I'm happy for Sandra Bullock: for the first time in ages, she has a top grossing film at the box offices. I like her, she's a good actress. But I have some serious problems with The Proposal.

The basic premise of The Proposal is that Sandra Bullock's career-driven character is a Canadian immigrant to the United States. She loses her ability to work in the States, and either has to get married to keep her job, or move back to Canada and lose her job. Ever the enterprising woman, Bullock's character cons one of her sexy male employees into marrying her for citizenship.

Aside from the fact that we all know that their hatred for each other will grow into love and they'll end up happily ever after, the movie is full of flaws. Namely, race.

Almost every single character in The Proposal is white, or can pass as white. It can be inferred by the average viewer that all of the cast members are American.

Immigration and marriage are two hot button issues in the States, especially with the momentum that the gay marriage movement is gaining.

The image of a woman marrying a man for citizenship is not a good one. People tend to think of mail order brides, illegal immigrants, and people marrying for citizenship regardless of love.

The studio turned the stereotype of a woman of color illegally in the country into a successful, career-oriented white woman who gets citizenship the legitimate way by falling in love with an red blooded American boy. Canada was the least threatening country the movie studios would have possibly picked: it's not perceived as another race, or as non-white. Canada is America's less violent, happy little upstairs neighbor.

What kind of film would it have been if instead of Sandra Bullock, they cast a non-white woman? It wouldn't have been a romantic comedy, and it would have been a political nightmare for the studio. Had the woman been Asian, black, or Latina, the film would have raised issues with immigration policies. And if she was a woman of color with an accent? Forget it. That film would never be made by a major studio.

Marrying for citizenship is, at best, working around the system. At worst, it's a complete, and total misuse of the systems and practices set up by a country to allow people to gain citizenship. In the minds of many middle Americans, the plot of The Proposal would be downright scandalous if Bullock's character wasn't white, even if she was from Canada.

So why did The Proposal gross so highly? Are viewers blind to the problems the film represents? Or is it just a classic case of romantic comedy blindness?