ABSTRACT
The first quote opening this chapter comes from the back of a box for a doll named Ryan of the “Family Corners” series made by Mattel. Ryan is one of four potential groom dolls children can select to go with any one of four bride dolls. In addition to the family-values position in this passage, the four male dolls and the four female dolls each represent different ethnic groups. While the option is available for children to pair bride and groom whichever way they choose, Mattel doesn’t want to leave anything to chance. The photos on the back of the box show each of the four male dolls by name and clothing, the four female dolls by name and clothing, and then provide “appropriate” pairings of each of the grooms with the corresponding bride of the same race or ethnicity. Since all the dolls represented are relatively light-skinned, their pairing by the more easily discernible hair-color differences-blonds with blonds, brunettes with brunettes, redheads with redheads-masks the racial pairings in evidence in these photos. In this example, children are discouraged from imagining interracial or interethnic marriage and same-sex pairings. Instead, the mythology of sameness concerning what counts as a family is
instilled, making all other manifestations or configurations unimaginable. Nicola Field, in her recent book Over the Rainbow, explains the motivation and consequences of perpetuating this notion of family:
The idea of the family as a protective haven is a myth, the family unit cannot provide the haven it promises. On the contrary, we can never isolate ourselves from social and political relationships in the world. The places we choose to hide are always inseparably connected to the real world, the world they actually might encounter in school, and for some, in neighborhoods. It is not the failure, or the
breakdown, of the family which causes our alienation, but the ever-disappointed hopes instilled in us as children. These hopes are false dreams of being cocooned and of belonging. (Field 1995, 27)
The cocooning Field refers to in this passage is a form of romance, living within the imaginary. This illusion of insularity and well-being is recreated through romantic mythology, keeping children from seeing and living in the real world. Romancing heterosexuality in a manner such as that of the “Family Corners” toy ensures an ongoing wedding market, preserves patriarchal authority, and secures racial separation and a heterogendered division of labor. It secures housework and family as the exclusive domain of women and keeps in place a dependence on men for the survival of the family. These constructions of social relations conceal from children an awareness of real-life variations and the opportunity to develop one of life’s most valuable survival skills-the ability to imagine alternatives. The second quote, from the movie The Wedding Singer, sets up one of the key organizing principles of the wedding market. All brides are beautiful! Estée Lauder has long used an advertising campaign for its perfume depicting a white, blond flower girl in a white dress looking up into the eyes of a white, blond bride in a white wedding gown. The only text in the ad says “Beautiful,” establishing the white bride and the future bride as standard-bearers of what counts as beauty.
