Love is Blind - Season 1

“The only queer person we see in Love is Blind oscillates between toxic masculinity and emotional instability.”

Title: Love is Blind
Episodes Reviewed: Season 1
Creator: Chris Coelen 👨🏼🇺🇸
Director: Brian Smith (10 eps)

Reviewed by Ysabelle 👩🏻🇬🇧🇭🇰

—SPOILERS AHEAD—

Technical: 3.5/5

The promo for Love is Blind opens mysteriously. A man dressed in a green shirt with ruddy cheeks begins to speak. “I’ve met the person I want to spend the rest of my life with,” he says, then: “I’ve never seen her before.” Even he seems shocked at the confession. This is Cameron, one of the 30 contestants on the show tasked with an unusual quest to find their soulmate in a series of dates conducted in isolated, windowless pods. Eventually, they’ll be married—all within the span of 11 episodes. These contestants can talk all they want through a wall (or sing, which some do, badly), but men and women live in separate facilities and only get to stay on the show if they become engaged to another contestant. By the final episode, only 10 people, or 5 couples, are left.

I found myself immediately suspicious but intrigued by this premise. It reminded me of various social experiments such as Arthur Aron’s 1997 test, in which he claims any two people can fall in love after answering just 36 thoughtful questions. Yet the show quickly stumbles into superficial farce, eliminating the possibility of meaningful discourse.

This disappointing turn happens right out of the gate, when co-presenters Nick and Vanessa Lachey present a hyper-conventional speech about love. Nick smugly preaches that "psychologists believe that emotional connection is the key to long-term marital success.” He and Vanessa continue to explain how things will pan out: The contestants that get engaged will finally meet, then they’ll spend time in Mexico as a couple and live together, before getting married in the show’s finale. Although they stress consensus throughout all this, the Lacheys bark the commands as if these are milestones everyone must meet.

So many questions arise straightaway. First of all, why Nick Lachey? Secondly, why center marriage as the goalposts for success, when non-marital or even short term relationships can be equally fulfilling? And thirdly, how can anyone really fall in love under such circus-like circumstances, with all the steps laid out like a PowerPoint presentation? These questions answer themselves in due time, but never enough to live up to its hook. Rather than leave space for romance to bloom, Love is Blind mythologizes conventional notions of love and conveys that without intense connections that last a lifetime, we as individuals are worth less. It’s a societal construct that can ruin a person; I watched with equal parts sympathy and horror as contestants performatively sobbed or threw hysterical fits in front of the camera, their families, and their partners. The show cruelly dangles that imaginary carrot of “true love” throughout its season. But I suppose it also shows that humans are resilient, too; in the end, two couples do marry and seem genuinely happy.

Gender: 3/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? NOPE

This show does not pass the Bechdel test. The entire premise revolves around the idea of conventional partnership, with its women exclusively talking about men. Furthermore, they’re presented only as potential mates and their jobs are listed very vaguely. We know, for example, that Jessica is a “regional manager,” but of what and where? The show doesn’t seem to care.

In terms of gender parity, women do equal men. But embedded patriarchal standards exist everywhere. In five out of the six engagements, the men proposed to the women, reinforcing the stereotype that men should take the lead. (The only exception is Giannina, who after receiving a proposal from Damien, then also proposed to him.) Even the show’s editing work perpetuates gender norms: In the very first episode, men in their dormitory do pushups in a testosterone-driven contest while women chat and drink wine in their own living quarters.

Race: 2/5

Several Black contestants join for the beginning of the season, but they’re whittled down to three by the time the contestants get to Mexico—then to one, by the end of the show. While eliminations can hardly be controlled by the showrunners, the powers that be do have power over initial casting. For its dating pool, Love is Blind selects mostly white men and women—19 out of the 30 contestants. And when Black contestants do get screen time, their roles feel pigeonholed. The one Black woman who makes it to the finale, Lauren, spends much of her time questioning her ability to be in an interracial relationship. Meanwhile, Latinx, Asian, Native, and other ethnic minorities remain glaringly absent.

LGBTQ: 1/5

We only see one LGBTQ contestant on the show—a bisexual man named Carlton who seems to oscillate with alarming frequency between toxic masculinity and emotional instability. In a pivotal scene, he breaks up with his fiancée, Diamond, by essentially accusing her of being biphobic while calling her a “bitch” and shutting her down.

However, it’s difficult to say whether any of the contestants were presented respectfully or truthfully, given that the show isn't narrated by any governing voice (the Lacheys turn up only every few episodes) and the contestants are basically left to their own devices. As the only queer person in the show, and one who happens to be Black, Carlton’s sense of alienation and isolation—exaggerated by the already-stifling atmosphere of the windowless pods—might actually have been justified. But given the video editors’ chosen narrative, and without deeper exploration, the show’s only LGBTQ representation is sorely lacking.

Mediaversity Grade: D 2.38/5

Love is Blind exemplifies the best and worst of reality TV. Although the genre itself is superficial and grossly inaccurate when it comes to representation, it also holds a mirror up to our own human faults—and satiates our desires for living vicariously through others.

Like Love is Blind? Try these other love stories that put a spin on in-person courtship.

Grade: DLiMay 30, 2020