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Popular Culture Review
those norms (Bordo). Related to this concept, the disciplined body invokes the
idea of control—both over one’s (female) body and over the (female) gender as
a whole. Disciplinary practices, such as dieting and exercise, comprise the
process by which the ideal feminine body is constructed (Bartky). Hegemonic
femininity, those widely held and unquestioningly accepted notions of what
feminine means, today “has a strong emphasis on appearance with the dominant
notion of an ideal feminine body as thin and toned” (Krane, Baird, Aimar, and
Kauer 316).
Women’s bodies are scrutinized by the self and others (Hall and Hebert;
Lockford), and even more so when taking on the role of bride. The bride’s
disciplined body, noted Boden, is defined, indeed, literally shaped, through
control, denial, and anticipation—and stands in contrast to the abundance of
choice and sumptuousness, appearing in the form of food, of the wedding
occasion. As purveyors of ultimate femininity, bridal media “promote the
disciplined female body—disciplined not only through diet, beauty, regimes,
costume, gesture, and posture. . . but also through confor ming to the more
traditional properties of wedding etiquette and formality” (Boden 65).
Wedding etiquette dictates the proper packaging: the white wedding
gown. The bridal gown further dictates the body within—brides should not be
heavy or “plus-size,” as Patterson noted in her essay on bridal ads. While clothes
usually cover and conceal the body, especially the overweight body (Lockford),
the wedding gown’s construction (form fitting, heavy material, white color)
disallows any concealment. Akin to W olfs metaphor of the beauty myth as
“Iron Maiden” (17), the bridal gown, perpetuated in bridal advertisements and
media as the only acceptable wedding costume for women, creates a similar
three-dimensional mold into which women are “trapped” or, more conectly, trap
themselves.
Berger’s assertion that “men act and women appear” becomes even
more relevant in the context of the wedding as social and mediated event (98).
Rarely, if ever, does this star status accompany the images of the bridegroom in
wedding media, which further underscores the visual importance of the female
within the world of weddings—and in wider society. In this manner, the
surveyed female turns herself “into an object,” a “sight”: “Her own sense of
being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by
another” (97). Not only does the bridal appearance demand the gaze of others,
but the emphasis on attaining the perfect everything—body, hair, makeup,
dress—also demands the bride’s own gaze.
The spectacle of weight loss and bridal appearance is what Buff Brides
offers its viewers, as well as the women featured in the program itself in the
form of self-gaze. Thus, as a cultural performance of femininity, the gaze
originates in the bride herself, wedding guests, viewers of the show, and,
especially, her husband-to-be. After all, notes Berger, the success of a woman’s
life is how she appears to men. In this sense, Buff Brides serves as an example of