Spanglish - An essentially conservative movie.

Michael Williams - who sets quite the standard for courageously flicking a match onto the pool of gasoline which is gender relations - discusses Maureen Dowd's dyspeptic view of recent movies including Adam Sandler's "Spanglish" that depict the successful lead male character passing up the "alpha female" character. Michael and his commenters tackle the question of gender roles and whether women "can have it all."

My take on the movie is somewhat different. Dowd "just doesn't get" Spanglish because her planted assumptions filter the story it tells. Here's MoDo's column in which she observes:

In James Brooks's "Spanglish," Adam Sandler, as a Los Angeles chef, falls for his hot Mexican maid. The maid, who cleans up after Mr. Sandler without being able to speak English, is presented as the ideal woman. The wife, played by Téa Leoni, is repellent: a jangly, yakking, overachieving, overexercised, unfaithful, shallow she-monster who has just lost her job with a commercial design firm. Picture Faye Dunaway in "Network" if she'd had to stay home, or Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction" without the charm.

The same attraction of unequals animated Richard Curtis's "Love Actually," a 2003 holiday hit. The witty and sophisticated British prime minister, played by Hugh Grant, falls for the chubby girl who wheels the tea and scones into his office. A businessman married to the substantial Emma Thompson falls for his sultry secretary. A writer falls for his maid, who speaks only Portuguese.

(I wonder if the trend in making maids who don't speak English heroines is related to the trend of guys who like to watch Kelly Ripa in the morning with the sound turned off?)

Art is imitating life, turning women who seek equality into selfish narcissists and objects of rejection, rather than affection.

So, Dowd saw "Spanglish" and saw that art, or society, was turning "women who seek equality into selfish narcissists and objects of rejection." Also, this quintessential modern feminist liberal also rues the depiction of love between "unequals," without the slightest trace of irony.

There are two interesting things about Spanglish which might shed some light on Dowd's discomfort with the depiction of an "attraction of unequals." First, the Tea Leoni character in Spanglish, Deborah, is absolutely a bipolar she-monster. She is also a stereotype of the bi-coastal liberal. Deborah insists on a facade of egalitarianism -"Call me Deborah" - while insisting on the tacit recognition of her financial, educational and moral superiority to that of the Spanish-speaking maid, Flora, who Deborah feels needs to be pitied and infantilized because of her background. Also, Deborah is distinctly unhappy about a life which she undoubtedly would insist on depicting to her friends as the feminist ideal of the successful creative business women and she has a list of things to blame and therapists to see.

Second, the movie is profoundly conservative in its depiction of "traditional values," particularly those of self-restraint and self denial. Flora the maid stands as a profound rejection of modern values. Flora is offended when drunks send her drinks when she takes her daughter to dinner; she sacrifices for her daughter; she isn't looking for self-esteem or "having it all"; she expects her daughter to obey and to accept her and her values.

Moreover, Spanglish doesn't end with the typical trope by which most contemporary movies validate the ontological worth of their characters, with, to paraphrase Shakespeare, "the beast with two backs." To the contrary, Flora affirms that when one has children one must exercise the unromantic virtues of self-denial and self-restraint.

I suspect that MoDo watched the movie, identified with Deborah and couldn't understand why someone who shared MoDo's powerful resume and values - someone so clearly superior to "the help" - was presented as the villain.

I liked "Spanglish." I think that most parents probably will like it as well. I know that any man who is or has been married to someone like Deborah will identify with Sandler's "walking on eggshells" approach to his character; Sandler's character knows that since his marriage is simply a succession of dramatic scenes as Deborah obliviously inflicts suffering on those around her, he should cherish the quiet moments of sanity.

Here is a review of Spanglish and here is a site with production notes about the movie.