Lifetime’s new show, Drop Dead Diva, might make me go into cardiac arrest.

While doing my laundry at the place down the street, I was subjected to an ad for a new TV series on Lifetime called “Drop Dead Diva”. The premise? Skinny, vapid, blonde gets reincarnated into the body of a smart successful, overweight lawyer. Argh! Yes, because you can only have one or the other. You can either be asexual and brilliant or sexed up arm candy that can’t add two and two. And never shall the twain meet in one person, or be recognized by a society that has it major case of body hate and fear of smart women.. It doesn’t premiere until July 12th and I don’t have cable, but maybe it will be on Hulu. Also, Margaret Cho is in it. Which boggles my mind. I know the girl has to work, but really? Here is the press release from the Lifetime website. Commence gagging: Drop Dead Diva is Lifetime’s spirited new comedic drama series that puts a uniquely compelling twist on the age-old battle between brains and beauty. It premieres on Lifetime Sunday, July 12 at 9 pm et/pt. The show tells the story of a beautiful-but-vapid model wannabe, Deb, who has a fatal car accident and suddenly finds herself in front of Heaven’s gatekeeper, Fred, who declares her a self-centered “zero.” Outraged, Deb attempts to persuade Fred to return her to her shallow existence but is accidentally relegated to the body of the recently deceased Jane Bingum (Brooke Elliott). A brilliant, thoughtful and plus-size attorney with a loyal assistant (Margaret Cho), Jane has always lived in the shadow of her more comely colleagues, whereas Deb has always relied on her external beauty. Now, by a twist of fate and a bolt of divine intervention, Deb must come to terms with inhabiting Jane’s plus-size frame in the ultimate showdown between brains and beauty. 

The only thing that should come after “Good bye” is “Hello”

 

I recently moved and changed my life, and this furniture was not in the plan.

The Uncertainty of Whitness 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….imigranty. 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 whitness 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. Whitness 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.