Don’t Tell the Bride: men throwing parties for women who hate them

In this formulaic but transfixing show’s sub-universe the gender roles we’ve all spent years railing against are front and centre

As advertisements for the heterosexual ideal of romantic love go, you have to admit Don’t Tell the Bride (Sun, 9pm, E4) is arguably the worst ever: a straight couple, almost always 24 years of age and living together in a new-build, mug at the camera on a greying rock-strewn beach, telling us the story about how their paths first crossed, hours before he starts planning to absolutely ruin their wedding, every single moment of it. “When I first met him, I hated him,” the bride will say. “When I first saw her, I thought she was fit,” the groom will reply. This is it. This is as good as it gets. They literally always have a two-year-old together, as sure as clouds and rain.

In the DTTB sub-universe, the gender roles we have all spent years railing against never really moved on: the grooms, universally, are useless thick-headed morons who can’t make toast without a speakerphone call to their mum about it; the brides, young women with their eyebrows drawn like they did it with a prison crayon during an earthquake, stomp into beige rooms to pick Xbox controllers up off the floor and seethingly repeat how much they want to feel “like a princess” on their big day. Any creative decision beyond “church wedding, white cake, ornate lace wedding dress” is treated with more contempt than war criminals get in court.

Continue reading...

from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2nnfmnN