The ‘WE’ Project

The “WE” Project

“It’s not that I’m so smart,
it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
~Albert Einstein

Emotional Literacy–Through Poetry…

I want to share an example of Emotional Literacy–through poetry….This piece is by my client, Jane Schechter, who is a rising 8th grader this fall.  We’re working on a portfolio that is exploring her many gifts, which I’ve called “The We Project.”  This poem helped Jane explore feelings from the past year, so that she can embrace a new tomorrow.  My assignment was to write a poem with the title, “The Darkest Day.”

‘Sunshine’ This Summer–

I am pleased to announce that this entry is a student-written movie review from our Summer Seminar at the Corner, “Film Analysis Class,” this past July 2011.  It’s written by Julia Rittenberg, an early-action-soon-to-be-freshman at the University of Chicago this fall….and I think you can tell that I’m pretty darn proud of her:

The Road of Little Miss Sunshine

As a teenager, it sometimes feels like adults are overly interested in the inner workings of your brain. You seem so ignorant, like you have so much left to discover. One of the many successes of Little Miss Sunshine comes from the character Dwayne, the disgruntled teenager of the dysfunctional family. In a typical family, the final prize to be won is the love and respect of the teenager. Dwayne’s family is an awkward amalgam of people he can’t stand: his wannabe beauty queen half sister, his “winning” stepdad, his loud not-grandfather, his suicidal uncle, and his mother, who is seemingly on the verge of a panic attack. Little Miss Sunshine represents one of the many permutations of family—a financially crippled group of people related by blood and marriage who try to prevent the splintering of their relationship. Although they don’t know it consciously, the family achieves their own brand of harmony at last when Dwayne falls in line with the rest of them, and acknowledges that he cares. This family makes the film instantly classic and completely endearing, and Dwayne helps this with his teenagerly snideness and eventual acceptance of his family.

There are three pivotal scenes for Dwayne in this film which outline his journey: his grudging acceptance to go to Olive’s pageant (for which the film is named), his reluctant return to his family after his dreams of flying have been crushed, and his enthusiastic defense of his half-sister while she lives out her dream. In the first scene, Dwayne’s mother bribes him to come along in the van to the competition by giving him permission for flight school. This line is just on of those perfect metaphors that irrevocably sticks in your mind. Dwayne literally wants to fly, so he can leave the ground where his family lives and be free. It is also the perfect teenage dream: Dwayne is focused only on his flying goal, so he is unreceptive to any communication from his family, which is why he is such a relatable character. His focus cuts him off, but he is like other teenagers in his refusal to accept his family’s guidance and care.

Dwayne’s first real paradigm shift comes whe he finds that he can’t go to flight school because it leads him to his family. Because he is colorblind, a fact found by Olive, Frank informs him that he would not be allowed to be a pilot. His vow of silence breaks when a long “fuck” rips from his throat in a heartbreaking scream, and suddenly he is even more relatable than we knew before. He yells at his mother and demands to be left alone—there will never be more typical teenage behavior. When Olive tries to comfort Dwayne, he begins to realize that family is all he has right now, since he sees no way for his dreams to be fulfilled. This is another important message of the film: when all is said and done, we have family to fall back on.

The movie’s culminating triumph comes when the family connects and come together to support Olive. Had Dwayne not gone through a major character upet, he would not have gone on stage to dance so exuberantly with Olive. Although Dwayne was the last to accept the importance of family, he seems no less devoted. A huge part of the American dream is winning over the teenager, because he (or she) is a terribly detached personality. Dwayne’s tranformation is all the more heartwarming because he was a great representation of the American teenager with his silent snarkiness and hatred of all things related to being a teenager. His journey was entwined with the film’s journey, because the family was at its happiest (on stage at the Little Miss Sunshine pageant) when Dwayne felt most content with them and his situation.

Dwayne is a big part of why Little Miss Sunshine is so fantastic and heartwarming. A brilliant choice in writing was his silence: it is so easy to veer into exaggerated discontent when writing a teenager, but that problem wasn’t present. When Dwayne did speak, Paul Dano acted very well as a teenage boy with little else to do but accept his crazy family for who they are. Every character loses his or her personal goal at one point and accepts this same fact like when Richard loses the book deal, or Frank sees his love with his enemy, so Dwayne, being the last, basically represents the movie as a whole. Dwayne is the long and winding road to happiness, and his acceptance allows the clan to have their own particular version of family peace.