The Uncertainty of Whiteness in The Proposal

In the interest of full disclosure, I will admit up front that I enjoyed The Proposal. It was funny, had a really cute puppy, a naked Ryan Reynolds, and a feisty Betty White. It was a comedy first and foremost; the romance was an after thought. Which was refreshing in a way. The “romance” in romantic comedies is often so stifling, unbelievable, slap dash, and cliché, it was a relief to feel like the actors felt the same way, and put more effort into delivering punchy lines than making doe eyes. However, all the quips delivered by the adorable Ryan Reynolds could not distract me from the big sparkly elephant in the room. Race.

In The Proposal, Sandra Bullock plays Margret, a Canadian who works for a publishing company in New York, who blackmails her personal assistant Andrew, (played by Reynolds) into marrying her so she can stay in US and keep her job. There is nothing particularly new about the quickie Green Card marriage plot, but the immigrants in question are usually a little more….immigranty. They at least have an accent. Gérard Depardieu in Green Card at least sounded foreign. In other movies that deal with the same plot, the laugh are often constructed around the otherness of the troubled deportee. Not so in The Proposal. Margret is “just like us”, and the comedy is framed around Margret’s inability to connect with people (or dogs). Because Margret can “pass”, The Proposal becomes a complicated drinking game about how we read race, and how it interacts with gender and class

At the beginning, when Margret is given the news about her
impending deportation her reaction is shock, dismay, and indigence. She
replies, “But it’s not like I’m a real immigrant, I’m from Canada” To
Margret, the rules don’t apply when the immigrant in question is white,
speaks English, is A Very Important Person who drinks soy lattes , and
fits in perfectly with the dominant ruling culture.

It would be easy to say that Margret is a racist (or a racialist as
some conservative talking heads like to say) but that is over
simplifying the subject of her tantrum. Margret’s panic over being
deported comes from the same place as her apparent antipathy towards
everyone in the immigration office. She has worked hard to get to the
top of the heap, and that success allows her an agency she closely
guards. Her identity as a woman is always a vulnerability, always open
to question and interpretation (and at some points in the movie
ridicule). However, her white appearance can almost always be counted
on as an asset. One that she’ll use to maintain her position of power.
She clings to her whitness, in hopes that it will save her from the
system that seeks to put her in her place.

I use the word “appearance” of whiteness in this case very
deliberately. Later on in the movie we find Betty White’s character
dressed in Native American ceremonial garb, chanting in the woods. It
seems incredibly shocking and out of place (or at least it did to me,
the co-opting of indigenous cultural rites tends to make me squirm in
my seat, I can’t speak for the other two hundred people I was seated
next to). But surprise, it’s okay! Grandma Annie is part Native
American! She’s not really white! Wait, what?

Exactly. Whiteness as an identity gets very messy in The Proposal.
It appears and disappears depending who is on screen at any given time.
Whiteness becomes almost completely relative. Something we only see
when it’s pointed out that it’s not really there . The only non-white
appearing character is a swarthy, overly libidinous man named Ramone,
who is part servant, comic relief, and sex object. His accent, dress,
and skin coloring is generically “ethnic” enough to make him into fit
into a number of stereotypes.

The only thing that doesn’t change, is the stable position of power
held by the white appearing males. The only threat faced by Andrew’s
father is the inconvenience his mortality will have on his self made
empire (and maybe his awful golf swing). And even though Grandma Annie
is part Native American, it’s hard to tell just whose side of the
family she comes from. Which consequently absolves any of the
patriarchal figures from any biological taint, although logically it’s
there somewhere.

The inconsistencies of racial identity in The Proposal show just
how much race, gender and attitudes towards immigrants are all tied to
together. Race and gender is a fluid construct that is always defined
by its relation to another term (who is often labeled other or less
than in the process). And as an extension of that, immigration is often
a way attitudes about race are actualized into laws, rules, policies,
ect. Whether or not people pick up on that is another.

And as a side note, I think most Canadians do not believe that are
de facto Americans, like Margret, and I would bet money that some would
even be offended by the idea. I think it might be interesting to ask
Ryan Reynolds about what kinds of cultural differences Americans have
with their Northern Neighbors. His insight as a Canadian citizen would
probably prove useful.