Buff Brides: Disciplining the Female Body
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and, “It’s never fun to step on the scale, but at least now it’s not so horrifying”
(Greta, after losing 12 pounds). Each bride is shown being weighed by her
personal trainer on a medical scale, having her arms, waist, hips, and thighs
measured either with a measuring tape or body fat calipers. Most of the brides
fall within the range of 20% to 30% body fat. The visual images showing these
women being weighed and measured enhances the notion of the docile body
which needs to be disciplined; brides tend to grimace and groan as their
measurements are taken. The fear and disgust with which these women view
their own bodies tells the female viewer that her body is at the same time
unworthy and in need of inspection.
Several of the brides in this program had chosen a strapless gown,
which required them to have bare arms for their weddings. The arms became a
site not only of initial disapproval, but also of others’ gaze. Colleen, for
example, goes on a bridal dress shopping trip with her mother and female
entourage at Klcinfeld’s, New York’s largest and oldest bridal salon. “I cannot
believe my bridal gown is going to be strapless,” she says. She then pinches the
lower part of her arms, explaining, “This has gotta go.” Pinching her back fat,
she says, “This has gotta go. It’s all gotta come off.” Finally having chosen a
gown, she concludes, “I feel like now I have to get in it. I gotta look my best.”
Similarly, Justine, who had purchased an off-the-shoulder dress, says, “I can’t
believe my dress is sleeveless. I don’t want to be self-conscious about mushy
arms. I want not to be worrying about how my arms are looking to everyone and
how they’re going to look in the pictures.” Self-gaze, combined with others’
gaze, becomes highly important and significant for brides, as their bodies will
become part of an archival record. The uncovered female arm thus becomes the
motivation for losing weight, rather than a desire to achieve optimum health.
Already-purchased gowns serve as motivation for other brides as well.
At home, Linxiu takes her strapless wedding gown out and shows it on camera.
A “Carolina Hen-era” tag peeks from underneath the inside neckline in a closeup, hinting at the high price of this garment. Her wedding dress is a size 8, but
Linxiu finds it difficult to put it on without holding her breath. Clearly ill-fitting,
the gown, or rather its numerical size, serves as a definer of Linxiu’s selfimage: “I don’t think I’m a size 10.1 refuse to even go to a size 10.1 think I’m a
tight 8.” Eventually, Linxiu loses 17 pounds. This focus on the bridal gown
illustrates that the body within it is of secondary importance. Rather than her
wearing the dress, her wedding gown wears her. As an impetus for weight loss,
then, the wedding gown becomes a site where the female body becomes
subservient. In this sense, the female becomes trivialized to the point where her
“packaging” (Goldstein-Gidoni) holds more importance than her.
Borrowing Frye’s rubric of th e quest, in Buff Brides, bridal perfection
serves as the goal of the protagonist (bride) with the role of “enemy” played by
food. Phrases such as “temptation is everywhere” and “weakness” are used
repeatedly in the narrator’s voiceover. Food in these episodes is framed as
“indulgence” rather than vital, and brides’ appetites and “cheating” constantly