I was never a child who dreamed of her wedding. I dreamed of family feasts, loud laughter, fire pits and loving words. I was always put off by the performativeness of weddings and hated the idea of being paraded around like a showdog.
I am only beginning to realise now that my uncomfortability with the idea of being a bride is exactly the same shape as my self loathing and it might not be actually be that I don’t want to be a bride. It is, perhaps, because I think I don’t deserve to be one.
The Wedding Singer (1998)
Many movies about weddings take top rank in our nostalgic hearts (e.g. the Wedding Singer, Mammia Mia, My Best Friend’s Wedding.) However around 2011, during the rise of girlboss feminism and cancel culture, Hollywood made the last good quality wedding movie: Bridesmaids. The idea that a wedding is the happy end to the story seems to have become naive and cringe. We stopped making silly and fun wedding movies and started making sad and boring movies like A Marriage Story. (I haven’t seen it but I don’t want to either which proves my point.) We began to see romantic love as cliche and opted for accurate portrayals: losing all the optimism in the process.
A Marriage Story (2019) Yuck lol I really don’t want to watch this
Carl Jung (1875 - 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who believed that the goal of our lives is our path to individuation. This means becoming aware of and accepting both the masculine and feminine aspects of our personality. In Jungian terms, a marriage at the end of a fairytale can symbolise a union of opposites. A marriage is between the feminine and masculine principles or energies within the self.
The marriage in a fairytale is often a prince and a princess, or the hero and maiden, or the trickster and wise woman. Take Cinderella. Each character functions as a part we all have within ourselves. For example, the fairy godmother symbolises inner wisdom. Evil stepmother could be the inner critic. To find the balance between your inner masculine/feminine, that is to unite with your prince/princess, is to become whole within yourself.
Cinderella (1950)
Marriage is a unification of the conscious and unconscious minds: a symbol of completion. The notion that ‘kids' movies should no longer end in a marriage, I think, is too literal. The rejection of the unification comes from the ‘I don’t need a man’ idea, by doing so, we perpetuate the superwoman stereotype. We imply she should be able to do everything on her own. She should not strive for her own wholeness, but instead save the village, rule the kingdom, vanquish the villain. Heroines have become beacons of perfection, rather than parts of a whole.
Frozen makes a point out of the shapeshifting love interest, for the real love story is between the two sisters. In this case, it’s still the unification of the conscious, Anna, with the (mystical) unconscious, Elsa.
Of course, you really don’t need a partner to feel complete. But it’s also okay for you to want one. It’s healthy for you to ask for help, to deligate tasks, to let others support you.
Ultimately, you are your own knight in shining armour. You are the one to save you. To marry your masculine is to find your voice, to take up space, to say no or I don’t want to or I want this and I deserve this. To marry the princess is to allow yourself to be rescued, to trust and depend on others, to let yourself recieve.
Shrek (2001) Feminine, masculine, intuition
In Jungian psychology, in the unconcious mind:
the masculine is the animus
the feminine is the anima
The integration of these two energies is essential to the process of individuation.
Individuation is the process of becoming whole and complete as a person.
I believe in destiny. I believe we have prewritten paths laid out for us by an incomprehensible power that has something to do with time and space. We each have our own true north and our life's purpose is to walk into that direction.
I almost wrote ‘go forward’ but that is not the case. The path turns and spirals and has dead ends and sometimes you will accidently go the wrong way or stray from the path entirely for a while. As long as you have your compass pointed towards your true north, then you are exactly where you are meant to be.
You can tell you are pointed at your true north when you acknowledge that it's worth suffering for. When you make decisions based on what feels natural and right for you. Not what other people want from you, or what you think other people want from you. What do you really want? When you see someone else and whisper “I wish I could do that” to yourself, what is it?
Sleeping Beauty (1959)
The process of individuation is a lifelong process. In a fairytale, that results in a marriage or true love’s kiss. For us, however, the process will be more cyclical. We get married within ourselves many times, and separated just as many.
The most enduring and painful relationship you will ever have is the one you have with yourself. It can also be the most enlightening. Many people go their entire lives avoiding introspection. It involves opening and walking through thousands of doors that you don’t know what's on the other side. To make matters worse, it continues to be just as frightening every single time.
But if you’re brave enough, you will put one foot in front of the other. You may look up to find you are walking down the aisle and realise you are exactly where you are meant to be.
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