Human dignity is everywhere under assault. It is perhaps the greatest sign of the broken nature of humanity. The fact that we turn a blind eye to the cold and calculating destruction of human dignity points to a much deeper pain in the human psyche. What did Jesus say about human dignity?
Jesus and Human Dignity
For all our hashtag movements and angry protests, the needle is barely moved and human dignity is everywhere under attack. Terrorism, human trafficking, the sexual assault of women, the forced separation of immigrant children from their parents, the affirmation of the legalization of late-term, partial-birth abortions, the rise in gun violence, the personal vitriol in the national rhetoric — and these are only a few of the more public examples. I should also reference the thousand little ways we dehumanize each other on a daily basis. What did Jesus have to say about the dignity of being human?
The central tenant of Jesus’ teachings was a call to love each other (John 15:12). When Jesus was walking the earth there were many different opinions about the pathway to God. Jesus believed it was love. He believed in a kind of love so radical that we could even manage to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44). Jesus modeled a love that uplifts the dignity of every human being, but especially the powerless (Luke 4:18).
Jesus touched the leper (Matt. 26:6). He shared the fellowship meal with prostitutes and tax-collectors (Matt. 9:11; 21:32). He talked to the untouchables — those who had been flushed out of village life (John 4:7). Jesus said to them “Come to me … and you will find rest” (Matt.11:28).
Jesus rebuked his disciples for trying to create a hierarchy of value (Mark 9:34). He chastised them for their power-grabs (Mark 9:35). He told them that his community would be different — the last would be first and the least, the greatest (Luke 22:25-27).
Jesus told a parable about a King who said to his people, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me” (Matt. 25:35-36).
The people then ask the King, “When did we do all those things?” And the King responded, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matt. 25:40).
In Jesus’ economy, the prize goes to the one who uplifts the powerless and dignifies the outcast.
Human Dignity in Little Miss Sunshine
The opening montage in the movie, Little Miss Sunshine, introduces us to the Hoover family one at a time: Ten-year-old Olive is the aspiring beauty queen.
Her dad Richard is an incredibly unsuccessful motivational speaker. He’s pathologically obsessed with winning because he’s never tasted it himself.
Olive’s mom Sheryl values family above all else, and she is sagging under the weight of her role as the one stabilizing force in this crazy, chaotic, little family.
Grandpa, Olive’s coach, spends hours working on her dance routine with her. Grandpa has been kicked out of a retirement home, for sleeping around and for snorting heroin.
Uncle Frank, Sheryl’s brother, is the Number One Proust scholar in the world and has just attempted suicide because he fell in love with a graduate student who dumped him for the Number Two Proust scholar in the world.
And Olive’s teenage brother Dwayne hasn’t spoken in nine months because he’s been reading Nietzsche and has taken a vow of silence while training to get into flight school. Plus, he hates everybody.
This little family is a disaster waiting to happen — a psychological time-bomb waiting for someone or something to hit the detonator. They are the epitome of dysfunction — they are the least of these — the very ones the world and its rules and structures calls “losers” and flushes out of the village.
They are forced to take an 800-mile road trip in the old family VW bus that barely runs, from their home in Albuquerque New Mexico to Redondo Beach California where little Olive has miraculously been granted entrance into the Little Miss Sunshine Beauty Contest. She made it into the beauty contest only because the “real winner” had to bail out.
And that’s an important point because this story is about winners and losers. It exposes a world in which there’s a form, a brochure, a procedure, a job title, a prize to quantify, sort, categorize and process every human emotion or desire. Nothing exists that cannot be compartmentalized or turned into a self-improvement mantra about “winners and losers.”
And then there’s little Olive and her family of “losers.” They reluctantly take the stage and uncomfortably steal the spotlight to show us the triumph of the human spirit and the value of every human being (no matter how messed up they are) — the dignity of being human.
There are two scenes in the movie that are absolutely Jesus moments.
The first is in a restaurant on the way to the beauty contest where Olive’s father unwittingly shames her about her desire to eat ice cream.
Dessert comes with her meal. Does she want chocolate or vanilla? Her father lectures her that beauty contestants who are winners don’t eat ice cream.
Pudgy Olive looks longingly at the bowl of ice cream. She wants desperately to be a beauty queen. Her soul loves ice cream. Will she forfeit her soul for the world’s definition of “beauty queen”?
She grabs the spoon and digs into the ice cream. Her father is disappointed, but the audience is cheering.
This is what you love about this little girl. She refuses to be the cardboard version of herself, and in so doing, elevates the dignity of being human.
The second is the climactic scene of the movie, the talent portion of the beauty contest.
At this point, Olive, her family, and everyone in the audience knows she has no chance of winning the contest. Olive doesn’t belong — no matter how much she longs to be a beauty queen, she doesn’t fit. The little girls in this contest have been training for it their entire lives. They are the power brokers who hold all the cards precisely because they are cardboard versions of themselves.
Olive is the powerless one who has no weapon in her hand — the sacrificial lamb who must be sacrificed to satiate the need to “win.” Her family is desperate as they realize that Olive has been set up for a humiliating failure.
Olive knows all this, of course.
Her little heart has learned the lesson — in this world, there are beauty queens and there are pudgy little, ice-cream-loving girls like Olive who will never be beauty queens.
But in the moment she realizes this something amazing happens. Olive doesn’t quit. She goes on stage anyway — for her grandfather (who has died of a drug overdose halfway through the trip) — she goes through with it. It’s one of the bravest moments in cinema. Rambo has nothing on this little girl.
Her talent routine turns out to be a dance any stripper would be proud of, to the song “Superfreak” by Rick James. As soon as the music starts you think, “Of course! It’s perfect!” Her grandpa worked with her tirelessly on the routine. Of course, it’s “Super Freak.” Of course, it’s a strip-tease type choreography. It’s the perfect tribute to all the “sinners” and “tax-collectors” who have ever been flushed out of village life.
As the establishment audience is self-righteously booing, and walking out, and trying to get her off the stage, her family joins her in her dance — her celebration of her loving relationship with her crazy grandfather — her unabashed celebration of who she is, and who she refuses to become, and who she will always be — a “loser” in the eyes of the world and “beautiful” in the eyes of the one who created her.
I suspect that many in the audience aren’t even sure why they feel like cheering and crying at the same time. It’s because her dance is our dance. It is a beautiful, glorious, raunchy ballet for the dignity of every life — the dignity you carry everywhere you go simply because you are a part of God’s glorious creation.
