Weddings as Entertainment in the Reality Show “Love is Blind”
The reality dating show “Love is Blind” (Netflix 2021) brings marriageable young people together in a studio that separates male and female participants whilst they are dating. The dating is “blind” and a type of speed dating during which one man and one woman meet each other in so called “pods”. These spaces are set up as small living rooms with a sofa and a view of the wall that separates the two during their date. The wall blocks the view but conversations between the daters are possible. The aim of the pods is to enable the participants to find their future spouse without having seen each other beforehand. Round one of the wedding game is successfully completed when a woman – it’s always the men proposing – accepts the marriage proposal.
Then they are allowed to see and hug one another in a connecting hall between the two spaces where the female and male participants spend time together and discuss their experiences of the dates. It’s also the place where tears of joy or disappointment are flowing and jealous attacks are expressed. At the end of episode two six couples are ready for marriage but next the couples are tested in reverse order.
Wedding in reverse gear
First, they go on honeymoon to a luxury resort at a Mexican beach where the big question is whether the engaged couples have sex. The consumption of alcohol definitely helps the participants to loosen more than their tongues. One couple already breaks up during the honeymoon, and the extent of their differences are obvious. The honeymoons on location are the focus of three episodes where the couples make sailboat trips, take excursions into the countryside, or enjoy a candle light dinner at the beach. Sometimes the scenery looks like an advertisement for holidays in Mexico. After their return from Mexico, the remaining five couples move in together. They meet their future parents-in-law and friends, choose the wedding dress, and celebrate the bachelor and bachelorette parties before their big day.
The wedding day is the big finale of these blind love stories that takes place in a specially prepared building. The wedding hall is festively decorated with a small stage where the couple gets married – or not. It is not clear if the master or mistress of ceremonies is a civil registrar or a religious authority. Although when the mistress of ceremonies in a black dress with a white (clerical) collar reads “…to be your lawful wedded wife to live together in the holy estate of matrimony?” the wording clearly combines a civil and religious dimension. The finale commences with drama because one groom says no at the altar and his bride falls to pieces. The second couple are luckier. A minister marries them and both say yes “in the presence of God” as he states. Another couples also marries in the show whereas three more couples choose not to marry at the show’s altar.
The Norms of the wedding game
“Love is Blind” designs different marriage stories in which the individual parts comply so closely to standard norms that they can even be reversed. The main thesis of the show is clearly refuted, namely that love is blind: out of six couples only two take their wedding vows. This makes it clear that the show is not about helping young people to find the love of their lives. More pairings leave the show disappointed than happy.
But why is this show so successful even though the happy ending is less probable? The audience obviously enjoys watching how couples mate and fail. But still there is no award for failing but only one for success namely a wedding and the promised mutual love “in the presence of God”. Considering the heterosexual setting of the dates in the pods, the impossibility of seeing each other before the promise of marriage, and the traditional and normative procedures such as the honeymoon, meeting the parents, buying the wedding dress, “Love is Blind” entertains with stereotyped weddings that reiterate, confirm, and reinforce heteronormative traditional gender norms. The procedures before the actual wedding are deeply rooted in the audience’s cultural memory so that they can even be mixed and reordered and yet remain identifiable. “Love is Blind” doesn’t seek to present happy marriage stories, the show is much more about entertaining, providing pleasure, and distraction for an audience that doesn’t seek to question traditional wedding norms.