LOVE IS BLIND Embraces Hedonism for the Sake of Drama
By Movieguide® Contributor
LOVE IS BLIND is a dating reality television show streaming on NETFLIX. Created by Chris Coelen and hosted by Nick and Vanessa Lachey, the series is designed as a social experiment meant to determine if an individual can fall in love with someone they’ve never seen.
LOVE IS BLIND SEASON 2 follows 15 men and 15 women from Chicago, Illinois, who are hoping to find lifelong love. For 10 days, the individuals date each other in “pods” where they can talk to each other but can’t see each other. The show starts in a speed-dating format, but as the days proceed, contestants can choose to have longer dates. Whenever they feel ready, the dater can extend a marriage proposal. If the other party accepts the proposal, the couple is them allowed to see each other for the first time.
The couple then heads on a pre-wedding honeymoon at a resort where they can get to know each other better, become physically intimate, and meet the other couples participating in the experiment. Following the honeymoon, the engaged couples all move to the same apartment complex. While there, they meet their partners’ families and learn more about each other’s day-to-day lives including finances, recreation, personal habits, etc. After a month, each couple has a wedding, and the participants decide whether to say “I do.”
LOVE IS BLIND has a primarily pagan, romantic worldview. The series has a more liberal view of marriage and love and focuses on the self-fulfillment and self-gratification that comes from marriage, far from the biblical descriptions of marriage to imitate the love of Christ and His bride.
The contestants are selfish, manipulative, conniving, and deceitful. They have sex before marriage, live together, drink in excess, talk extensively about their sexual histories and body parts, profane the name of God, and regularly curse.
While some conversations in season 1 contained pro-life elements, there is virtually nothing redemptive about this series. Contestants are fully engaged is hedonism and embrace it as a normal way of life.
While the series is engaging, dramatic, and entertaining with beautiful scenery, it all feels fake. The structure makes many viewers question how much is “real” and how much is edited to promote conflict and keep eyeballs on the episode. Furthermore, the screening process for contestants is clearly rigged to produce a wide range of people who will produce a maximum amount of drama, and there is no indication the producers are trying to make a lasting match. Over the course of the show many contestants get emotionally manipulated and hurt and while they are free to leave at any time, it still begs the question as to whether this is necessary.
Because of these problems, Movieguide® finds LOVE IS BLIND to be excessive and worth skipping.
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