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Bridezilla is a monster that still needs slaying Bridezilla is a monster that still needs slaying
(4 months later)
Bridezilla, a splice of reptilian monster and bride, first appeared in the Boston Globe on 29 June 1995, in an article about the miseries of wedding planners; not, I think, a cartel deserving of too much lamentation. I write this because the filmstar Keira Knightley married in France last week, and the news that she recycled (or, in human phrasing, wore her wedding dress for a second time) was greeted by the media as a sign that Bridezilla is dead, even though I am sure it thought no such thing – but such are the imperatives of picture editors in need of captions.Bridezilla, a splice of reptilian monster and bride, first appeared in the Boston Globe on 29 June 1995, in an article about the miseries of wedding planners; not, I think, a cartel deserving of too much lamentation. I write this because the filmstar Keira Knightley married in France last week, and the news that she recycled (or, in human phrasing, wore her wedding dress for a second time) was greeted by the media as a sign that Bridezilla is dead, even though I am sure it thought no such thing – but such are the imperatives of picture editors in need of captions.
Bridezilla, of course, is a misogynist construct. I await spite and denial from the boob-honking lobby, currently enjoying a resurgence with Ukip, but I stand by it. There are worse misogynies, it is true. The arguments that proper attention to domestic violence would have prevented the Cleveland abductions, and proper attention to sexual assault would have removed the need for Operation Yewtree, are powerful, but still Bridezilla is there to taunt a woman on the happiest day of her life. Her existence demonstrates how pervasive negative stereotypes are for women, and how, like kitchen implements, there is one for every task – slut, career woman, crone, bride.Bridezilla, of course, is a misogynist construct. I await spite and denial from the boob-honking lobby, currently enjoying a resurgence with Ukip, but I stand by it. There are worse misogynies, it is true. The arguments that proper attention to domestic violence would have prevented the Cleveland abductions, and proper attention to sexual assault would have removed the need for Operation Yewtree, are powerful, but still Bridezilla is there to taunt a woman on the happiest day of her life. Her existence demonstrates how pervasive negative stereotypes are for women, and how, like kitchen implements, there is one for every task – slut, career woman, crone, bride.
Joan Smith's new book, The Public Woman, makes this point when she says that the burqa and the bikini are not at poles, but essentially signify the same thing – too-close attention to the female body. How strange that the so-called ideal woman – the soon-to-be-married woman – who is so often also the child woman with her fairy cakes and her plastic wands, has this slur to greet her. She should chime so sweetly with the needs of the Conservative age, and its imperative to take women from the workplace and back into the home (here I follow the Conservative policy, not the rhetoric). But perhaps it is not so strange? Undangerous the newly married woman may be, but why should she escape censure, when other breeds of women – single mothers for example – who would be considered heroic by any sane society, are attacked?Joan Smith's new book, The Public Woman, makes this point when she says that the burqa and the bikini are not at poles, but essentially signify the same thing – too-close attention to the female body. How strange that the so-called ideal woman – the soon-to-be-married woman – who is so often also the child woman with her fairy cakes and her plastic wands, has this slur to greet her. She should chime so sweetly with the needs of the Conservative age, and its imperative to take women from the workplace and back into the home (here I follow the Conservative policy, not the rhetoric). But perhaps it is not so strange? Undangerous the newly married woman may be, but why should she escape censure, when other breeds of women – single mothers for example – who would be considered heroic by any sane society, are attacked?
Who is Bridezilla? Is she a marketing construct designed to sell dresses? It is possible. I know that women are self-hating enough to spend money to cultivate a stereotype that disparages them, because I have seen Vogue, and I have watched women sign up for pole-dancing lessons with my own amazed eyes. But perhaps women exercise control in wedding planning, because they have little to control elsewhere. (I will not bore the boob-honking lobby with the statistics on female employment, prevalence and seniority.) A wedding day is a tiny empire, it is true, but one in which a woman can exercise complete, if tiny, autonomy and this must be mocked – perhaps this is the egg that hatched Bridezilla? That wedding bakers and dress makers ordinarily overcharge may add to Bridezilla's myth. From Jane Eyre to Wide Sargasso Sea to now, it must always be explained to outsiders, and clearly. The woman isn't mad. She's angry. Or afraid.Who is Bridezilla? Is she a marketing construct designed to sell dresses? It is possible. I know that women are self-hating enough to spend money to cultivate a stereotype that disparages them, because I have seen Vogue, and I have watched women sign up for pole-dancing lessons with my own amazed eyes. But perhaps women exercise control in wedding planning, because they have little to control elsewhere. (I will not bore the boob-honking lobby with the statistics on female employment, prevalence and seniority.) A wedding day is a tiny empire, it is true, but one in which a woman can exercise complete, if tiny, autonomy and this must be mocked – perhaps this is the egg that hatched Bridezilla? That wedding bakers and dress makers ordinarily overcharge may add to Bridezilla's myth. From Jane Eyre to Wide Sargasso Sea to now, it must always be explained to outsiders, and clearly. The woman isn't mad. She's angry. Or afraid.
Or perhaps class is the defining issue in Bridezilla? The original celebrity Bridezillas came from humble origins. Victoria Adams sat on a golden throne at Luttrellstown Castle after she married David Beckham in 1999 and Katie Price arrived in a glass coach to marry Peter Andre at Highclere Castle in 2005; both sold their weddings to OK! My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding was a festival of class contempt; almost all bridal reality TV shows emphasise the greed, the covetousness, the shrill vulgarity of the female protagonist with all eyes upon her, while the real princess bride – Catherine Middleton for example – escapes any censure. Bridezilla loves class mobility of the most ambitious and fleeting kind, and yearns for castles and tiaras, and saves for them, even if she knows the coach reverts to a pumpkin at midnight; she is probably the greatest, and most meaningless, agent of class mobility of our time.Or perhaps class is the defining issue in Bridezilla? The original celebrity Bridezillas came from humble origins. Victoria Adams sat on a golden throne at Luttrellstown Castle after she married David Beckham in 1999 and Katie Price arrived in a glass coach to marry Peter Andre at Highclere Castle in 2005; both sold their weddings to OK! My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding was a festival of class contempt; almost all bridal reality TV shows emphasise the greed, the covetousness, the shrill vulgarity of the female protagonist with all eyes upon her, while the real princess bride – Catherine Middleton for example – escapes any censure. Bridezilla loves class mobility of the most ambitious and fleeting kind, and yearns for castles and tiaras, and saves for them, even if she knows the coach reverts to a pumpkin at midnight; she is probably the greatest, and most meaningless, agent of class mobility of our time.
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