Brides in Boxes

What are your thoughts as you watch a wedding?

My EEWC friend Alena Amato Ruggerio reflected on this question and collected the views of scholars in a book called Media Depictions of Brides, Wives, & Mothers (Lexington Books, 2012).

See review on the blogsite http://literaryashland.org/?p=2938

Here's an excerpt:

AR: I was given the privilege of selecting the image for the cover of the book... The publishers gave me access to a website full of stock photos and encouraged me to choose one for the cover. I got frustrated because so many of the models in the stock photos were thin, white women, so I got permission from the publisher to edit the stock to address that problem. I’m a great fan of www.deviantart.com, where both professional and amateur visual artists post their work. At Deviant Art, I found a talented digital artist from Britain named Daniel White, whom I commissioned to create an original piece for the book by replacing the bride’s skin and nails with lizard scales, spikes, and claws.

The resulting digital photomanipulation, called “With This Claw, I Thee Wed,” is an unsettling symbol for what this book is about: the bride represents idealized feminine beauty with a white wedding gown, romantic flowers, and nuptial bling, yet she is also a wild, problematic monster, which is what patriarchy really fears about women in our roles as brides, wives, and mothers.