Love is Blind
What is love? Is it blind, blurry, or crystal clear? Well, that’s what Netflix’s “Love is Blind” seeks to answer. Now in its sixth season, the show challenges singles to develop emotional connections with each other and get engaged to be married, all before seeing them in person. It starts with participants communicating as they are in different rooms and separated by a wall, which cast members hope ends in a proposal. Next comes the big reveal in which now-engaged couples see each other for the first time. Later, couples intermingle, live together, and experience their reality in tandem with their partner. At last, at the altar all that awaits is an: “I do,” or not?
As an avid fan of the show who has been watching since age 15 (now age 19), I have slowly begun to recognize its faults. So, in this article, I aim not to summarize any particular season but to instead prompt all (especially teenage and young adult) watchers of “Love is Blind” to be conscientious as they continue to view the show.
Don’t Let Love Blind You
Relationships. Love. Romance. All major societal desires. But where does the problem come in? In “Love is Blind”’s case, the glamorization of the show’s premise and capitalization on such aspirations. While the show has grown increasingly popular, holding first place for many weeks with each season’s release and increasing in audience size, it’s lost its initial premise by slowly becoming a source of harmful reinforcement of societal beauty conventions. When participants first enter the show, they state they’re ready to find love and marry someone who truly sees them without the physical. Some are ready, some lead others astray, and others aren’t. However, the very nature of seeing one’s true self through this show is, unfortunately, deeply misleading. When the big first-time reveal occurs, some find this to be a joyous occasion. For others, love goes from blind to perhaps a bit blurry as they realize they value physical connection as much as they do emotional, and often get bashed on social media platforms for such sentiments.
However, it is imperative to recognize that those delighted at first sight also express in later interviews that they feel a physical connection that enhances the emotional one. Even upon seeing their partner, physical affirmations such as “You like what you see,” “Oh my gosh, you’re so beautiful,” “You’re so handsome,” etc., tend to be the first statements to escape participants’ mouths. Even after couples express enthusiasm post-viewing one another, secondary remarks often include needing to immediately explore each other physically. While, to some extent, this makes sense as they plan to marry a stranger after knowing them for such a short period, the reunions of each season often demonstrate the negatives that “Love is Blind” tries so hard to gloss over. From Shake’s (Season 2) internalized racism projected toward his then-partner Deepti (Season 2) to Jimmy’s (Season 6) remarks about Chelsea (Season 6) not looking like Megan Fox and preference toward smaller girls, the show simply reiterates what people already knew: finding the one isn’t easy and can mess with your self-esteem if you don’t choose wisely. Some participants even actively acknowledge the red flags, such as AD (Season 6) with Clay (Season 6) or Nancy (Season 3) with Bartiste (Season 3), but actively advocate to persist in the name of love. And while I do credit that the show portrays these realities rather than simply skipping to scenes at the altar, Love is Blind nonetheless benefits from these extremities as those moments garner attention on social media platforms like Twitter while simultaneously doing little to address when remarks or behaviors get too far out of hand. For example, Love is Blind has been subject to many recent online debates branching from lawsuits on abuse among the cast to social media uproars about participants with a history of endangering their partners being allowed to partake in this experiment. Whether this is for dramatized effect and press (good, bad, and in between) or simply the fault of poorly conducted background checks is unclear. Still, it is a reminder that while reality television can unfortunately mirror reality, internalizing the variety of the messages presented in the show could do more harm than good. Thus, take each moment with a grain of salt. For these reasons, I want to emphasize to viewers, especially teenage-young adult viewers like me who are starting to navigate relationships, that while I still can’t say from watching “Love is Blind” if love truly is blind or not, you must recognize your beauty inside and outside so that in this love-obsessed society, you don’t let love blind you.
