In Joseph Campbell’s essay The Hero with a Thousand Faces he describes the hero’s journey archetype in three parts; departure, initiation, and return. Campbell describes the characteristics of the hero as a man of lowly birth, a man who despite that is marked by destiny to fulfil a noble purpose. The film Little Miss Sunshine fits this architype perfectly. Our hero of the story is Olive Hoover, a little girl who dreams of being a pageant queen.
Campbell describes the first part of the hero’s journey as the departure or ‘the call.’ In this film the call is quite literal. The Hoover family receives a call from the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in California informing them that Olive can compete. The refusal of the quest comes from the lack of financial stability, family stability, and transportation. However, the decision is reached and the whole family is on their way to California in a VW bus. These elements; the call, the refusal, are all segments in the archetype that Campbell writes about in his essay.
The second part of the journey Campbell writes is the initiation, which is essentially all of the trials and hardships that the hero faces to get to his destination and achieve his fate. Often the hero fights demons, undergoes a false death and is resurrected with the knowledge of who he truly is. While Olive and her family don’t fight demons or receive true supernatural aid, they do face almost unbelievable challenges and still manage to find their way to the pageant on time. The bus breaks down, Richard’s book falls through, Dwayne discovers he is color blind and Grandpa overdoses in a motel bathroom. Still through all of these problems, the family finds a way to overcome and rely on each other in order to complete the journey.
The final part of this archetype is the return as described by Campbell. The return in this story is much the same as the departure, the family all piling into the bus. However the distinct difference is the relationship they have with one another. The journey brought the Hoovers together as a real family, one who loves and believes in one another. This is a stark contrast to the journey that the hero’s faced during initiation and the change in their family is the reward of the story.