Dwayne's Journey In Little Miss Sunshine

          One of the most interesting characters in the movie, Little Miss Sunshine, is the big brother Dwayne. Throughout the movie he has a grand character arc from hating his family, to hating his life, and finally to loving and defending his family. The screenwriter did this completely through definitive action because, the character does not speak for most of the movie.

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          The beginning of the movie shows our character has taken a vow of silence. This is because of his study of Nietzsche and his reading the book Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Arndt 6). We also find that Dwayne has wants and needs to be a pilot through his intense work outs and marking of his calendar demarking the time until enlistment (Arndt 2). During the motel scene Dwayne purposely turns off the TV to listen to his parent’s argument demonstrates his absorption of the negativity of the family (Arndt 49). The fact that the character is reading a french philosophical nihilist shows that Dwayne is a very pessimistic but highly intelligent person. In nihilist thought people discover that the world does not have objective value or meaning (Jerman 6). The enlistment in the military and the silent treatment shows that the character is committing to a path that impairs communication with his family and that he wishes to run away from the confines of the family.

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          Even with his outward and visible disdain of his family, the screenwriters do hint at the change that is going to come when they are first trying to get the van going after the clutch goes out. He and Frank are pushing the VW and are attempting to jump in when Frank falls behind. Dwayne goes back and helps Frank to get into the van (Arndt 39). Also when Dwayne writes to Olive to hug his mother when she is having her breakdown (Arndt 59) allows his character to remain aloof while still showing the audience that he cares for his family, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.

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          The apex of his arc is when he finds out that he is color blind from playing with the eye charts with Olive. He finds out he is colorblind and thus cannot fly. He runs away from the van shrieking like a wild animal (Arndt 74) and most notably pokes ants with a straw (Arndt 75). [This is also a subtle point of the screenwriters bringing back in nihilism. In noir, nihilistic film characters act and react out of despair and persistently engage in activities that have no meaning at all. All attempts to get out of trouble only because more trouble (Jerman 6). Poking the ants shows the ants have no control over their future.] This is the point where he completely withdraws from the family unable to deal with the crashing of his dreams. This separation is shown by him standing on the edge of the group (Arndt 82) as well as when he is sitting alone at the contest (Arndt 84). 

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          His arc begins to change as he and Frank rent the surf boards and paddles out into the ocean. His one job was to keep Frank from killing himself and for a moment Dwayne worries that Frank has done just that by drowning himself (Arndt 92). In understanding his own feelings about possibility letting down his family he comes to the realization that he does care about his family.

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          Thus we complete his character arc with him rushing into the competition and trying to convince his mother to remove Olive from the competition so that she would not be embarrassed. He enters the backstage area where he was not permitted and brushes past obstacles like the attendant and the contestant to find his family (Arndt 97). In fact when asked if he is part of the family, he nods in affirmation (Arndt 100). Lastly we come to him being proactive about supporting his family with him being the first person to cheer on Olive while she performs (Arndt 104) and then supporting his dad in his attacking the MC by rushing the stage (Arndt 106).

 
Bibliography

Arndt, M. D. (2007). Little Miss Sunshine: The shooting script. New York: Newmarket Press.

Jerman, J. (2008). “Unit One Notes,” Film Noir: Culture in Crisis. University of Oklahoma.

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Contrasting Social Responsibility and Social Problem Theory of Criminology

Sean P Wise.............written for LSCJ 3133-301..............1-31-16

          Crime and deviance are pervasive issues that affect all societies. Thus there is great variation in the perspective of how to cope with these issues. While criminologists have not managed to articulate a large collection of relatively formalized arguments in a general or integrated form (Schmalleger 14), two perspectives highlight the prevailing approaches to building a foundation of criminology. These two sources are the social responsibility perspective and the social problem perspective. In this paper we will review the two perspectives and compare and contrast them.

          The first perspective we will review is the social responsibility perspective of criminology, also known as Rational Choice Theory. In this perspective, criminologist view the act of committing crime a personal choice that is made by the perpetrator. This can be seen as the free will perspective. In this perspective, individuals are fundamentally responsible for their own behavior and they choose crime over other law abiding courses of action (Schmalleger 15). Richard Smith outlined how core values of society often influence both law and how society deals with issues. He found prevalent in many cultures’ core values honoring individual freedoms and self sufficiency in the face of economic and environmental disaster (3). Meaning that people exercise their free will even when there are catastrophic consequences. Thus the social responsibility perspective has had tremendous impact on our current institution of law.

          Proponents of the social responsibility perspective of criminology believe that social programs do little to solve problems with crime. They believe that crime prone individuals will continue to make choices that pit them against the justice system. Thus, they believe in order to curb crime you must have a highly personalized strategy to deal with the issue. These strategies include, but are not limited to, firm punishments, imprisonment, tailored rehabilitation, broader powers for law enforcement officials and increased security (Schmalleger 15). According to Schmalleger, specific bills such as the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act as well as the USA Patriot Act were derived specifically from this criminology perspective and were used to place more police on the beat as well as create stiffer penalties and institute the “3 strikes you’re out rule.” (16)

          Over the last 20 years the United States has seen how this “war on crime” has played out. Due to the rigid constructs of this response they have a booming prison population. According to The Sentencing Project, the overall population of prisons has grown over 700% for the period from 1980 to 2009 in the United States. The U.S. has increased its federal budget for prisons, pouring in 6 billion dollars to the federal prison system in 2010, an over 1,000% increase in spending since 1980. The U.S. has seen a militarization of the law enforcement agencies which in turn has resulted in an increase of police brutality. Bill Trine notates on prisonlegalnews.org that “the federal government, supported by the Supreme Court, has transformed the police of this nation into a military force, financed and trained to use excessive force.”

          The fascinating part of this goes to what Jared Diamond stated about those core values. “Easter Island chiefs . . . acted so as to accelerate deforestation rather than to prevent it: their status depended upon their putting up bigger statues and monuments than their rivals” (431). In other words, those in power did everything they could to maintain that power even if it meant ecocide. Here in the United States that has resulted in a prison system that is more akin to the Jim Crow era rather than responsible rehabilitation (Trine).


          The second perspective of criminology is a more encompassing perspective. It is known as the social problem perspective. This perspective sees crime in the context that it is committed. Proponents of this perspective believe that underlying social problems like poverty, discrimination, family violence and inadequate socialization practices results in the manifestation of crime (Schmalleger 15). This approach is more conscious of the sociology of crime; the “It takes a village” approach. This approach allows the understanding and rationale behind the issues of crime and thus can propose solutions to the issue.


          The solutions seen by proponents of the social problem perspective are often large initiatives that target certain aspects of society that foster crime. These issues are treated much like we would treat a public health problem, we diagnose the issue, i.e. poverty, and then treat it, i.e. work to build the area’s income by work placement assistance and business growth initiatives.


          The science of criminology has clearly shown that there are more factors than what the social responsibility perspective allows. Joan McCord performed a 30 year study on family dynamics with relation to crime. She found that those families with a self confident, non-punitive, and affectionate mother were more likely to raise male offspring that did not exhibit delinquency and thus were not associated with later crime (Schmalleger 18). Thus we see the family dynamic plays an integral role in overall crime rate. If you can ensure through parenting classes or other forms of home economics classes that the family unit is a strong and positive one, you can effectively decrease future crime rate.


          In thinking about the social problem perspective, it is also important to remember that society itself plays a part in the prevention of crime. Carol W Kohfeld and John Sprague performed an experiment to discover if being arrested ended up being a future deterrent for crime. They found in their experiment, under certain demographic conditions that yes, being arrested could curb the desire to perform illicit acts in the future (Schmalleger 18). Thus having an interaction with law enforcement officials can have the beneficial aspect of stopping the progress of a criminal’s activity in a “scared straight” situation.


          An interesting point that Schmalleger brings up is mental illness as an impetus for criminal activity. Many people have varying degrees of mental illness and few result in violent outbursts. However, some mental illnesses can increase aggressive behavior. If a psychologist or psychiatrist is proactive enough, they also may be able to curb the descent into criminal activity. Adam Lanza and James Holmes, both of which had been seeing mental health officials (Schmalleger 21), may have not committed the horrific mass shootings they perpetrated if they had been able to receive the appropriate care.


          In conclusion, the two prevailing perspectives of social responsibility and social problems both have positive and negative aspects. We have spent several decades now allowing those in power to continue to use the social responsibility perspective to decrease crime. It has worked, as the figure1-1 demonstrates (Schmalleger 3), but with consequences that are tearing families apart. Social responsibility only treats the symptom of crime, while social problem perspective focuses on curing the pandemic. In order to have a thorough understanding and response to crime, and possibly cure it, it is important to have a full arsenal to attack it with. This means pouring more funds into preventative measures and programs rather than continuing to build prisons.

Bibliography

Diamond, Jared M. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Penguin, 2005. Print

Schmalleger, Frank. Criminology Today: An Integrative Introduction. Boston: Pearson Education Inc.. 7th Edition. 2015. Print

Smith, Richard. Capitalism and Collapse: Contradictions of Jared Diamond’s Market Meliorist Strategy to Save Humans. Capitalism Nature Socialism. Volume 16. #4. December 2005.

"State and Federal Prison Population Tops One Million." PsycEXTRA Dataset (n.d.): n. pag. The Sentencing Project. Web.

Trine, Bill. The Genesis of Increasing Incidents of Police Brutality: The War on Drugs. Prison Legal News. 3 June 2015. Web. 31 Jan. 2016.