Popular Culture Review Vol. 20, No. 1, Winter 2009 | Page 39

B u ff B rides: Disciplining the Female Body In 2003, a new reality program premiered on the Discovery Health Channel. Buff Brides combined the long-established fitness television genre with the video verite, “fly on the wall” (Calvert) approach of reality TV. It followed women planning their weddings while trying to lose weight. Still offered as reruns as of 2008 on Discovery’s fitness and exercise cable outlet, FitTV, as Buff Brides: The Bridal Challenge, this unique program gives its viewers a glimpse of what Erving Goffman called the “back region” where women prepare for their wedding day. From the vantage point of backstage voyeur, viewers follow the buff brides’ progress as they transform their bodies, often in order to fit into an already-purchased bridal gown. Like other popular reality-based, fitness-oriented programming of the early 2151century, such as NBC’s The Biggest Loser (2004-) and VH1’s Celebrity Fit Club (2005- ), Buff Brides follows its participants’ progress toward weightbased goals. The program’s title itself offers a new way of idealizing the role of bride within contemporary American culture. “Buff’ holds numerous connotations in the online Urban Dictionary,' including “very strong and well built,” “having well-defined muscles,” and “good looking” (“Buff’). These contemporary meanings denote that Buff Brides intends to transform formerly out-of-shape women into toned, physically fit brides. While the term “buff bride” seems oxymoronic, taking into consideration the contradiction between the definitely feminine aspect of bridal appearance and the almost-masculine implications of a strong, well-built body, it provides at least a semantic space where women can be strong as well as feminine. While seemingly innocuous and even trivial, this program offers a text with which to examine the status of women in U.S. society. More than just entertainment, this program serves as an example of how the mass media provide women and girls a “script of ideal femininity” (Ussher 74). As a cultural artifact, Buff Brides serves as an example of the popularity of bridal media and how they provide both entertainment and instruction about what it means to be a modem woman in today’s society—a society in which women receive conflicting messages regarding their expected aspirations, such as pursuing careers while attending to domestic duties (Wood). The Disciplined Bridal Body As a metaphor for culture, the body serves as the text of culture. As such, it becomes a practical and direct locus of social control, with the docile body upon which control is exerted regulated by the norms of cultural life (Bordo). Thus, the female body can be considered “docile,” as it is subjected to social norms and habituated to self-improvement and transformation to meet