“It Had to Be You:”
Narrative Themes in A Wedding Story
Introduction
In the past several years there has been an explosion of television programs
that fall in the broad genre of “Reality T.V.” For whatever reasons— additional
channels, audience appetites, marketing strategies—cable and network television
outlets offer viewers an ever-increasing number of programs involving no “real”
acting. This is not to say that professional actors and other celebrities are never
involved. Anna Nicole, The Osbournes and other shows frequently revolve around
famous individuals. Fear Factor and other reality shows feature special episodes
wherein well known people participate. Still other programs, such as Survivor, Big
Brother, and The Real World, put everyday folk in unusual circumstances, tape and
edit the results and then broadcast the “real” interactions among the participants.
The Learning Channel (TLC) has created its own particular niche for realitybased programming. Their variations on the “story” theme—A Baby Story, A Per
sonal Story; A Makeover Story, A Dating Story, and A Wedding Story—cover major
individual life changes, running the gamut from birth to middle age. As TLC refers
to it, this is “life unscripted.” The network promotes itself using the implicit idea
that “truth is more interesting than fiction.” In the process, what may for many be
considered private and personal moments are now regularly displayed in the most
public way, on national television. On these “story” shows, the characters describe
their lives in their own words. There is no host or intrusive voice-over telling us
how to interpret what is shown. The implication is that, despite the fact that these
shows are edited and packaged, it is the participants’ own private story that is
being shared.
For narrative analysts, shows such as A Wedding Story offer an enticing op
portunity to study how people employ culturally resonant themes and metaphors
to construct sensible versions of their lives for mass consumption. What makes A
Wedding Story particularly compelling is that these narratives emerge out of a
rather complex set of creative agents—the couples involved and the producers of
the show. The stories they create make sense to them and to us, the audience,
because the themes and metaphors employed in them resonate so strongly with our
cultural view of love and romance. The very fact that these narrative plots are so
similar to one another contradicts a common belief in our culture - that each love
story is unique.