This is a groundbreaking study of our culture’s obsession with weddings. By examining popular films, commercials, magazines, advertising, television sitcoms and even children’s toys, this book shows the pervasive influence of weddings in our culture and the important role they play in maintaining the romance of heterosexuality, the myth of white supremacy and the insatiable appetite of consumer capitalism.” It examines how the economics and marketing of weddings hav… More >>
White Weddings: Romancing Heterosexuality in Popular Culture
If I had not had to read this book for a class on Weddings, Marriage, and Family: A Feminist Perception, there is NO way I would have ever had bought this book. Ms. Ingraham wants half the world’s population to not marry AT ALL. Yes, there are excellent issues she brings up regarding sweatshops, racism, corporate greed, etc., but to deny a little girl a dream of wanting to be a princess for a day is ridiculus! She uses weddings and marriage interchangeably which gives a wrong impression. This book was the last straw for my EVER wanting to take another feminist course in college.
Rating: 1 / 5
I read this book while studying both contemporary North American and cross-cultural weddings and marriages. Ingrahms book describes the “white wedding” a white upperclass affair as discriminatory and exclusive. She focuses on the institution of marriage being perpetuated by old white folk and major corporations. Unfortunatley she does not expand into the universality of marriage. I do not recomend this book. It is narrow and inconclusive.
Rating: 1 / 5
I began this book expecting to agree with much of it but was very disappointed. The author is ranting instead of calmly stating a realistic argument. If I understood correctly, she believes that the Wedding Industrial Complex (with some vague notions of society and government) CAUSES women to desire marriage, view themselves as princesses and then spend as much money as possible on the wedding.
Although her argument is far-reaching her facts are extremely narrow- (she spends a chunk of the book repeating herself with magazine advertising statistics).
If her point was to let us know that many business owners within the wedding industry do not operate out of good will but are in fact out to make as much money as possible, point taken. But I knew that before I read the book.
Rating: 2 / 5
I started out reading Chrys Ingraham’s White Weddings with positive attitude. I am very interested with how the “white wedding came about”. As she went on with the book there were a few problems that did not settle with me. Number one she often used the words wedding and marriage interchangeably. These words are two very different in definition and shouldn`t be used in place of one another. The second thing that I found very hard to handle with her book is that she often would make broad generalizations that would have no factually information to support the idea. Finally when you read the epilogue she says, “writing this book has been a wrenching experience. Without realizing how fully I’ve been sutured to dominate heterosexual culture, I have frequently found myself engaged in a variety of internal struggles. Tears would be streaming down my face as I empathized with the characters in a movie while, at the same time, I would be taking notes critiquing the heterosexual imaginary.” It seems to me that she wrote this book as a statement of how she feels and her opinions. This is great if it is therapy for her but should not be taken as fact or the answer for other people. The one educational part of the book was the section about how white weddings are capitalized. Sweatshops are terrible and it is a horrible feeling to know that people work in awful conditions to make your wedding dress. This is however should not be the main reason to critizes white weddings, but a reason to make changes. This book was a start of a good idea but in the end turned into someone else’s opinion and platform. After reading this book no one should feel bad about the choices they make for their own weddings just because they don’t fit with what Chrys Ingraham’s believes. A person should make decisions based on what feels right for them.
Rating: 2 / 5
This book made some very good points and was a necessary exploration of the ingrained “normalcy” of marriage. I do feel, however, that the book lacked substance and repeated the same thing in a different way. This topic definitely deserves much greater attention and perhaps with more attention, we will get better and more thoughtful writers.
I also was driven insane by the shape of the book. Besides making it physically difficult to read, it turned a supposed academic study into a novelty book
Rating: 2 / 5