Love isn’t blind on ‘Love is Blind’

Season three fails to prioritize personality over appearance

Image by: Amna Rafiq
All the cast members are conventionally attractive.

On another superfluous season of Love is Blind, the show once again fails to prove love is blind.

For once, let’s call a spade a spade: love is not blind. Our society prioritizes superficial factors in partners and this show fails to prove otherwise.

In season three of Netflix’s popular reality dating series Love is Blind, we follow the relationships of 10 individuals who meet and fall in love with partners they’ve never actually seen. The show aims to prove love can develop and succeed without the superficial aspects that we prioritize in most relationships.

In a highly physical and material world where appearance determines value, the concept of the show is applaudable. However, it’s not realistic.

Our society emphasizes physical appearance. Your status, value, and love are often dictated by how conventionally attractive others find you. This isn’t just a sick futuristic concept: psychology has proven this through conceptions like the halo effect.

Hollywood also represents more Eurocentric beauty standards in their casting choices than they do BIPOC actors and actresses, and this show is no different. It neglects to cast individuals who diverge from conventional standards.

All the women on the show, for example, have society’s ideal smaller body type, with larger women shown either in the first episode and never again, or just simply not cast.

On this season, Alexa is represented as the show’s first “curvy girl.”

While this seems like a step in the right direction toward body inclusivity on the show, Alexa is not a bigger girl; she does not represent a big step away from the ideal type of beauty.

How can a show preach falling for someone’s heart while only casting conventionally pretty people? Of course, the partners are going to be happy with what they see—Love is Blind gave them exactly what they wanted.

The show doesn’t speak to genuine connections at all. Its lack of representation and focus on attractive casting choices just confounds its goal.

This brings me to my next point: the people on the show don’t even believe love is blind. Those who met the “love of their life” in the pods and weren’t happy when they saw them make that very clear. I don’t have to analyze much—but I will—to tell you someone is unattracted to their partner when they tell them, “I was more attracted to someone else.” They’ve proved my point for me.

Bartise literally sat in bed beside Nancy and discussed how hot Raven was, completely unaware of when to shut up for the sake of Nancy’s feelings. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see he simply isn’t attracted to Nancy—anyone who was attracted to their partner wouldn’t be talking about their hot fling while sitting in bed with their fiancée.

Cole, another contestant, may be even worse than Bartise. He also discussed how hot another contestant (Colleen) was to his fiancée (Zanab).

Cole’s audacity doesn’t stop there. He also throws mental health questions—or accusations—at her mid-argument, asking if she’s bipolar in the middle of an upset discussion.

Both men are perfect representations of the prioritization of physical attraction in relationships. Why either of them came on a dating show that prioritizes blind connection is beyond me—that might actually take a rocket scientist to figure out.

Love is Blind preaches blind love but, in reality, it only depicts conventionally attractive contestants and fuels the message people only care about external factors. Nothing sucks more than watching a show in hopes you’ll see two people fall in love without surface-level factors, only to then see those surface-level factors be the reason they never fall in love.

The show doesn’t make people feel like love really is blind because they fail to show it.

If Love is Blind really wants to create a space that can prove that love is blind, it needs to offer less conventional prospects, assemble a diverse cast, take individuals off the show who are there for the wrong reasons, and start showing successful couples.

Love can be blind; we just need to stop condoning and enabling toxic individuals who believe otherwise.

Tags

love, Love Is Blind, Superficial

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