ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the ground shared by mainstream, wedding-themed movies and fairy tales. It outlines some of the features common to fairy tales and popular wedding movies like The Wedding Planner, 27 Dresses, and Bride Wars. The chapter then outlines how the fairy tale elements of wedding movies can be analysed using two particular feminist lenses: first, the feminist critique of marriage and its cultural mystification and, second, feminist accounts of the gendered power relations inherent in viewing. The positioning of women as objects of sight is evident not just in movies, or even just in visual culture more generally: it is also part of fairy tale traditions. The chapter ends with a warning not to dismiss or devalue those cultural products enjoyed by women, and certainly not to deride women who enjoy them. Instead it suggests that it is more useful to enquire about the social conditions that endow gendered cultural forms with meaning and pleasure in human lives.
