WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for the Cheaper by the Dozen remake, now streaming on Disney+.
One of the most intriguing aspects of the rebooted Cheaper by the Dozen is how the Bakers’ being multiracial shaped a more inclusive, cosmopolitan journey. It allowed Zach Braff’s Paul and Gabrielle Union’s Zoey to chart a journey from Los Angeles to Calabasas, where they made more money but also saw their kids exposed to more discrimination.
However, while their journey addressed some prominent points in terms of representation and equality, there was one arc that was terribly wasted. This involved their oldest, Deja, wasting Cheaper by the Dozen‘s biggest social justice issue regarding her basketball career.
When the family attended Deja’s ball game, they were disappointed she was on the bench. Her real dad, Dom, a former star football player himself, was in the bleachers as well, shocked someone so talented and who scouts were recruiting was being treated like this. The truth is, it wasn’t ego — Deja was a legit superstar in the making.
It came to a head when the white coach pointed in Deja’s direction, leaving everyone thinking she’d be subbed in. Unfortunately, he had her sit back down in a cold, condescending scene, putting a young white teen in instead. It felt disrespectful, which was made even worse later on when Deja confessed that this player kept getting game time at her expense because her family donated the gym and other buildings at her new prep school.
This was an appalling revelation, which connects to so many problems at universities and high schools, with white privilege and entitlement granting opportunities to students based on nepotism. It’s why protests have been held against systematic racism, educating everyone on how marginalized teens and people of color start life with a societal disadvantage.
Instead of having Dom go off on the coach or use his clout to meet with higher-ups at school, though, this arc is totally dropped. Admittedly, it felt like it’d have been better addressed in a Cheaper by the Dozen series, but it would have been nice having her siblings protest and Dom and his ex, Zoey, standing up as Black parents over blatant injustice.
This would have brought the family closer, especially the feuding Paul and Dom, showing how a woke white man could genuinely care for a Black kid — something Dom doubted throughout the movie. Sadly, by just having the family relocate back to LA where Deja lit the court up again, it threw away a big statement that could have been made. Ultimately, Deja’s arc ended up being flippant, reduced to the siblings’ overdone bullying stories and felt superficial for a Disney+ movie that could have leaned into activism and pushed the mindset of change.
See how Deja’s story gets wasted in the Cheaper By the Dozen reboot, available on Disney+.
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