Deep Life Reflections: Friday Five
Issue 72 - Dignity
Welcome to Issue 72 of Deep Life Reflections, where I share five things I’ve been enjoying and thinking about over the past week.
In this week’s issue, we explore the theme of dignity and the significance of unexpected alliances. We start with George Orwell’s debut work, Down and Out in Paris and London, documenting his real-life experiences of poverty and hardship. Then we turn to the 2006 award-winning film Little Miss Sunshine, where a dysfunctional family comes together on a transformational journey. Through these works, we reflect on how connections that seem strange at first become essential for survival, identity, dignity, and acceptance.
Join me as we explore this week’s Friday Five.
1. What I’m Reading
Down and Out in Paris and London. George Orwell.
“Dirt is a great respecter of persons; it lets you alone when you are well dressed, but as soon as your collar is gone it flies towards you from all directions.”
George Orwell is something of a contradiction. He was a would-be revolutionary who went to Eton, an exclusive public school in England; a political writer who despised dogma; a socialist who thrived on his image as a loner, writing 1984 tucked away on the remote Isle of Jura in Scotland; and a member of the Imperial Indian Police who chronicled the iniquities of imperialism. Orwell’s talent—and enduring legacy—lies in his ability to look both inward and beyond, aware of his own prejudices and committed to shining a light on the less fortunate. It’s this honesty and sense of decency that makes his work so powerful.
Down and Out in Paris and London was Orwell’s first published work, a first-person account of the lives of the working poor and the homeless in Paris and London. Orwell felt guilty over the plight of the disenfranchised and downtrodden, so he decided to live among them for a time, experiencing what they experienced.
The book is divided into two parts. The first details his life in Paris, working as a dishwasher—a plongeur, which is basically the bottom rung in the kitchen staff—at a newly opened hotel and restaurant. Here, the staff work 16–18-hour days, seven days a week, in squalid conditions. The second part follows his time in London, where he becomes a tramp, experiencing homelessness and the daily struggles to find food and shelter. The grim descriptions of various ‘spikes’ (homeless shelters) and overall bleakness make the London section seem even more futile.
Orwell writes without self-pity, focusing instead on the raw realities of life on the fringes faced by the working classes of the early twentieth century. Orwell documented all his experiences meticulously. We meet characters like Boris, a former Russian soldier with a bad leg who seems to have contacts everywhere in Paris, and tramps in London such as Paddy and Bozo, the latter a pavement street artist who fell on hard times after once being a painter. These characters fascinate Orwell. Towards the end of the book, Orwell is at pains to stress the inaccuracy of stereotypes about tramps and what he sees as a situation that is unlikely to be remedied by those with the power to do so:
“It is this fear of a supposedly dangerous mob that makes nearly all intelligent people conservative in their opinions.”
Published in 1933, Down and Out in Paris and London captures the essence of what Orwell’s contemporary, W.H. Auden called a “low, dishonest decade.” Orwell’s honest words temporarily return some dignity to those who slipped through the cracks of society, giving them a voice they never had.
2. What I’m Watching
Little Miss Sunshine. (2006). Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.
Little Miss Sunshine is a smart satire about a dysfunctional family trying to handle a world obsessed with winning. It’s a film about dreams and illusions. It’s dark but also very funny, with a brilliant cast who know exactly how to play their respective characters.
The Hoover family is one of the most unconventional families you’ll ever see on screen, and they are the heart and soul of the film. Olive, the seven-year-old, dreams of becoming a beauty queen. Her father, Richard, is an impressively unsuccessful motivational speaker obsessed with winning because he’s never done it himself. Grandpa Edwin, Richard’s father, lives with them after being kicked out of his retirement home for snorting heroin. Dwayne, the reclusive teenage son, idolizes Nietzsche, has taken a vow of silence, and hates everyone. Uncle Frank, the Number One Proust scholar, recently attempted suicide after being jilted by a graduate student who left him for the Number Two Proust scholar. Meanwhile, Sheryl, the mother, is just trying to keep the family together, though she’s fraying at the edges.
As we meet each member of the Hoover family, the story shifts into a classic American road trip adventure. Olive gets a chance to compete in the ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ beauty pageant, prompting the entire clan to pile into a beat-up VW van for a 700-mile journey from their home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Redondo Beach, California. The trip isn’t without its challenges, both minor and major, testing the family’s resilience and sanity. Pain is everywhere, but the comedic touches, of which there are many, provide an antidote.
Each character is dealing with their own personal failures and the need for validation. One of the film’s best scenes involves Edwin offering Richard consoling words after yet another setback. His advice is both touching and doesn’t betray his character for sentimentality. This is the heart of the movie: these flawed characters need each other. Sometimes words don’t even need to be said, as demonstrated when Olive offers wordless support to a devastated Dwayne when he learns he’s colourblind and can’t pursue his dream of becoming a fighter pilot.
By the end, the family is fully united by the absurdity of the beauty pageant, all plastic craziness with an undercurrent of sleaze. The pageant is a kind of metaphor for contemporary America, with its big false winning smiles, contrasting with the non-conforming Hoover family. They come to realise that it’s not about winning or losing, but about the journey and finding support in unexpected places. There they find the sunshine. And so do we.
3. What I’m Contemplating
In Down and Out in Paris and London and the film Little Miss Sunshine, dignity is often sought and found in unexpected alliances. Both works reveal how, amidst struggles and adversity, connections that seem odd at first become essential—whether for survival in Orwell’s memoir or for identity and acceptance in the film.
Orwell’s work highlights the lives of the downtrodden in two major cities, showcasing how dignity is quickly stripped from the individual, and how hard it is to reclaim. Solidarity and shared experience are one way, offering mutual support in an otherwise bleak existence. Orwell saw his role as highlighting the plight of the poor to those in higher classes in the hope of change, or at the very least, a more humane understanding.
Similarly, Little Miss Sunshine portrays a dysfunctional family whose journey to a children’s beauty pageant becomes a metaphor for their search for dignity. The absurdity of the beauty pageant, with its artificial smiles and superficial values, contrasts with the genuine connections and support the family members provide one another. It’s in this unlikely setting that they realise their true worth.
Dignity is not just about individual achievement but about the collective strength found in solidarity. These stories remind us that in our own lives, we can find dignity and fulfilment not in isolation, but in the unexpected alliances we form with others.
4. A Quote to note
“Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen.”
- Laura Hillenbrand
5. A Question for you
What unexpected alliances in your life have helped you maintain or regain your sense of dignity?
Thanks for reading and being part of the Deep Life Journey community. If you have any reflections on this issue, please leave a comment. Have a great weekend.
James
Sharing and Helpful Links
Want to share this issue of Deep Life Reflections via text, social media, or email? Just copy and paste this link:
https://www.deeplifejourney.com/deep-life-reflections/august-2-2024
And if you have a friend, family member, or colleague who you think would also enjoy Deep Life Reflections, simply copy, paste and send them this subscription link:
https://www.deeplifejourney.com/subscribe
Don’t forget to check out my website, Deep Life Journey, for full content on my Pillars, Perspectives & Photography. And you can read all previous issues of Deep Life Reflections here.