Represent! : Women in "The Nanny Diaries"

I'll be the first to admit that I had absolutely no idea what I was going to blog about for this unit, and then, after a very enlightening conversation with Professor Steve, I had an idea. A very, very lucky idea.

Not having any pressing homework to do on Tuesday night (yeah, I know. None. Beat that.) I decided to check out a movie and not having a great selection at Saint Ben's of the movies I wanted to see (usually involving war or an international crisis of some kind) I decided to watch the Nanny Diaries. Little did I know that this was the perfect movie to talk about representation with because it not only covers nannies and the upper crust elite they serve, but also single moms.

Annie Braddock, the young woman who is telling the audience her story, explains early on that she is the "Chanel Bag" of nannies because she, unlike most of the other nannies in the film, speaks English as her first language, is college educated, and is white. Huh. Good Help on upper east side manhattan = white= status symbol. Interesting.

More interesting to me after our discussion on Tuesday was the portrayal of Annie's mom, who- guess what?- is a single mom. "And here's the woman who reared me- pretty much by herself," Annie introduces her mother. "She's a nurse- note the shoes." Even with this harmless comment we're given a picture of a woman who works so hard she probably just came from work to see her daughter graduate and forgot a pair of nice shoes to wear.

After graduation, Annie's mom gives Annie a graduation present of a suit, saying that it's "not much" and brings up her hopes that Annie can become a famous CFO, not ending up like her father, who owns "a double wide trailer in Scranton." Clearly, money's kind of an issue in this family, and Mrs. Braddock wants her daughter to succeed. "I would give the world to be sitting where you're sitting right now," she reminds her daughter. "You are so much smarter than I was. No man is going to squash your dreams."

Okay, we're four minutes into the movie. Let's recap. Single mom is: hardworking, potentially overworked, underpaid, and...man-hating?. I'm sure there's a lot of single moms who don't fit that last one, but there you go: In order to be single, she has to have a reason for not having a husband, and Mrs. Braddock's is that her husband was insupportive and squashed her dreams.

We'll come back to the single mom later: let's get back to Annie, who now pages through a series of stereotypical women's roles in New York- Tribeca Fashionista (who has to be divorced) Park Slope Lawyer (who apparently has to be a lesbian; riddle that one out) or Central Park Bag Lady. Riveting options, all of which seem to imply that if you have a man in your life, you can't succeed. And if you do have a man in your life, like Fifth Avenue Mom Mrs. X, Annie's employer, you have no occupation, you're not working for your own income and the only thing you do in life is shop.

This movie does so much for women, doesn't it?

Moving on. Annie has a dream about her future, which involves being closed in on one side by the suited members of the buisness world and on the other side by her mother, who's shouting at her, hands on her hips. Another mark of the single mom: overprotective.

All these Fifth Avenue moms want Annie as their nanny because, as mentioned earlier, she's white, college educated, and 'terminally single', the Chanel bag of nannies. Chanel is exclusive and exclusive in nanny world means not ethnic minority and educated, which means...that all nannies are black, asian, or hispanic, don't speak english well, and generally trampled over. Funny, the two women who wrote the book this movie is based on are white. Anyway. Mrs. X talks about how she gave up her professional dreams to be a mom, and how she doesn't have enough hours in the day to go to her Parent's society meetings, so that she can learn how to be a better mother... for the son she's going to be pawning off on her live-in nanny. Right.

I'm not even half way through the movie yet and I've already found so much to talk about in the way women in general are represented, in this movie, at least. There aren't really any positives in the bunch, unless you count Annie's friend Lynette, who is spunky, independent, and forward thinking. Oh yeah, and she's also played by Alica Keys. Not that I don't love her character, I do, but white women can't be spunky and independent and black women have to be? What up with that? And oh, by the way, the first time we meet Lynette she's getting off the 8 am train from Manhattan in 'last night's party clothes' and staggering a little bit. Huh.

The Nanny Diaries is full of stereotypes, but I figure that it's supposed to be: the viewers are supposed to walk away from this overblown version of real life thinking, "Now wait a minute, this is ridiculous!" It's satire about the world of Nannies, disguised as a chick flick with a diaper bag.

Clever.