ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Bride Wars (2009), Revenge of the Bridesmaids (2010), Bridesmaids (2011), and Bachelorette (2012), arguing that conventional sanguine wedding tropes have undergone necessary revision in the wake of economies of scarcity and precarity that emerged since 2008. The recession’s aftershocks take the form of corroding personal and intimate bonds, a reality that, in wedding comedies, most acutely affects female friendships, relationships that typically turn from collegial to competitive. Specifically, in the films studied here the realities of class inequality fracture female communities, corrupting relationships with the tensions produced by austere economic climates. This chapter identifies an evolution in the comedy genre wherein resentment, disgust, and antipathy are depicted amongst characters and register as the prevailing affective sentiments of the films themselves.
