Résumés
Abstract
This article investigates the intersection of weddings, the wedding industry, consumption, and reality TV by considering the reality TV series, Trista and Ryan’s Wedding. This show featured the real-life wedding of Trista Rehn and Ryan Sutter, who met on the series The Bachelorette. The author argues that reality TV’s emphasis on the “real,” its narrative techniques (including product assimilation), and the wedding industry’s stress on having a “unique” wedding converge on this show to mobilize consumer fantasies and dreams of the traditional white wedding around specific consumer products. She concludes that examinations of weddings in North American culture must take into account not only the practices and rituals involved in these social and cultural events, but also consider the ways in which popular cultural forms such as reality TV work to produce particular kinds of images.
Résumé
Cet article enquête au carrefour des noces, de l’industrie du mariage, de la consommation et de la télé-réalité en considérant l’émission de télé-réalité Trista and Ryan’s Wedding. Cette émission montrait le mariage réel de Trista Rehn et Ryan Sutter, qui s’étaient rencontrés lors du tournage de The Bachelorette. L’auteure soutient que l’emphase mise par la télé-réalité sur le « réel », ses techniques narratives (y compris l’association à des biens de consommation) et le fait que l’industrie du mariage pousse à ce que l’on ait des noces « uniques » convergent dans cette émission pour mobiliser les visions et les rêves que suscite le mariage en blanc traditionnel afin d’attirer les consommateurs vers des biens de consommation spécifiques. Elle en conclut que l’étude des noces dans la culture nord-américaine doit prendre en compte non seulement les pratiques et les rituels mis en oeuvre dans ces évènements sociaux et culturels, mais aussi considérer les manières par lesquelles des formes culturelles populaires comme la télé-réalité travaillent à produire des types particuliers d’images.
Parties annexes
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