Directing the scene: The industry influence on funeral rituals

increasingly incorporated, mushrooming into a multi-billion-dollar network. While conducting interviews at two separate family-owned and operated funeral homes in the field, I learned that corporations such as SCI (Service Corporation International) have progressively devoured small funeral businesses since the 1990s. Local, family-owned funeral homes are increasingly

“being taken over or displaced” by a small number of corporate giants (Kastenbaum, 2007, p.

189). In some cases, the original owner will remain as an employee or ‘front man’ of the business to maintain a small-town feeling and local image with a familiar face, while hiding the fact that the brand now operates under corporate management ([Frank,* PI, 2019]; Kastenbaum, 2007). The National Funeral Directors Association estimates that “Approximately 89.2% of funeral homes in the United States are privately owned by families or individuals. The remaining 10.8% are owned by publicly-traded corporations” (NFDA, 2019b). While this may not seem like a large percentage, the reach is still expansive. SCI is the biggest name in the industry and serves as a multinational umbrella corporation with multiple brands, running over 1,900 funeral homes, more than five hundred cemeteries, and one hundred crematoria across the U.S. and Canada (Kelly, 2015).

Such an accumulation of power in any given industry begs the question of choice and agency of consumers. As Smart (2010) points out: “choices made by consumers are in respect of given ranges of goods and services produced within economic circumstances and market conditions and subject to cultural processes and influences which consumers have not chosen” (p. 33). In other words, consumer choices are always limited to the boundaries set by the dominant regime.

For many decades, this left consumers with slim options outside the costly, standardized

‘traditional’ funeral. Yet even cremation, the cheaper alternative, typically amounts to a bill of

73 several thousands (NFDA, 2019c). Because disposal of the dead is deemed a necessary part of societal functioning (for obvious reasons), many people feel they have no choice but to follow the structures in place: "We've become convinced that parting with lots of money - as our final gift to someone that allows them to eternally rest in peace - is just the way it is and the way it's always been" (Fournier, 2018, p. 2).

Buried treasure: The underlying costs of funerals

People find themselves in a tricky situation as they are forced to make very difficult, very expensive decisions within a matter of days, all while dealing with their grief. When I visited the showroom of a privately-owned funeral home during my fieldwork, I was greeted by a wide selection of caskets to choose from. Steel caskets, which were painted in shiny metallic hues of blush pink, baby blue, silver, and gold, cost approximately $2,995. The most expensive casket in the room, made of beautiful dark mahogany, cost $6,995. Most caskets were priced within the $3,000-$4,000 range. The cheapest available casket ($1,995) was not displayed in the showroom – a typical sales tactic to encourage consumers to purchase whatever is readily visible (Mitford, 2000). “Funeral directors argue that they guide uninformed consumers to make better choices, while critics argue that they induce vulnerable consumers to overspend on funerals” (Harrington, 2007, p. 209). According to funeral director Joel,* what justifies spending so much money on a funeral is the peace of mind that comes from knowing that the deceased loved one is in good hands and well taken care of: “I just don’t think death is the time to half-ass do anything … because it’s an experience that will affect the living [for] the rest of their life.”

Today, with the average funeral costing $7,000-$12,000 (Beard & Burger, 2017; Cengiz &

Rook, 2016; NFDA, 2019b), the impact on a family’s finances cannot be overstated.²⁰ Especially for those struggling with financial security, the cost may indeed “affect the living [for] the rest of their life,” as Joel* had put it. In 1929, R. P. Lee defended early funeral directors, claiming that "in many cases, the Funeral Director has been unable to properly justify his charges. As a result of this he has been the subject of considerable disfavor on the part of some

20 The NFDA lists the 2019 median cost of a funeral with embalming, viewing and burial as $7,640 (or $9,135 including a vault). This estimate assumes a relatively cheap casket price ($2,500) and also does not include additional costs such as cemetery fee, flowers, headstone, obituary, catering, etc., which will increase the cost significantly. The 2019 median cost of a funeral with embalming, viewing, and cremation came to $6,645 including a cremation casket and urn. This estimate is based on the use of a third-party crematory which is generally cheaper than in-house cremation (see NFDA, 2019c). These cost estimates are thus very conservative.

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of the public" (Lee, 1929, p. 68). Nearly a century later, my informants told me the disfavor is still widespread. Brad,* the manager of a casket company and funeral museum guide, blamed

“Walmart mentality” for the common disdain towards the funeral industry. When people complain about the pricing, he likes to pull them aside and ask, “how much did you pay for your daughter’s wedding?” The comparison of wedding costs to funeral costs is a frequent discussion point in the industry. With an average wedding cost of over $30,000 in the U.S.

(three to four times the average funeral cost), some funeral professionals believe that the high price of other ceremonies somehow justifies the price of a funeral – or at least puts it into perspective. My informant Anne, who had accompanied me to the funeral museum, countered that weddings are joyous occasions that are pre-planned for months and that “people don’t walk in on the worst day of their life” to purchase an expensive wedding like they do with a funeral.

Hence, funerals are what Monaghan (2009) labels a “classic distress purchase” (p. 1037).

Why are funerals so expensive in the first place? Several of my informants who work in the mainstream funeral industry explained the costs involved with running and maintaining a funeral business. Between daily operations, staff salaries, vehicles, merchandise and overhead costs, one informant calculated that “you could literally buy a house every month” with the money it takes to run a funeral business [Joel,* PI, 2020]. The operating expenses help to explain in part why funerals cost so much. For family-run businesses with high competition and a small clientele, this can cause serious financial concern, and may force them to become absorbed into the corporate model. Acquisitions of smaller businesses allow corporate funeral chains to operate on economies of scale (Sanders, 2010), for example by maintaining centralized locations for embalming and/or cremation, with smaller satellite branches to handle sales and customer service (Harrington, 2007). This helps increase business efficiency and lower the operating costs for these funeral chains, in turn generating even more competition for the remaining small, family-owned businesses.

Nonetheless, with a national median of $2,195 to cover the ‘nondeclinable basic services fee,’

an average charge of $350 just to pick up and transport a body to the funeral home, $750 for embalming, a $500 charge to use the staff and facilities for the ceremony (usually less than an hour), and an average charge of $425 to use the facility for a viewing, we can extrapolate that the profit margin is still quite high for each funeral (see NFDA, 2019c, for national median cost breakdowns). Moreover, in 2012, over 100,000 people were employed in the funeral industry (Benincasa, 2017) and in 2015, the industry was worth over $15 billion USD (Kelly, 2015),

75 indicating that it is indeed a lucrative business – especially for corporate chains. Whatever goes deep into the ground is causing us to go even deeper into our pockets. Wood and Williamson (2003) pointedly ask: “Is good dying merely becoming good business?” (p. 22).

Masters of ceremonies: The guidance of funeral directors

With their dominance over the funeral regime since the early 20^th century, funeral directors have dictated societal norms and practices around death to a large extent. Olson (2016) explains that "One key way in which funeral professionals maintain control over the dead human body (and thus death care markets) is by defining a unique social space over which they themselves have authoritative, expert jurisdiction" (p. 83). In other words, the funeral industry maintains its status and control over the death realm by seizing the authority and competence their professional status ostensibly endows them with. Wells (2000) notes that “the transition has been accomplished with the eager consent of most Americans, grateful […] to have the task of handling dead bodies assumed by others” (p. 287). In this way, “Experts emerged both to define and to manage death and grief” (Ibid., p. 282, emphasis added).

The practice of embalming provides a prime example of this transfer of authority: "Through the standardization of funeral embalming, US undertakers transformed the care of dead bodies into a technical occupation that required specialized knowledge, practical training, and skill" (Olson, 2016, p. 83). As we saw, embalming has become a staple of the American funeral ‘tradition’

(Canning & Szmigin, 2010), and the majority of people also believe that embalming is required by law (Kopp & Kemp, 2007). While some states require either embalming or refrigeration within a certain time period, embalming is typically only required in special circumstances, e.g.

if an autopsy has been performed or if the body will be transported across state lines – what Kastenbaum (2007) calls “postmortem emigration” (p. 396). While embalmed bodies can be kept ‘fresh’ for six or seven months when refrigerated at a temperature of 34-37°F [about 1-3°C], even unembalmed bodies last up to four weeks, giving families a significant window of time to make funeral arrangements [Joel,* PI, 2020]. However, during my fieldwork I learned that some funeral homes have their own regulations and policies that a body must be embalmed before an open-casket viewing. In the absence of federal embalming laws, consumers can thus still get pulled into this practice through funeral businesses introducing their own policies that

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mandate embalming.²¹ Nonetheless, “All states have exceptions to embalming requirements if religious practices prohibit it” (Coutts et al., 2018, p. 141).

Similarly, policies for the use of burial vaults are often mandated by individual cemeteries, even though they are never legally required by any state or federal laws. Vaults or grave liners are often sold under the guise of ‘protection’ for the deceased, allegedly keeping them ‘safe’ from decomposition. The actual purpose of vaults is to ensure that the ground above the grave remains flat when the body and casket inevitably begin decomposing and caving in underneath.

A cement or steel vault keeps the ground in place, making it easier for cemetery workers to mow the lawn, which is why many enforce these policies (Fournier, 2018; Wells, 2000). Thus, depending on the cemetery, consumers may find themselves forced to make these unnecessary and environmentally damaging purchases, whether or not they want them – adding another

$1,500 to the price tag (NFDA, 2019c). Yet, because consumers likely take these regulations for granted, they may not question the necessity of vaults or embalming, since “Performance in a practice is often neither fully conscious nor reflective” (Warde, 2005, p. 140). Funeral consumers simply trust the funeral professionals when it comes to rules and regulations.

Whether a family chooses ground burial or cremation, funeral directors generally encourage an open-casket viewing beforehand, regardless of disposal method, claiming that it is an important step in the grief and healing process [Joel,* PI, 2020; Frank,* PI, 2019]. Especially for young people who have committed suicide or died in a car accident, funeral director Joel* explained that it can help the family to see the deceased one last time as a “whole” person (i.e. after being put back together through the magic of embalming). Yet Emerick (2000) notes that it can also be “disturbing to see loved ones in such a manner” (p. 43). Not coincidentally, hosting a public viewing also bodes well for funeral businesses financially, since it adds embalming as well as the purchase (or rental) of a nice, ‘presentable’ casket for the viewing. The practices of embalming and open-casket viewing are thus linked together in a “combination of complementary practices” (Hargreaves et al., 2013, p. 406), as one often encourages or even mandates the other.

21 These regulations protect the business’ liability in the case of bodies rapidly decomposing, for example due to post-mortem tissue gas forming from bacteria in the body which can cause “bloating and exploding” [Joel,* PI, 2020]. In some cases, bodies may also purge the contents of their stomachs or intestines even days after dying.

One funeral director shared with me in vivid detail the story of a corpse that purged right before his own funeral, ruining his suit and coffin. For these reasons, many funeral businesses have introduced their own embalming policies to ensure that the bodies remain clean and preserved for their open-casket ceremony [Joel,* PI, 2020].

77 In 2019, the NFDA released several videos for funeral businesses to use as promotional material on their websites to help lead conversations around funeral planning with their clients, and to highlight “the important role funeral directors play in guiding families through the process”

(NFDA, 2019d). In light of the business-specific policies in place, the potential nudging of the consumer towards specific goods and services, and the blatant self-promotion of funeral directors, Sanders (2010) explains the role of funeral professionals in shaping funeral practices:

Because of their hegemony over funeral rites, [funeral directors] provide the public with understandings that inform consumers how to dispose of their dead, how to memorialize and remember the dead, and how to celebrate death with others in the community. (p.

50).

The industry has thereby scripted a societal blueprint for dealing with death, determining what is considered ‘appropriate’ conduct in times of overwhelming emotion and uncertainty.

Consumers generally follow their guidance because they “don't know any other way to handle matters when a loved one dies” (Herring, 2019, p. 5). Thus, after a death has occurred, we tend to outsource the care and keeping of our deceased loved ones to professionals, the same way we might outsource our dry-cleaning. According to a cemetery manager I interviewed in the field, the title ‘undertaker’ originated from them undertaking the tasks people did not want to do – like cleaning and dressing a body for the funeral. In this way, funeral homes serve a vital function by providing the “space to allow a family to grieve and be with their own feelings and not have to deal with the logistics of a body” [Alan,* PI, 2020]. Yet, by fulfilling these vital societal functions, the funeral industry simultaneously dictates how these functions shall be performed. In other words, by taking over the competences of funerary practices, funeral directors have also dictated the materials to be used and the meanings they hold in society, and thus maintained control over the death realm – to a certain extent.

5.3.2 Playing their part: Funeral consumers act out societal norms