White Weddings: Romancing Heterosexuality in Popular Culture [Paperback]

Chrys Ingraham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 14, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0415918405 | ISBN-13: 978-0415918404

From sitcoms and soap operas to talk shows and movies, Americans are in love with the idea of a white wedding. The happy bride and groom smile from the covers of fashion and entertainment magazines, and appear in TV commercials to sell everything from life insurance to antacid. Fascinated by this national obsession, Chrys Ingraham peers behind the veil to question the meaning of weddings in American popular culture. L What she finds is nothing less than a wedding industrial complex. The wedding industry does a thriving business with annual revenues in excess of 30 billion dollars. The average cost of a wedding is over USD19,000, with 2.4 million couples getting married this year. White Weddings is the first book to investigate the underside of this recession-proof industry, exposing how weddings are used to sell a heterosexual fairy tale. Ingraham draws on popular media, such as bridal magazines, children's toys, feature films, television and advertising to reveal how they regulate gender, sexuality, race and class. Weddings mean more than just flowers and flatware, but are part of a belief system that relies on romantic and sacred notions of heterosexuality to maintain the illusion of normalcy. This entertaining and insightful book will make you think twice about ever wanting to catch the bouquet.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan used the term "the imaginary" to describe the unmediated relationship an infant has to its own image and to its mother. Ingraham, an associate professor of sociology at Russell Sage College for Women, borrows heavily from Lacan's concept to describe the way in which we're conditioned to think about heterosexuality and its place in traditional weddings. She describes the "heterosexual imaginary" as "a belief system that relies on romantic and sacred notions of heterosexuality in order to create and maintain the illusion of well being." According to Ingraham, this illusion is reinforced by the fetishization of weddings. In her scathing view, "the big day" reinforces a racist, classist and heterosexual social order. Ingraham skewers all aspects of the modern wedding, from the labor practices involved in the manufacture and marketing of gowns to the white-only marketing strategies of major bridal magazines. With intelligence and perception, she describes the makeup of the "wedding-industrial complex," which relentlessly markets nuptials (especially white weddings) and relies on the pervasive media images of marriage ceremonies to keep itself "recession-proof." Although her tone is academic, Ingraham's writing is lively and persuasive. One of the few studies of weddings, this important addition to cultural studies could make a few potential brides and grooms rethink that long walk to the altar.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Anyone who finds the idyllic ending 'And they lived happily ever after' worthy of a good eye-rolling and a dose of cynicism will savor reading Chrys Ingraham's new book, White Weddings: Romancing Heterosexuality in Popular Culture. Written from a sociological perspective, Ingraham 'lifts the veil' on the wedding industry and systematically rips apart the classist, racist, and heterosexist seams holding this outfit together. -- Cultural Studies
The strength of Ingraham's works lies with her talent as a limber critic, as she always matches method to question and the personal to the political. White Weddings offers more than isolated critiques of race, class, gender, and media politics. Instead, the author fluidly integrates her arguments, showing the process by which these contexts mutually affect and confound one another through both the discursive and material practices of society's most recognized ritual. -- Cultural Studies
An interesting look at the institution of marriage...This book probably won't be on the must-read lists of most brides and grooms to be, but it is an interesting look at the institution of marriage. Or, rather the industry of marriage as the author emphasizes in her clear-eyed view of weddings...Ingraham, an associate professor of sociology at Russell Sage College, tears away the veil of fantasy and takes a hard look at bridal magazines, religion, the garment industry, the media, and just plain capitalism, and how they all figure into this tradition. -- Los Angeles Times
A brilliant (and fun!) look at the institution/industry of marriage in the late-twentieth-century United States. -- Sojourner: The Women's Forum
Chrys Ingraham is alarmed. We've been brainwashed, she argues in her new book White Weddings. The sociology professor writes about how weddings have more to do these days with marketing and economics than with spirituality and reality. -- Chicago Sun Times
By looking closely at one of our society's most popular, yet unexamined, cultural rituals, Ingraham advances an understanding of the impact of the social construction of heterosexuality as a dominant institution. Anyone seeking to understand gender and sexuality as they interface with race and class in the US and what happens to those who step out of line must read this informative study. -- Charlotte Bunch, Executive Director, Center for Women's Global Leadership, Rutgers University
In this original and provocative book, Ingraham pierces the glossy surface of the wedding to reveal a logic of heterosexual domination. This is a pioneering text in the new field of critical heterosexual studies. -- Steven Seidman, author of Embattled Eros: Sexual Politics and Ethics in Contemporary America
Ingraham's topic is a fascinating one...Recommended for use in...Marriage and Family and Gender classes, as well as for your own reading pleasure. It is well-written, interesting and insightful. I learned a lot from it and I am exceedingly pleased that my students did as well. -- Contemporary Sociology
Delicious. Chrys Ingraham is Martha Stewart's nightmare--finally! Her mission is to debunk, dethrone, and of course, defrock that blushing bride and handsome groom. For anyone who's ever wondered what the fuss is all about, White Weddings is a must read. -- Kate Bornstein, author of Gender Outlaw and My Gender Workbook

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Routledge (July 14, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415918405
• ISBN-13: 978-0415918404
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 7.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,101,938 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars About time!, October 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: White Weddings: Romancing Heterosexuality in Popular Culture (Paperback)

This book reads like "The American Way of Death" for the bouquet-tossing set. Media manipulation, gender expectations, and the pursuit of money above all else -- this book has it all.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Read this before the walk down the altar, August 21, 2004

By 

E. DelRio - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: White Weddings: Romancing Heterosexuality in Popular Culture (Paperback)

This book blows the lid off of marriage. What is suppose to be the most important day in couples life has turn into a frenzy of consumer glutteny. I was astonshed at how diamonds an american symbol of love is a an oppresive force for the people who mine them. This book will make you cry.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended!, April 25, 2007

By 

C. Lynch - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: White Weddings: Romancing Heterosexuality in Popular Culture (Paperback)

Chrys Ingraham, in her book, White Weddings, shows a behind-the-scenes look on the wedding industry. She effectively presents to the reader the ugly truths about the diamond industry, racism in wedding catalogs, homosexuality, and what happens after marriage. This excellent book opened up my eyes to what goes on behind such a supposedly "beautiful" occurrence in females' lives. This book not only opened up my eyes to the wedding industry, but to other matters as well, such as child labor, animal abuse, and sex trafficking. White Weddings was an inspiration to me to go out and see what I can do to help change the world in order to make it a better place. Fortunately, there are people like Chrys Ingraham, who want to make the world a peaceful and just place for everyone to live in. I also highly recommend her other books as well!

From: a very inspired student