Wedding Week: ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’: 20 Years Later And Still So Far To Go

Written by Myrna Waldron.

I was 7 years old the first time I watched this film. My family is ethnically British, and I was raised on British-style comedy like Monty Python. My parents shrugged off the R rating–sex and swear words, what’s the big deal? Admittedly, there are few films I’ve seen that have quite as many f-bombs…so maybe we can blame this one for my terrible pottymouth. But there is something to be said for the “It’ll go right over their heads!” argument. I knew Charles and Carrie were having sex. I knew what the f-word meant. But what I didn’t realize until I was quite a bit older…was that two members of the main cast were a gay couple. And their relationship was the strongest one in the entire film.

Although there are no people of colour in the cast (disappointing, but not surprising for a British film seeing as 90% of the population is white), Four Weddings & A Funeral is very progressive for a romantic comedy. Romantic comedies have a sordid reputation as the bastions of white heteronormativity, with only gorgeous people allowed to be seen on film. Lack of racial minorities aside (and don’t think I’m dismissing it; the all-white cast is an issue) we have LGBT representation in Matthew and Gareth, representation of people with disabilities in David (who is deaf-mute and played by a deaf actor), and Gareth is also a portly gentleman with a fuzzy greying beard–the film remembers old and fat people exist!

The traditional romantic comedy relationship is flipped, also. Stereotypically, the frazzled beautiful white woman just can’t find a man! And she’s got contrived flaws, and she has to chase the men in her life, etc. In Four Weddings’ case, it’s Hugh Grant’s character Charles who is lovelorn. He is surrounded by celebrations of heteronormativity–he has to attend weddings practically every weekend. And he feels that there is something wrong with him for not wanting to get married like almost everyone else does, that maybe he’s a commitmentphobe. He doesn’t realize until the end of the film that it’s not a lifelong commitment he’s avoiding, it’s the institution of marriage and the wedding hoopla that he hates. Upon meeting Carrie, he almost instantly realizes she’s the girl for him. Carrie is an American who worked for Vogue, and her approach to relationships is distinctly American and meant to contrast with the rather reserved British approach. Refreshingly, she’s got a very healthy sex life (in one memorable scene, she recounts all 33 of her lovers) and Charles does not judge her at all for it (though he’s somewhat embarrassed his own “number” is much smaller). Neither does the film condemn her from sleeping with Charles again while engaged to another man. It’s just a sign that she’s marrying the wrong man for her.

People tend to make fun of Hugh Grant’s stuttering style of delivering his lines, but I find it adds to his character and makes the dialogue more realistic. Charles seems to be known not only for being perpetually tardy but for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Who hasn’t stuttered and verbally fumbled while trying to talk to a person you’re strongly attracted to? Both Charles and Carrie have realistic flaws but are still sympathetic protagonists. Carrie’s fatal flaw is her indecisiveness when it comes to relationships. It perhaps factors into why she’s had so many lovers, but her flaw is NOT that she’s had a lot of lovers. That’s a progressive and feminist way to approach relationships and has a touch of sex positivity as well.

Speaking of progressiveness, let’s turn back to the minority characters in the main cast. Other than Gareth & Matthew’s relationship, I find the story of David and Serena’s relationship one of the most touching. Serena spots David at one wedding and is instantly attracted to him. She asks Matthew to tell her about him, admitting she thinks he’s “a bit of a dish.” (Matthew agrees, one of many signals that he’s gay.) You can tell that it’s true love because she learns sign language just so she can communicate with him. During the fourth wedding when David gives Charles an “out” from marrying Henrietta, a subtle indicator of the strength of their relationship is that she is able to follow along with David’s signing and reacts to it accordingly. Seeing deaf-mute characters (or even disabled characters in general) is rare enough in a movie, let alone watching a love story for one of them.

When it comes to Gareth & Matthew, even the main characters admit that their relationship was stronger and had a deeper commitment than anyone else’s. After Gareth’s funeral, Charles says to Tom that, in retrospect, Gareth & Matthew were married all along. And oh god, how that pained me. I don’t really know how I didn’t realize that they were romantically involved until I grew up, but that might just be because no one explicitly says, “Gareth and Matthew are in a relationship.” It’s all implied–strongly implied, I’ll grant you, but never explicitly stated.

Twenty years later, LGBTQ couples are able to enter civil partnerships in England…but they’re not allowed to call it marriage (yet?). These two men, who clearly loved each other completely, had to attend wedding after wedding but could never celebrate their love for each other legally. Instead of a wedding, they’re separated by death. Gareth appeared to be a hard-living man–poor diet, smoking, drinking, overly exuberant dancing, and clearly in late middle age. But it seems to add a further twist to the knife that their love is denied in two separate ways. It is at least uplifting that in the sequence of photographs at the end of the film, we see that Matthew has found love again, and it even looks like they’re holding a commitment ceremony.

As a good friend of mine has pointed out, a lot of people (mostly straight allies) seem to think the SCOTUS’ striking down of Prop. 8 and DOMA is not only a major celebration, but the be-all and end-all of queer rights. I mean, it’s good that legal discrimination against same-sex couples has been struck down, but it doesn’t mean that every state is suddenly going to legalize same-sex marriage, nor does it do anything to solve other LGBTQ issues, such as hate crimes. It’s also not exactly thrilling that DOMA was written into law by a supposedly liberal politician in the first place. (Bill Clinton, for those who don’t know.)

There’s still so much left to change. We still have so far to go. The situation of queer rights in the UK isn’t great–not only are they allowed only civil partnerships instead of marriage, the rights of trans* people, for example, are not only being ignored but outright trampled upon. A recent judgement on a “sex-by-deception” case cited gender as a legitimate reason for pressing charges, but age, marital status, wealth or HIV status are not. UK Law also allows a spouse to annul their marriage if their partner possesses a Gender Recognition Certificate and doesn’t tell them beforehand. Comparatively, other people do not have to disclose other parts of their history (criminal status, previous marriages, etc) the way that trans* people are legally forced to. And cis “LGB” individuals seem to be willing to throw the “T” under a bus, just so they can climb up the ladder a little higher. I’m hopefully preaching to the choir when I say this, but that’s BULLSHIT. I’m proud of how comparatively progressive my native Canada is in comparison, but we still have a very long way to go in terms of trans* rights.

Twenty years after Four Weddings and a Funeral, it strikes me that very little has changed. If this film were made today, Gareth and Matthew could enter into a formal civil partnership, but regardless, Charles may not have realized just how deep and committed their relationship had been all along. It’s still very bitter and chilling that it was the committed gay couple that was separated by death. The real theme of this film isn’t weddings and marriage, it’s commitment. Twenty years later, there’s still so little representation of disabled people in films. I honestly can’t think of another film I’ve seen with a deaf-mute character. There should have been more racial minorities in the cast, even in minor roles, instead of just one 5-second shot of a black extra at the funeral. And as comparatively progressive as this film is, all it does is make me think how ridiculous American films look. A film made in a country with a fraction of the US population is more representative of minorities than most films made in a country with 316 million goddamn people. I can’t help thinking that maybe romantic comedies would not nearly have as bad a reputation as they do if they branched out even a little bit and stopped being frivolous celebrations of solely cis white able-bodied heteronormativity.

I also can’t help thinking that although we’ve come so far…we still have so very far to go.

P.S. I was unable to make animated gifs this time around as my only copy of the film is in Blu-Ray, and my laptop can’t read it.

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Myrna Waldron is a feminist writer/blogger with a particular emphasis on all things nerdy. She lives in Toronto and has studied English and Film at York University. Myrna has a particular interest in the animation medium, having written extensively on American, Canadian and Japanese animation. She also has a passion for Sci-Fi & Fantasy literature, pop culture literature such as cartoons/comics, and the gaming subculture. She maintains a personal collection of blog posts, rants, essays and musings at The Soapboxing Geek, and tweets with reckless pottymouthed abandon at @SoapboxingGeek.