Gender in Media Final Research Paper
INTRODUCTION: Throughout
American history weddings have been an integral part of our cultural
experience, however women have always received the short end of the stick in
these arrangements. It wasn’t long ago that women were expected to marry at a
young age because the only jobs available were for men, so a single woman in
America had no hope of being able to support herself unless she found a
husband. In this paper I will use the film Bridesmaids
to analyze the financial and psychological burden planning a wedding takes on
women, and how society has come to normalize the extreme stress experienced
during the wedding planning process by all women involved. First I will examine
the relationship between current hegemonic social expectations and The White
Wedding, particularly how these expectations impact women within American
society. Secondly I will assess the financial implications of marriage on
women, as well on couple’s relationship longevity in relation to nuptial debt
stress. I will then draw parallels that illustrate how the film Bridesmaids accurately portrays the
stress, frustration, and financial strain women feel throughout the wedding
planning process.
The media have historically supported the views
of the dominant group within American society, those holding social, political,
and economic power. According to Hegemony
in Reality-Based TV Programming: The World According to A Wedding Story,
"Mass media disseminate hegemonic values within a society through its
tendency to "reproduce the ideological field of a society in such a way as
to reproduces, also, its structure of domination""(Engstrom, 2003).
The dominant social construct within American culture is heterosexuality,
"heterosexuality is, in reality, a highly regulated, ritualized, and
organized practice. Sociologically, then, heterosexuality is an
"established order made up of rule-bound and standardized behavior patterns"
qualifies as an institution. Moreover, heterosexuality as an "arrangement
involving large numbers of people whose behavior is guided by norms
and rules" is also a social institution" (Ingraham, 1999,
pg. 3). Heterosexuality dominates the media landscape in America, from movies,
magazines, television shows, and music videos - weddings are everywhere. The
saturation of hegemonic messages in mass media support the idea that the white
heterosexual wedding is the only goal that women should aspire to and,
"The idea that romance-based marriage is the highest human aspiration and
ultimate female good pervades American culture" (Engstrom, 2003).
According to the study, Unraveling The Knot: Political
Economy and Cultural Hegemony in Wedding Media, "Bridal media in
general "rev up" expectations for big weddings by exalting the
complexity and cost of the event. Today, one easily finds myriad bridal and
wedding gown magazines at any supermarket or newsstand, with titles such as Bride's, Modern Bride, Elegant
Bride, Bridal Guide, Bliss for Brides, BrideNoir (for women of color), Martha Stewart's Weddings, Wedding
Dresses Magazines, and newer,
specialized titles such as The
Wedding Channel.com's Wedding Bells, InStyle Weddings, and Allure Bride (from the publishers of allure
magazine). These publications focus on bridal accoutrements, such as gowns,
accessories, party favors, jewelry, and cosmetics, rather than on the meaning
and subsequent relationship created by the wedding ceremony" (Engstrom,
2008).
According to Erika Engstrom,
"Various media products focus on the wedding, its surrounding
mercantilism, and underlying message to women that they need a large, expensive
wedding in order to move from being single to being married. These media
operate through what Lewis called a "subtle and ongoing" process
produced by a "latent complexity rather than manifest conspiracy". In
terms of the creation of hegemony, this process, which appears to the
uncritical eye as a harmless feminine pursuit, results in a "silent
domination that is not experienced as domination at all" (Engstrom, 2008). American women
have been socialized to believe that the unrealistic images of weddings they
consume through mass media represent the lens which the average woman should
view her wedding experience through, and the ideal she should aspire to
achieve.
In order to gain
support from women the wedding industry, "Recognizing that many
independent women might bristle at the extravagant, irrational edicts, the
wedding complex has recast the bride as fulfilling her unconscious dream as a
child, one who believes in fairy tales and who needs to be told what to
do" (Arend, 2016). Women are taught to aspire to their wedding day,
because it will be the most important day of their lives. Yet, Research
done comparing the incomes of women who marry before the age of 20, and women
who marry after age 30 show that there is a mean difference of $20,000 dollars
a year between the two groups.
The article Want to Earn More Money? Get
Married Later. states, “Women with college degrees who waited until
after age 30 to get married earn significantly more than college-educated women
who married at younger ages. Whereas those who married before age 20 report an
average annual income of just over $30,000, those who married at 30 or later
earn about $50,000.” Maurie Backman, a financial analyst encourages women to
wait to get married and invest their money in retirement funds, or other
ventures that will serve their own personal development. Teaching women to be
financially literate and aware of what they are spending will enable them to
make informed decisions about what they invest their money in. For example,
Backman states that women are more likely than men to participate in employer
offered retirement plans. Instead of investing $20,000 - $40,000
dollars in a wedding celebration, a woman might decide to
invest that money into her retirement, or to instead buy a house with her
fiancé and have a small wedding ceremony.
The
emphasis on women to make marriage their number one priority is pervasive, "With very few exceptions, feminists have failed to
recognize the bridal business' stranglehold on the female imagination and have
not acknowledged the ludicrous
amounts of money with which the average middle-class woman celebrates
the institution which has disenfranchised her sex" (Engstrom, 2003). Women
are willingly buying into the idea that a happy marriage is the result of a
large wedding, with all the trappings you see featured in a Disney film. Most
couples forget that after the wedding, they are going to need to work at
maintaining a healthy marriage with their spouse. In retrospect, the
extravagance of the wedding day is frivolous because it doesn't come close to
honoring the true commitment being made
between the couple. No celebration can truly embody the desire to share
your life with someone else, yet the wedding industry wants women to believe an
expensive one will ensure a positive marriage outcome.
The cost of
weddings has drastically inflated over the course of history, according to Unraveling the Knot: Political
Economy and Cultural Hegemony in Wedding Media, "The U.S. bridal industry is
estimated at between $50 and $70 billion annually; the potential for this
market is huge: Nearly 2.4 million marriages are performed each year. The
investment of money and time that goes into the traditional wedding, with the
average "big" wedding costing some $20,000, makes it not only a major
event, but also a major expense for those starting married life; more than half
of couples who choose to hold a wedding pay for it all themselves, which can
lead to starting their married life in debt" (Engstrom, 2008). With more
couples paying for their own weddings, the financial strain that paying for a
large scale event is tangible.
In a recent
study, it has been shown that there is a correlation between high nuptial costs
and marriage longevity. According to 'A Diamond is Forever' and Other
Fairytales: The Relationship between Wedding Expenses and Marriage
Duration, "Spending between $2,000 and $4,000 on an engagement
ring is significantly associated with an increase in the hazard of divorce in
the sample of men. Specifically, in the sample of men, spending between $2,000
and $4,000 on an engagement ring is associated with a 1.3 times greater hazard
of divorce as compared to spending between $500 and $2,000. Furthermore,
spending $1,000 or less on the wedding is significantly associated with a
decrease in the hazard of divorce in the sample of all persons and in the
sample of men, and spending $20,000 or more on the wedding is associated with
an increase in the hazard of divorce in the sample of women. In particular, as
compared with spending between $5,000 and $10,000 on the wedding, spending less
than $1,000 is associated with half the hazard of divorce in the sample of men,
and spending $20,000 or more is associated with 1.6 times the hazard of divorce
in the sample of women" (Francis & Mialon, 2014).
The wedding industry has created an
atmosphere where the display of love is equated with cost, if a man doesn't
spend two months’ pay on a ring - he doesn't truly love you. The industry does
not take the desire to share his life with another person as paramount, it is
the ring that shows what the man truly feels for his partner. Chrys Ingraham
observes in White Weddings:
Romancing Heterosexuality in Popular
Culture, "The
central marketing strategy for the world's largest diamond-mining organization,
De Beers, is to convince consumers that "diamonds are forever." Once
you accept this slogan, you also believe that you're making a life-long
investment, not just purchasing a bauble for your bride! In fact, De Beers
spends about $57 million each year on this advertising campaign"
(Ingraham, 1999, pg. 51).
What American
couples perceive as the most important factor leading into their marriage, is
the quality and price of the engagement ring. It has become a cultural belief
that the effectiveness of an engagement ring is in its price, not in the
message it is meant to convey. Sadly, the wedding industry's unrealistic portrayal
of weddings and their trappings have created additional stress for men who plan
to propose. Given the pressure to buy expensive rings and hold extravagant
wedding ceremonies, it is not surprising that many marriages disintegrate due
to financial stress.
In Bridesmaids, the scene where Lillian
tells Annie she is engaged and wants Annie to be her Maid of Honor perfectly
embodies how that particular scenario often plays out in real life. You see
Lillian's excitement as she begins to tell Annie Doug's proposal, and Annie
begins to have an onslaught of anxiety. Her life has begun to fall apart, she's
broke, and now her best friend is getting married. I had a similar reaction
when I was asked to be a Maid of Honor, I am not a fan of weddings, and I felt
pressure to play this particular role because I love my friend.
When women are asked to be in
weddings, they usually say yes, then become frustrated with the
responsibilities that come with their commitment. According to easyweddings.com, "Some brides will
have many events and activities leading up to their wedding day and, often, the
bridesmaids will put in money here or there for particular things. For example,
the bride may have an engagement party, a bridal shower and or a kitchen
tea, a Hen’s
party and a pre-wedding
getaway and other activities. These things will require money and,
traditionally, the bridesmaids are expected to cover the cost of the bride for
occasions such as the Hen’s
night. If the bride chooses
to go interstate or overseas for any of these events, or maybe she’s planning a
destination wedding too, you need to consider whether you can afford to be in
the bridal party. If cost is an issue for you, you want to
speak up before accepting the role.” Weddings have become so over-fantasized
that the extreme financial and emotional stress placed on members of the
wedding party, as well as the bride, has become normalized within American
culture. For the
creators of TheKnot.com, the creation of their website stemmed from their own
stressful wedding experiences, “TheKnot.com launched on America Online in
September 1996. Founded by “four good friends, two of whom had barely survived
their own wedding due to the lack of updated information and real-world resources
available”, The Knot now serves as “wedding central” online, with links to
various wedding item retailers, and claims to be the largest online retailer of
wedding favors and supplies” (Engstrom, 2008). The pressure to have a visually
appealing wedding is so high that women felt compelled to create an online
resource to help other women minimize their stress levels related to the “big
day”. Though the initial idea behind the creation of TheKnot.com came from the
lack of desired resources for brides to be, it has become highly commercialized
to market more extravagant and idealistic fairytale images of weddings to
women. This image that their website supports adds to the stress of wedding
planning, as opposed to easing it because women feel that everything must be
perfect the day they get married.
As a result of
my research, I decided to ask women that I know who have held their own
weddings whether they chose to have a traditional wedding or deviate from the
expected norm. The response I got was incredible, one friend named Laura wrote,
“I wanted a traditional wedding because
that was my fairy tale, and all sides of the family are traditional -
Italian/French Catholic on my side and 100% Irish Catholic on Sean's. I
deviated from the traditional organ song though and walked down the aisle to my
own music selection to make it more personable. We chose to use a minister and
didn't have the wedding in a church, but instead at the country club where the reception was also held. The reception was
traditional as well but we left out the normal garter/bouquet toss (which
didn't dawn on me till now lol, not that I wore a garter) and switched up the
timing of the cake cutting to before dinner to get it out of the way. Financial
pressure was there because we weren't getting much help to pay for the wedding,
so I found a location that had the food and champagne toast included in overall
costs, as well as gave us a discount to do both the ceremony and reception on
site. I used friends for the DJ and photographer to get discounts, which were
still not very cheap, but lesser than other quotes I got. I bought fake flowers
and made all the bouquets, boutonnieres and table arrangements myself. Same
with all other decorations, I didn't hire a planner or anything. Bought it all
and decorated with friends/family the day before. Overall the stigma is still
very much alive for traditional and the money spent... I wanted to make sure
everything was perfect for everyone who attended, but by the end of the day I
felt like I had walked thru all the motions and never actually enjoyed the day,
even though I did have fun. Just felt, rushed, so I couldn't relax and enjoy it
on my time. Everyone who attended had nothing but nice things to say though so
I'd say the changes went largely unnoticed or cared about. In fact, I only
received compliments about the ceremony/reception and for what I accomplished
on such a small budget.” She paid for her own wedding, and was proud of that
fact, however she was so stressed the day of the wedding she couldn’t find time
to relax and enjoy herself. Showing that even though the traditional white
wedding is supposed to be about the bride, she is truly the one who suffers
most by carrying the majority of the stress and responsibility on her
shoulders.
B. (2015, August 28). If Bridesmaids Were Honest. Retrieved
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Wedding
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Engstrom, E. (2008, January 1). Unraveling The Know: Political Economy and
Cultural
Hegemony in Wedding
Media. Journal of
Communication Inquiry, Vol 32, Issue 1.
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Francis,
A. M. & Mialon, H. M. (2014, September 15). ‘A Diamond is Forever’ and
Other
Fairytales: The Relationship Between
Wedding Expenses and Marriage Duration.
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