White Weddings: Romancing Heterosexuality in Popular Culture

by Chrys Ingraham

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 041595133X
• ISBN13: 9780415951333
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 8.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Good sale

It took a little while to arrive, but the item was in good condition and there were no complications.

Highly Recommended!

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

A vitally important work...

In writing this book Chrys takes great risk in exposing "Weddings", especially "White Weddings" as an unneccessary rite of passage -- She brings to light in vivid raw detail why our society 'views' them as normal. This is not a 'nice' book, a 'feel good' book, one that at the end you say 'oh how wonderful' -- instead it is an important piece that everyone needs to read. "Writing this book has been a wrenching experience." In having the privilege of being one of Chrys's students, I've had the opportunity to see first hand -- what a process writing 'white weddings' was. There is heart in this book, sometimes one of steal, but nevertheless one with enduring spirit. In Ingraham's epilogue she writes, "What allows us to imagine possibilities? To continue to live shrouded in romance is to participate in and benefit from such atrocities. Confronting the reasons for which we need romance is to see what it conceals. Critiquing the heterosexual imaginary is one step in that direction." I've never looked at the wedding industry the same since reading this monumentally significant text. Never before has Ingraham's work been as important as now.

An Excellent Start

on the critique of the ideology of "white weddings." Keep up the good work!

About time!

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.