love is... commodified for reality tv
on opposition, infatuation, and shakespeare
hosted by burned out boy-band member nick lachey, and his wife, vanessa, love is blind is a netflix dating show aiming to prove that love doesn’t care about appearances. through having contestants date for two weeks without seeing each other, the ultimate goal is to get married after only four weeks of knowing each other. the main flaw in this idea is, perhaps the most crucial element, that it is filmed, edited, and televised, participants are under near-constant surveillance and therefore naturally putting on a performance, whether that is concious or (more likely) subconcious.
shakespeare is a poet and writer from hundreds of years ago, and romeo and juliet is recognized globally as one of the most influential love stories and tragedies to ever be written. nearly every play written by shakespeare is solidified in the literary canon, an almost universal opposite to a reality tv show created solely for the purpose of creating drama and a guilty pleasure to enjoy when the internet isn’t paying attention. in other words, romeo and juliet is a part of high society and the culture that comes along with it, it’s respected as art, and love is blind is clearly, not.
i think love is blind failed to prove their point, all that “blinding” contestants led to was a total idealizing their partners, only for “the real world did diminish the spark”. i’m sure this is partially due to physical attraction, (which is odd considering they only cast conventionally attractive people), but i also makes sense when you remember one of the most normalized statements, discussing “how i expected [my partner] to look”. instead of simply listening to the content of what the other person is saying and not thinking at all about what they look like, the environment encourages contestants to imagine their partner in a very specific way. sometimes it obvious as inquiring about their weight, or as subtle as talking about family and socio-economic status.
i argue that the key aspect of both love is blind (and romeo and juliet) is separation. the confines of the time frame and inability to physically interact is how that barrier functions in love is blind, and the family’s mutual rivalry does the same for romeo and juliet. the phrase “absence makes the heart grow fonder” is fascinating in this context because, while it can certainly be applied on a surface level, i don’t think it is true. a more fitting saying would be “absence makes the heart want validation from an idealized person” which, while a bit wordy, feels far more accurate. this separation created “a spark” but it is not love. love necessitates actions and interaction. if someone does not know you, they cannot love you.
this is part of the reason why most couples on love is blind and, the iconic duo of romeo and juliet feels so unstable. romeo went from being madly in love with rosaline, to being madly in love with juliet, over the course of a day or two. as an observer, it feels wrong, we call this love but how can it be when romeo and juliet can barely spend enough time together to truly know each other? let alone accept all of the little nuances that come with the familiarity needed for love. similarly, on love is blind, the supposed “foundations” of relationships built what high tendencies fall apart once they begin to live together, after all, every married couple from season two have now divorced. i think this is the main reason romeo comes off as annoying to audiences, as do many of the carbon-copy frat bros we see on love is blind, the relationships they build are purely founded on infatuation, and when they realize that the person they’ve imagined doesn’t exist in reality, they leave for someone new.
an extension of this, is what i have dubbed “oppositional love”. it’s the fantasy of defying the odds, the romeo and juliet complex. this also exists in love is blind, only presenting in much subtler ways, the very act of filming this “experiment” is creating a barrier between people. producers create drama for entertainment, reality tv is perhaps the only place where insecurity is positive, it creates story and intrigue. “my only love sprung from my only hate!” displays this pattern of first idealizing them as the enemy and then, idealizing them as a romantic partner.
along with all similarities mentioned, i cannot negate the differences. in love is blind, everything is commodified. they win by staying and meeting someone, fighting with them will (at least socially), only create gain. romeo and juliet only lose from being together, they both die in the end. and, while the external environment obviously differs, both environments creates similar effects of delusion.
while oppositional and naive relationships are not a particularly new topic, the parallels between classic literature and love is blind somehow added to my existential dread in a chaotic and inexplicable way. realizing that romeo and juliet had enough common ground with a dating show hosted by nick lachey to write a substack essay on, is simultaneously bringing me a lot of joy, and yet still fueling a deep distrust for the future of humanity, in a way only reality tv can do.