Essay Example on Tying the Knot: Ordinary Acts in Marriage Ceremonies in Films

Wedding is a word which refers to a marriage ceremony inclusive of all celebrations which take place. The principal significance of the service is to provide the two participants (bride and bridegroom) a chance to exchange vows which bind them together as husband and wife. Marriage ceremonies vary with different cultures ranging from extremely elaborate rituals to the simplest of services where involved parties announce their marriage by acting married.

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Ordinary acts mostly performed include religious rituals, oath-taking and dancing in celebration of the special event. Religion being a significant factor which influences a marriage ceremony in the various cultures, translates to the different types of weddings that are conducted.

Society often has a way of expressing their culture through the media, which includes films. Production of the movie act as a mirror to the community whereby they represent their cultural practices among other values in the society. With the difference in cultures and location emerges different film industries producing various content in line with their cultural practices among the community. Examples include Bollywood, Nollywood and Hollywood. (Haynes, 2017). Bollywood film industry is based in India and is considered as the largest film industry in the world in terms of the number of movies it produces. Nollywood industry is the second largest film industry located in the west part of Africa, Nigeria. While the third-largest film industry, Hollywood, is located in the United States of America. (Hale, 2017).

Each film industry produces its content based on its cultural practices in society, making it easier to observe and identify the different cultures that are present. (Currie, 2014). In comparison to the two cultures, Nigerian and American culture, films produced from these two societies help a great deal in identifying the differences together with similarities(if any) which may exist between them. Narrowing down to cultural wedding ceremonies among the two countries leads to the discovery of two identical films related to the service. They include; "THE WEDDING PARTY" a Nollywood movie and "OUR FAMILY WEDDING" a Hollywood movie. Each film was entailing a different culture in terms of the wedding ceremony.

Starting with the film; THE WEDDING PARTY produced by Nollywood in Nigeria, its rich African culture is seen throughout the entire movie (Krings et al., 2014). Dunni Coker being the Bride and Dozie Onwuka the Bridegroom are the centre of focus as they prepare for their wedding ceremony. The bride is a 24-year-old art gallery owner while the bridegroom is an IT entrepreneur coming from a wealthy family opposed to the bride's family, which has a humble background. This makes the mother to the bridegroom, Obianuju Onwuka dislikes Dunni as her son's choice of her being his wife opting for a bride from a much wealthier family. She shows her disapproval during a family breakfast in the morning of the wedding day where she talks in a belittling manner about the bride's family to her friends.

Earlier the previous night there had been a bachelor party held. The best man who had been chosen for the wedding had been involved in an accident after the party. This prompted for a replacement and Sola, a friend to the groom was chosen. He is deemed as an irresponsible person where he mistakenly exposes footage from the previous night during the bachelor party. The footage making Dunni the bride witness what she thought was Dozie the bridegroom being unfaithful to her. This made her leave the room where they were having their dinner in humiliation where she is met by Rosie, an ex-lover to the bridegroom who tells lies of her having slept with Dozie that morning and this makes Dunni board a taxi which she leaves the venue in.

In a turn of events, as both sets of families set out to search for the bride, Dunni, a thief on the loose holds them at gunpoint. This occurrence results in confessions from Dozie's mother and father where his mother, Obianuju Onwuka, reveals her unhappiness with Chief Obianuju Onwuka her husband due to his behaviour of having love affairs with younger ladies. The chief also confesses about his company's lack of money after it had lost all that it had after which they all end up reconciling. Nonso, who is the elder brother to the bridegroom in a bid to seek his father's approval, manages to take away the thief's gun. This allows Dozzi to find his way out to locate Dunni. He finds her and manages to talk to her convincingly of the previous misunderstandings which had occurred earlier on. Both of them head back to the venue of the wedding party where all parties who were present danced in joy and celebration, concluding the film.

In order with the cultural customs of the Nigerian people, the wedding ceremony is coloured with beautiful custom attires designed in African print resembling the Nigerian culture and dress code. This form of clothing worn by the men is known as an Agbada and is made traditionally from lace, cotton and damask. Beads which are worn on the neck and wrist are also added to the outfit collection together with headwraps for the women known as Gele and hats made from the same attire material as that of the outfit for the men known as Fila. Dishes served in the wedding ceremony are refined foods common among the Nigerian communities. Examples of traditional meals prepared by the Yoruba community include; Joll of rice which is made up of fried plantain, Efo, Ewedu, Gbekiri, Small chops and Amala. In the movie, the WEDDING PARTY, a local Yoruba chief, was hired by Tinuade Coker, the mother of the bride to prepare food that would be eaten during the ceremony. (Krings et al. 2014)

Before the wedding ceremony is planned, a formal introduction is done to both sets of parents after which a calendar date for the engagement is set. A small celebration is set up for the engage, meant where it is overseen by two women from each of the two families; the bride's family and the bridegroom's family. The two women have local names representing each involved party - Alaga Iduro for the bridegroom's family and Alaga Ijoko for the bride's family.

Looking at the American wedding culture from the movie "Our Family Wedding" produced by Hollywood, we get to learn of their learning in wedding ceremonies. Marcus Boyd, who is an African-American together with Lucia Ramirez, a Mexican-American, are the two individuals who are getting married. Marcus has recently graduated from Columbia Medical School while her fiancee, Lucia dropped out of Columbia Law School to act as a volunteer teacher at a school accommodating recent immigrants. During their stay at school, they had been living together.

A vigorous confrontation between Marcus' father, Brad and Lucia's father Miguel occurred when Miguel was found towing Brad's vehicle. An effort by Marcus' father to stop his car from being pulled bore no fruits which escalated to racist insults from both of them. Later that evening, they get to meet and find out that they are soon to be related through the marriage of their children. The two show no sign of friendship and acceptance to one another despite their children planning on marrying each other, which would make them become in-laws. This affects their families input in matters regarding the planning of the wedding ceremony where each family aims at making the celebration more African-American or Mexican-American so as to suit their ethnic races and culture.

Lucia's parents are so much into her education and career as a lawyer that she found it hard to tell them that she had dropped out of Law school to become a volunteer teacher to immigrants at a charter school. She did not want to disappoint them as they had high hopes for her. Miguel, the father to Lucia, went to the extent of belittling Marcus as he thought that her daughter was to support him during his time as a volunteer doctor, which led to him disapproving their union. This brought about conflict between Marcus and Lucia, reaching an extent where she called off the wedding.

Due to Lucia's anger as a result of an argument with Boyd, she spills out her little secret to her parents, which she had been holding on to about her dropping out of law school. Her parents are caught by surprise by the confession in addition to that their daughter had been living together with Marcus for the past few months. This changed their hearts towards Marcus, and his family decided to give in to their wedding plans.

Lucia's sister, Isabel who had earlier on not wanted her sister to get married to Marcus, helped her together with the whole family realize how the couple (Marcus and Lucia) loved each other and were happy together despite their difference in race. This made the whole family cease their earlier racist thinking and embrace the two lovers. As a result, a wedding was planned whereby the two different cultures were brought together and incorporated in the ceremony.

In the film, certain traditions are observed which involve planning of the ceremony by the families of both the bride and groom. Attires to be worn during the wedding ceremony are formal clothes for the groom while the bride wears a white bridal dress along with jewellery to ensure she looks lovely on the special occasion (Moran, 2015). The bride and groom are not supposed to see each other before the wedding. They are kept separately until the day of the wedding where her parents accompany the bride and handed over to the groom.

Bridesmaid follow the newly wedded bride holding her white bridal dress. Also, a bouquet given to the bride is thrown backwards by the bride to a waiting group of unmarried ladies. The one who catches it is believed to be the next woman in line to get married. The offering of gifts is also a culture where the newly wedded couple receives awards offered to them by those in attendance of the wedding ceremony.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Nigerian and American wedding ceremonies each have their own unique culture together with slight similarities, for example, in the presence of a cake and offering of gifts to the newly wedded couple. The film industries, Nollywood and Hollywood, have had a significant influence in enhancing the popularity of Nigerian and American wedding cultures respectively through the production of their films. (Engstrom et al. 2016)

References

Cook, D. A. (2016). A history of narrative film. WW Norton & Company. Retrieved from https://laurettaani.blogspot.com/2016/12/movie-review-wedding-party.html

Crane, D. (2014). Cultural globalization and the dominance of the American film industry: cultural policies, national film industries, and transnational film. International journal of cultural policy, 20(4), 365-382.

Currie, D. H. (2014). "Here Comes the Bride": The Making of a" Modern Traditional" Wedding in Western Culture. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 403-421.

Engstrom, E., & Semic, B. (2016). The portrayal of religion in reality TV programming: Hegemony and the contemporary American wedding. Journal of Media and Religion, 2(3), 145-163.

Ganti, T. (2012). Producing Bollywood: Inside the contemporary Hindi film industry. Duke University Press.

Hale, H. (2017). To Hollywood, Bollywood, Nollywood-and Beyond!. In How to Work the Film & TV Markets (pp. 51-57). Focal Press.

Haynes, J. (2017). Nollywood in Lagos, Lagos in Nollywood Films. Africa Today, 54(2), 131-150.

Krings, M., & Okome, O. (Eds.). (2014). Global Nollywood: The Transnational Dimensions of an African Video Film Industry. Indiana University Press.

Lewis, J., & Miller, T. (Eds.). (2008). Critical cultural policy studies: A reader. John Wiley & Sons.

Moran, A. (Ed.). (2015). Film policy: international, national, and regional perspectives. Psychology Press.