Fuck beauty contests

Okay, so instead of doing the readings I watched a movie and took a nap, but I did watch the video about Ikea Disobedients. So we are rolling with that....

Ikea Disobedients is all about subverting the common conception of the domestic. In popular culture, the domestic is presented as a place away from the political, wrapped in a safe bubble, where you can retreat from the world. Ikea Disobedients wants to present the domestic as a heterogenous space where controversy and disagreement lives alongside love. Home is a place for confrontation, the unfamiliar, or under-dispute. 

This reminded me of Little Miss Sunshine, a film that tries to show the exact same point. In the film, a major character is an old VW bus; it's shitty, constantly breaking down, and requires the entire family to start it, but it carries each character through their own conflict and always appears as a beacon in the background. The van represents domesticity and serves as almost a vessel of humanity. You especially get this sense when the van is juxtaposed against traditional modes of domesticity, such as a suburban house or motel room, which is static and lifeless in comparison. It's a beautiful image for defining your own home. 

So maybe as designers we need to embrace non-normative versions of domestic spaces. Do away with the pageantry and, as Dwayne from the movie says, "Fuck beauty contests."