someone who deals daily with the tragedy of the lives of others. They don't need to go to the cinema to be "challenged" or to be 'cutting edge'. I have enough 'profound' or intellectual dialogue with my friends and family to not require it of every piece of entertainment I view. LMS was entertaining and engaging. I liked the characters – rather than this tired world-weary jaded artist view of the world that you obviously prefer.

As an Australian I frequently object to the neo-colonial American mass media. But LMS is not part of the problem. The only moment I was reminded of the origin of this movie was during the family dance sequence at the end (I will grant you that).

Matt