So, can we just talk about this for a bit?  I mean, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is one of the most underrated movies from the past few years, and yeah, okay, it’s silly, and strange, but it’s a kid’s movie.  It’s supposed to be.  

But one of the things that makes it great is that it teaches kids - and adults, too - that it’s okay to be comfortable with who you are.

I mean, take this scene for instance.  In most other movies with a geeky girl, she gets a makeover halfway through and suddenly the main guy realizes that she’s actually beautiful, and not just some weird girl into science with glasses who doesn’t care about how she looks.  She needs to become beautiful for him to be interested in her.

But in this scene, Sam admits that she loves meteorology.  But because she was teased in school for it and how she looked, she got the makeover and essentially hid who she really was from everybody.  Flint responds by chipping away the mask that she created, revealing the bespectacled, scrunchied girl inside.  

And he likes it.  

He tells her that while she looked good before, the girl sitting in front of him - though vulnerable and self-conscious - is more beautiful than the girl who gave up her glasses, even though she couldn’t see, just because people told her that wasn’t an acceptable appearance.  And she still has trouble believing him.

He doesn’t understand that.  He can’t.  Because even though he’s been teased mercilessly his entire life, that no one in that small town understands him, not even his own father, he’s completely comfortable with himself.  He knows who he is, and he isn’t afraid to show it.  And he wants her to know that he accepts her for who she is.

Sitting in front of him is this smart, beautiful, talented woman who only sees herself as dirt if she doesn’t look and act a certain way.  And he tells her that she shouldn’t be ashamed to be who she is.  To show the world.  Because being who you are is so much better than being who the world wants you to be.