Altaring Reality: Examining Normative Messages in Wedding Reality Television Público
Harris, Rachel Suzanne (2011)
Abstract
Abstract
Altaring Reality: Examining Normative Messages in Wedding Reality
Television
By Rachel Harris
The prevalence of white weddings in American culture is a
fascinating and expansive topic that
has received considerable critical attention within the last
decade. Many scholars have attributed
the wedding's continued popularity to popular culture. Chrys
Ingraham specifically explains how
sites of popular culture form a wedding ideological complex that
informs our commonly held
beliefs about the matrimonial ritual. However, despite the
acknowledged importance of popular
culture within wedding culture, scholars have failed to consider
how reality television may
function as a critical part of the wedding ideological complex. The
purpose of this thesis is to
analyze episodes of wedding reality television representative of
the variety of wedding-oriented
programs currently on the air. First, I consider the recent history
of the American wedding and its
contemporary role in our cultural landscape. I pay particular
attention to the commodification of
the wedding ceremony and how we may understand the commercialized
ritual through Pierre
Bourdieu's concepts of capital. Next, I outline the genre of
reality television and consider how
wedding culture dovetails nicely into the narratives of
transformation prevalent in reality
programming. I then provide a close reading of seven individual
episodes of various reality
programs and a separate analysis of one serialized wedding program,
Bridalplasty. Finally, I
conclude with a reflection on the aftermath of wedding spending and
the consequences of the
omnipresent standard of the commodified wedding.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Chapter One: A Brief History of the White Wedding in America
4
Chapter Two: Contemporary Weddings and the Cinderella Fantasy
19
Chapter Three: Reality Television and Weddings - A Match Made in
Heaven? 34
Chapter Four: Reading Wedding Reality Television Programs 46
Chapter Five: Bridalplasty 79
Conclusion 95
Bibliography 100
Visual Media Bibliography 102
About this Honors Thesis
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