Character Evaluation: Sandra Bullock as "Margaret Tate"
Krista Reeves
PSY/230
October 17, 2014
Michelle Irwin

Character Evaluation: Sandra Bullock as "Margaret Tate"
“Give me your shirt, and your tie”; this is a line from the very popular movie The Proposal, where Andrew Paxton, played by Ryan Reynolds, runs into a co-worker and spills his boss’s coffee on his shirt. Now, why do you think he would be so worried about his boss’s opinion? Could it possibly be because of her personality or how domineering she is at work? In this movie, Sandra Bullock plays an uptight, discipline, assertive, controlling boss at a New York publishing company. Margaret Tate, Sandra’s character, is often referred to as the “witch” from her co-workers. She is an editor for this publishing company where Andrew is her assistant. In this position, we see her frequently use her power of authority to get her way. What kind of personality does this Margaret Tate possess? One could say she was an extravert, but the one trait she does possess mainly is that of conscientiousness.
Describing Sandra’s character in this film, you would have to say that she is full of energy, dependable and assertive in her career, well-organized, but one who also displays a controlling personality. Margaret Tate’s personality was one of unrelenting desire for her career. She is passionate at what she does, in control of her life, always maintaining a strict routine day after day and not straying from it. Definitely was not one for spontaneity. Even though her personality is one of confidence, outgoing and assertive, she is not a very sociable or friendly person. Her position of authority and controlling attitude keeps her focus on the job she performs instead of having a personal life. The only time that you see her in this movie being sociable, is when she is using her authority to talk with clients or other employees. She was the type that had everything organized for her achievement in life. She was always looking out for what she wanted or could get and not thinking about the others around her. Conscientiousness was what her personality is made up of. You can see this by the way she conducts herself in the business world. Her life is centered on organization and self-discipline.
We first see Miss. Tate in the beginning of the film as she is going to fire a co-worker for not coming through with a client, who they wanted to do an interview with Oprah. The client himself was an introvert and does not like social setting. She uses her authority and assertiveness to talk the client into doing this interview even after he had already said no. Her choice to fire the employee was based on the fact he was not assertive enough to get the job done. Controlling of situations was what Sandra’s character was good at, until it came to bad or complicated situations. When finding out she was going to be deported because of an expire visa, she again uses her position of authority on her assistant to push him into marriage. Using the assertiveness and energy in this job is based on her extravert personality. It is not the fact she isn’t sociable, she just pours herself into this job and forgets how to live her personal life.
In her work life, she is outgoing, energetic and shows tremendous positive energy, but she is an introvert when it came to her personal life. You know this because she is telling her assistant about how her life has been for the past few years. Her decisions in this movie show how her position in authority controls who she is over all. Forcing someone to marry you because you give them an ultimatum is not a good trait. Though using this power to convince her bosses of her upcoming event did tend to back fire on her. After meeting Andrew’s (her assistant) family and seeing him as a person and not just an assistant, has also affected many decisions that she will make in the rest of the movie.
Extraversion has a certain quality in her life, but for the most part we see her personality as conscientiousness. Looking at the subcategories under extraversion you might ask how we came to this conclusion. Although, she was not sociable or friendly, she still possessed a great deal of the other traits associated with extraversion. Conscientiousness encompasses a great many characteristics of personality that center on how hard-working, self-disciplined, responsible, reliable, dutiful, well organized, and persevering a person is (McAdams, 2009). When you fire someone who, in your opinion, was not pushy or assertive enough to force a client to do something they did not want to do, then you force another to marry you so you do not lose your job, shows how your position in authority is taking over. In her own opinion, this co-worker was not reliable enough to get the job done. So, asserting her authority was what she would use when she was faced with making decisions.
In conclusion to this movie, Margaret Tate learns who she really is by getting to know the Paxton family. By choosing to walk away from a forceful relationship, it showed her her true feelings about Andrew (her assistant). In some sense you could say that her conscientiousness was, in the end, taking over and pushing aside the authority she was trying so hard to be. Relying on her true self is why she could start making clear and better decisions for her life. When you are in a position of authority, like she was, it is easy to see how you could let that power go to your head and ignore who you really are.

References:
Hoberman, D. (producer) & Fletcher, A. (Director). (2009) the Proposal. [Motion Picture] United States: Mandeville Films
McAdams, D.D. (2009). The Person: An Introduction to the Science of Personality Psychology (5th. Ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley