Movie Analysis: The Wedding Planner (2001)

Summary

The feature film, The Wedding Planner, was released in 2001. The romantic comedy is a story about Mary Flore, played by Jennifer Lopez, who is an extremely successful wedding planner. The story starts to progress when Mary is shown walking through town when her shoe gets stuck in a sewage drain. In her attempt to release her shoe, she is almost ran over by a dumpster racing down a hill right towards her. She continues to attempt to release her shoe until the very handsome Doctor Steven Edison, played by Matthew McConaughey,  appears out of no where and saves her from the dumpster. He then takes her to the hospital where he works to make sure she is healthy from the very dangerous encounter she had with the dumpster. Her friend and co-worker, Penny, played by Judy Greer, picks her up from his office only to realize he is an attractive male and presumingly high paid doctor. Knowing that Mary has been single for a while, she insists on inviting him on a date to the movies with her and Mary. When he accepts, Penny leaves the two on the date by themselves where they get to know each other and even slow dance together. After the date Mary realizes she really likes Steve. 

The next day Mary shows up to work to meet the new couple whose wedding she is planning. To her surprise the groom of the couple is Steve. Now, Mary is put in an uncomfortable position to plan the wedding of the man she had just gone on a date with and really liked. But, because this is an romantic comedy, in the end, Mary and Steve end up getting together and he ditches his fiance on the day of their wedding. When analyzing the clips from the movie, I discovered that there are several times when the themes discussed in Janna L. Kim’s article “From Sex to Sexuality: Heterosexual Script On Primetime Network Television” are present. While this film doesn’t explicitly mention sex as the main reason for the characters to interact it still fits many of the scripts mentioned in the specific codes. 

Excerpt 1: The Doctor’s Office 

Watch The Wedding Planner Online - Doctor's Office: Scene - Zimbio

In this clip, Mary is waiting for her friend, Penny, to pick her up from the doctor’s office she has been staying at since her accident. Her friend, very frazzled, races into the office only to see the doctor, Steve. She introduces herself and vaguely asks what he is doing later. When he replies that he’s not on duty, Penny jumps on the opportunity to ask Steve to the movies with her and Mary. Mary, embarrassed by her friend’s forward-ness, asks Penny to leave him alone. 

This excerpt communicates that men are supposed to act like their not looking for a relationship. This is because Steve seemed very uninterested when Penny was introducing herself and asking if he wanted to join them at the movies. Conversely, this excerpt communicates that women are supposed to act like they don’t want a relationship unless a man actively pursues them for one. 

This scene does a good job of expressing the Female Courting Strategy. Kim describes that women wait to be asked out directly by men. She also explains that for women to attract men/receive a date from them they may partake in indirect ways to attract a man’s attention (Kim et al., 2007).  Mary doesn’t want to ask Steve out, and is waiting for him to ask her out. When he doesn’t, her friend steps in and indirectly asks him out for her. She tries to act sly by not making it seem like a date by including herself in on the movie date. However, in this specific scene Steve did not fit the script of the Masculine Courting Strategies. He did not actively and powerfully pursue Mary and display to her that he wants to be in a relationship with her, which is a main part of the Masculine Courting Strategy script. It describes men being the active pursuers in relationships (Kim et al., 2007). Although it could be argued that he could fit the script of Sex as Masculinity. This script describes men being preoccupied with sex (Kim et al., 2007). Who knows, maybe he was planning on saving Mary from the dumpster the whole time and bringing her back to his office in order to maybe have sex with her. This one is still unclear, but it is evident that these scripts can be somewhat ambiguous depending on the characters real intentions. 

Excerpt 2: Movie Date in the Park 

http://www.zimbio.com/watch/59fJQ1Z8_Xu/Park+Dance+Scene/The+Wedding+Planner

This next excerpt shows Mary and Steve on their date after Mary’s friend, Penny, bails to leave them by themselves. During an old movie being played in the park, they begin to slow dance with one another. Mary is impressed with Steve’s dancing skills and she goes on to ask where he learned to dance so well. He responds that he takes ballroom dancing classes. Instantly, Mary thinks Steve is gay because he is so attractive, seemingly single, a pediatrition, and a good dancer. Steve jokingly replies that “he’s the gayest.” And the fact that Mary believed him for even a second led him to quickly come back with the fact that he’s not gay and in fact, his mother made him take ballroom dancing lessons when he was younger. Mary is relieved to hear that her new found love interest is not gay and laughs off his sarcastic joke, understanding his explanation. 

This excerpt communicates that men are supposed to act manly and heterosexual without any instinct of homosexuality towards women. It also communicates that women are meant to act submissive because all Mary really does in this scene is laugh and brush off the fact that Steve just joked about being homosexual. 

Yet again Kim’s Heterosexual Scripts come into play during this scene. Male-Oriented Homophobia is a script that Steve takes on in this scene. Kim describes that this script has to do with men avoiding behaving in a manner that could be construed as homosexual (Kim et at., 2007). Steve’s act of quickly correcting himself and ensuring Mary that he is in fact, not homosexual is his way of fitting into this script. However, the fact he even jokingly said, “oh yeah, I’m the gayest” could be a contradiction to his script because it mentions that males will do whatever possible to deny being homosexual. In Mary’s case, she fits the script of Good Girls. She acts as the passive partner that does not expect demand or prioritize her own sexual pleasures, she just laughs at Steve sarcastically calling himself gay (Kim et al., 2007). 

Excerpt 3: Riding Horses at the Vineyard 

http://www.zimbio.com/watch/FkjPsPep2sf/Riding+Scene/The+Wedding+Planner

This scene takes place after Mary realizes that Steve is engaged and that she in planning him and his fiance’s wedding. She is currently visiting a nearby Vineyard with the couple to see if the location would work for their wedding ceremony. At the beginning of this scene Mary is actually displayed as the aggressor because she is being very forward and aggressive to Steve about his relationship with his fiance. Steve interrupts Mary to defend himself by telling her that the night of their date nothing happened, and he also said “Maybe I was just being a GUY and the opportunity presented itself.” By saying this he means that there may have been an opportunity to hook up with someone, which is why he went through with the date. But don’t worry, he backs that up with “now more than ever, I believe Fran is the one for me.” (yeah, okay) 

This scene communicates to the viewer that men do not have to be in a committed relationship, and if they are they do not have to be monogamous if “an opportunity presents itself.” Also, this scene communicates to female viewers that you can be the aggressor in a relationship but only until a male interrupts you to state his opinion. 

Kim’s scripts for this scene are a little more contradictory. For example, Mary being assertive at the beginning of the scene goes against the notion of the Good Girl  script that depicts females in relationships are passive (Kim et al., 2007). It is not until Steve puts Mary in her place that she becomes more passive to what he says. Steve fits into the script of Masculine Commitment. This is because he first admits that he was attracted to Mary while he was engaged to his fiance, which contributes to the idea that males are constantly trying to avoid monogamous relationships. However, he too contradicts this notion when he claims that he loves his fiance more than ever now (by the end he contradicts this yet again, by breaking off his monogamous relationship, then getting into another monogamous relationship with Mary at the end of the movie.) 

Conclusion

I think this is a really interesting example just because this whole movie is centered around this couple of Mary and Steve, who aren’t even a couple. Yet, they still fall into a lot of the scripts of heterosexual couples. Looking at the whole storyline of The Wedding Planner, the plot gives the viewer some mixed messages on how heterosexual couples are supposed to act and want in a relationship. Looking at some readings aside from Kim’s (even though I think her findings fit in best with this film) Ward describes how sexual socialization is formed through media to youth. He claims that women are treated as objects and are objectified by wearing provocative clothing (Ward, 1995). However, something I noticed while watching this movie is that Mary does not fit this concept. She is a beautiful woman, however her clothing is very conservative. Her tops usually have a high neckline and little skin is ever shown to preserve her professional appearance. 

Also, in Ward’s study, he suggested that in media sexual actions and attractions are usually made outside of marital relations (Ward, 1995). This was definitely true for this film considering their flirtacious acts were made to each other instead of towards their monogamous partners. Also, in Ward's study he found that the most acts of sexual actions on prime-time television were not very explicit (Ward, 1995). I also found to be true in the film. Mary and Steve had a pretty PG relationship while he was engaged. Subtly flirting was a major part of the attractions that were seen in the film. Overall, this movie both coincides and contradicts some of the scripts and findings made in the readings we have read in class. This then leads me to wonder, do these scripts mostly agree or disagree with real life situations? It would be interesting to somehow observe heterosexual couples and see how many of these scripts actually exist in relationships. 


Kim, J. L., Sorsoli, C. L., K., Zylbergold, B. A., Schooler, D., & Tolman, D. L. (2007). From Sex to Sexuality: Exposing the Heterosexual Script on Primetime Network Television. Journal of Sex Research.

Ward, L. M. (1995). Talking About Sex: Common Themes About Sexuality in the Prime-Time Television Programs Children and Adolescents View Most. Journal of Youth and Adolescence.