Lessons to learn from MAFS
THERE IS VERY LITTLE SYMPATHY FOR CONTESTANTS WHO CLAIM TO BE MISREPRESENTED, PAINTED AS VILLAINS AND TOLD TO PLAY CERTAIN ROLES THE Married At First Sight phenomenon has ended in an boganistic orgy of catfights, terrible tatts and poor life choices. So many poor choices.
If ever a show made you feel good about yourself, it is MAFS. The ratings juggernaut, on some nights its audience is more than 2 million, has enchanted the nation with huge numbers tuning in four nights a week to see the tawdry antics of the dim and shameless.
Even the season’s dullest episode, devoted entirely to tattoo-haired Mike and nose-ring Heidi, rated through the roof. Close to 1.4 million tuned into MAFS last Tuesday night compared to 506,000 who watched the Budget coverage on the ABC.
I confess I’m among the scores of Australians who record the program to savour the best bits while fast-forwarding past the boring content — hello, Cam and Jules.
For Nine, the program has been a godsend, particularly given the failure of its revamped Today and The Footy Show offerings. The dinner party episodes, almost guaranteed to degenerate into alcohol-fuelled screaming matches and general degeneracy, have been particularly rewarding for Nine.
There has been much written about how the trashy program detailing the exploits of couples thrown together from all parts of Australia is a sign of a sick, deteriorating society.
Everyone from Andrew Bolt and feminist academics to Mark Latham have commented on the learnings and societal implication of the show’s popularity.
But MAFS’ success is due primarily to its trainwreck value, courtesy of masterful casting and the fact that there is not a great deal of worthwhile content on free-to-air television.
But after five seasons, everyone signing up for this catastrophe knows what they are getting into. And, sadly, there are literally thousands of Australians who want to take part.
There is very little sympathy for contestants who claim to be misrepresented, painted as villains and told to play certain roles.
No one forced you to bare your soul or your tatts on TV — and surely, they would realise that the short-lived fame comes with a heavy price.
But still, it’s hard not to feel some judgment for the producers for what they did to Ning Surasiang.
She was clearly a delicate soul who feared rejection more than most, and yet they put the mother of three from Townsville with a man in Melbourne.
Even if she was going to find love, how is she supposed to relocate three children aged three, seven and 15, to a new city some 2600km away without the approval of their fathers?
By matching Ning with a man from Melbourne, the risk of rejection and failure was increased significantly for a woman who has been abandoned in the past and fears being abandoned again.
Where was the duty of care for a fragile mother? You can deride the adults who sign up to be a part of this hot mess, but surely a little care must be taken by the producers and the socalled “relationship experts” when children are involved? It’s clear the program’s expert panel is extracting the urine.
You could pick any three people off the street and they’d do a better job of playing matchmaker than Mel Schilling, John Aiken and Trisha Stratford.
So here’s three things I’ve learnt from MAFS:
1. I will look into investing in tattoo laser removal clinics. If the MAFS cohort is representative of the wider population, then we have a serious ink problem representing a significant business opportunity. I have never seen so many ill-considered tatts in the one place. As the great Kevin Bartlett says: think, don’t ink.
2. Freeze your eggs, ladies. No matter how empowered and equal women are in Western society, we are still subject to one great disadvantage: fertility. Men can wait ’til they’re old and grey before starting a family, such as actor Steve Martin who became a first-time father at 67. If more women seized control of their own fertility and froze their eggs, they’d save themselves the indignity of being on MAFS or dating apps/websites.
3. Never allow a loved one — no matter how desperate, dateless or fame-seeking — to go on MAFS, The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, Love Island or any other trashy reality-TV program. Scoring a couple of invites to the Spring Racing Carnival and sad nightclub appearances isn’t worth the nationwide mockery you’ll endure.