Cheaper by the Dozen

The film makes the family’s racial mix, blended parenting, disability, and belonging central to the move to Calabasas. Zoey faces assumptions that she is a nanny, Haresh is bullied for being Indian, and the family is treated as strange by wealthy neighbors. Deja’s school story links race and social status to a black athlete being pushed aside for a donor’s daughter. The story resolves these conflicts by rejecting status and affirming a family built from different races, homes, and parents.

The film portrays a wealthy, mostly white gated neighborhood as suspicious, shallow, and hostile to outsiders. A neighbor mistakes Zoey for a nanny, security follows her, and the same neighbor suspects the Black teenage cousin of theft. A private school benches Black basketball player Deja while favoring a donor’s daughter, which links status to unfair power. The family leaves Calabasas after deciding that its schools and social world are not right for them.

The 2022 remake changes the earlier Cheaper by the Dozen family from a mostly white household into a multiracial blended family. The new version adds a black mother, a black ex-husband, mixed-race children, an adopted South Asian child, and a disabled daughter. The filmmakers openly tied those changes to diversity, inclusion, and modern family representation. Those identity changes shape the main family and school conflicts, while other updates mainly serve the new setting and comedy.

Some IMDb and Reddit users called the film woke, political messaging, propaganda, or diversity pandering. Those complaints focused on the multiracial remake, the Black Lives Matter sign, race-focused scenes, and the dog names Bark Obama and Joe Bitin’. Conservative family-review site Movieguide also called the race and family material woke and politically correct. Other viewers defended the diverse family or said the political material was limited, so the backlash was visible but mixed and mostly user-level.

The strongest creator context comes from Gail Lerner, Kenya Barris, Jenifer Rice-Genzuk Henry, and Gabrielle Union, whose documented work includes representation, social-justice, and LGBTQ advocacy themes. Lerner and Barris are tied to black-ish, while Union publicly framed this film around diverse families and inclusion. Union said the project should promote diversity in front of and behind the camera. Shawn Levy and the other producers add little activist context, so the strongest creator signals come from the director, writers, and lead producer.