Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?

Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire was a TV special that aired on Fox on February 15th, 2000. In the special, 50 women from all around the US would compete in a beauty pageant in order to marry an un-named multi-millionaire.

The show center around the concept of strangers marring each other for financial gain. However this show would historically find itself culturally embedded in rights that are still being threatened. 

It would be another 11 years before the Marriage Equality Act of 2011 of New York State law that made same-sex marriage legal. Efforts to legalize same-sex marriage began to pop up across the country in the 1990s, and with it challenges on the state and national levels. Civil unions for same-sex couples existed in many states but created a separate but equal standard. At the federal level, couples were denied access to more than 1,100 federal rights and responsibilities associated with the institution, as well as those denied by their given state. The Defense of Marriage Act was signed into law in 1996 and defined marriage by the federal government as between a man and woman. 

This performance work was created to bring attention to the hypocrisy of the governments stance on marriage. Seven wedding dresses were worn everyday for 28 days and treated as just common clothing. The styles ranged from traditional to over the top designer dresses. Documentation was recorded randomly by strangers and by coworkers.

Special permission was granted for me to alter dress code standards at my place of work at the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago.