Miss Congeniality

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
The most beautiful klutz in the world...

When a terrorist threat is made to the Miss United States pageant/scholarship program, the FBI must send in one of their undercover agents to find out the truth and stop disaster from occurring. But who can they send? Their list of possibilities is quickly narrowed to a single contender, Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock), who is slender, pretty and fetching in a swimsuit. Now for the snag... she's also a hard-hitting, gun-toting tomboy whose demeanor is about as feminine as Dolph Lundgren. Can they teach her how to be a girl in time for the pageant?

This 2000 movie was followed by a 2005 sequel, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous.


Tropes used in Miss Congeniality include:

The first movie contains examples of:

Victor Melling: [teaching Gracie how to glide] See? Glide. It's all in the buttocks. Don't I look pretty?
Gracie Hart: It takes a very secure man to walk like that.

    • And of course played with later on...

Victor Melling: He's with me.
Eric Matthews: I'm not "with him" with him, you know? It's not like...
Victor Melling: Come on, Muffin!

  • Badass: Gracie
  • Badass in a Nice Suit: The FBI agents.
  • Baby Talk: When Eric (justifiably) balks at helping Gracie finish her self-defense demonstration, Gracie uses baby talk to gather support and encouragement from the crowd, and to shame him into helping her finish. He regrets it later (see below).
  • Beautiful All Along: Gracie.
  • Beauty Contest: The central premise.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Hart and Matthews, big time. The more refreshing part is that the sexual tension is clearly present before she gets the makeover, which keeps him from being a Shallow Love Interest.
  • The Cast Showoff: An in-movie example. When Gracie is stuck without a talent before the show, she decides to improv and show her FBI combat training instead.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Gracie's water glass trick.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Cheryl.
  • Concert Climax: The end.
  • Cute Clumsy Girl: Gracie, even before they put her in something other than sneakers.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Gracie and Eric and Victor.
  • Demoted to Extra: Understandably, most of the pageant contestants. The only ones that were actually in the movie for any decent amount of time (aside from Gracie as New Jersey) were Rhode Island, California, New York, Texas, and Hawaii.
  • Dirty Harriet: Variant.

Victor Melling: "They've got their Southern Belles, their Midwestern farmer's daughters, spunky Western cowgirls, and I have... Dirty Harriet."

Gracie Hart: (on defending against an attack from the rear) Just remember to SING: Solar plexus! Instep! Nose! Groin!
And this meets Lucky Translation and Getting Crap Past the Radar in some Spanish versions: ¡ Plexo solar! ¡Empeine! ¡Nariz! ¡Entrepierna!

"The year we lost, the winner was a deaf-mute. You can't beat that."

Eric Matthews: We were just looking for someone to go undercover at the Pageant, sir.
McDonald: And I'm the best we got. That doesn't inspire much confidence.

The second movie contains examples of:

Sam Fuller: You didn't just call me sister, because I don't recall seeing a skinny, white-ass girl growing up at the table.
Gracie Hart: Okay, first of all... thank you for calling me skinny.

Sam Fuller: I am not going out there as a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be Tina Turner. I can't afford therapy on my salary.

Gracie Hart: Cheryl would never refer to her ass as her booty! Cheryl would never refer to her ass, period! She calls it her "popo"!