Rupert Everett on weddings and marriage, gay and straight

[Lottapianos]

'But why do we want to get married in churches? I don't understand that, myself, personally. I loathe heterosexual weddings; I would never go to a wedding in my life. I loathe the flowers, I loathe the fucking wedding dress, the little bridal tiara. It's grotesque. It's just hideous. The wedding cake, the party, the champagne, the inevitable divorce two years later. It's just a waste of time in the heterosexual world, and in the homosexual world I find it personally beyond tragic that we want to ape this institution that is so clearly a disaster."

In today's Guardian

I'm no fan of his and in the rest of the interview he comes across as really quite vile IMO. I enjoyed this quote though. I feel much the same as he does about weddings although probably wouldn't put it in such strong terms and I don't have any sort of problem with cake or champagne

I support gay marriage 100% because I know that marriage is important to some people and it should be available to all but personally feel that civil partnerships are a much more egalitarian system.

He has a point about the high rate of divorce. Do you share his views that the institution of marriage is 'clearly a disaster'?

Each to their own.

I do find it ironic though that in the only movie of his to have made any money, he plays the ultimate wedding guest

Oh that's right - 'My Best Friend's Wedding' I do like that film but thought he was way over-rated in it. And the singalong scene makes me cringe!

Ugh at his comment about wanting to carry out a female circumcision on some poor wardrobe assistant who annoyed him.

I've been loving Everett's serialisation on R4 this week. The term 'vicious old queen' might have been invented for him. Dead funny.

I'm not sure the institution of marriage is 'clearly a disaster' - in fact, from the point of view of the property, inheritance and other rights conferred on spouses as opposed to partners, it's a very useful contract - but I do think there's far too much emphasis on the 'fucking wedding dress' and other twiddles and trappings over the grim reality of what it means to be connected to someone else 24/7 for the rest of your life. Watnt to talk about dull stuff like finances, division of labour, attitudes to child-rearing bride and groom-to-be...? No no!! Let's pick flowers and ribbons!!! If we had to go in for training and sit tests to earn marriage licences similar to driving licences before we could sashay down the aisle, maybe it wouldn't be so disastrous for so many.

'If we had to go in for training and sit tests to earn marriage licences similar to driving licences before we could sashay down the aisle, maybe it wouldn't be so disastrous for so many'

Cogito, you may have a point I'm all for having fun and spoiling each other and stuff, but all the obsession with 'romance' and froufrou and dressing up around weddings makes me hurl because it seems to obscure the very serious nature of forming a partnership with another person.

I'm often struck, reading MN threads as I do, how many people express genuine horror at some belief/habit/attitude of their DH/DW and find myself wondering how they had managed to be in a relationship with someone for so long and not known. If the UK was a society where marriages were arranged between strangers it might be understandable. But, given that it's meant to be a voluntary thing, you'd think everyone would be more clued up. I'm not even talking about the abusers. Just regular stuff like who does the housework or how the money's going to be divvied up...

I agree, although there is evidence to show that marriage can change the dynamic in relationships with men in particular expecting the wife to carry out more of the housework and childcare. Some people do get all swept up in the 'romantic' stuff about being married and don't spent nearly enough time sorting out the practical, less fun stuff.

Absolutely. 'Wife' (and also 'mother') is a very loaded word that unfortunately brings out the misogynist in far too many.

I quite like old Mr Everett. Find myself agreeing with lots of things he says, but not others.

Sometimes I feel like smearing menstrual blood all over the sanitised girly-girly stuff I see everywhere (not weddings in particuar), yeah

(I mean by that girly-girly portrayal of all things feminine, its disempowering IMO)

'Sometimes I feel like smearing menstrual blood all over the sanitised girly-girly stuff I see everywhere (not weddings in particuar), yeah'

You bring the menstrual blood jane, I'll bring the vomit. What a pair of sickos we are

Yy to having to pass a test to get a marriage license :-D

I'm picturing something like Mr & Mrs with the sound proof booth.

Would also reduce forced/fake marriages.

Hmm. Who wants to start a petition?

I'm in! Although I'm anti-marriage in principle so maybe that rules me out