Can you select a love partner if they’re masked? Dating show silly, but revealing.
“Sexy Beasts” is a new dating competition show from Netflix, in which people try to make romantic connections while wearing elaborate masks that completely disguise their looks. Until the big reveal, the most you can ever see of them is their eye color and teeth, which tell you even less than you’d think.
It’s a silly show — that should be understood going in. The idea is for contestants to establish a genuine rapport, without their looks getting in the way. But a problem of the show is that the contestants are very young, mostly in their early 20s, and most don’t have much going for them besides their looks. So, at times it’s like watching singlecell organisms trying to make conversation.
Easily, this show would have been improved if the participants were older. Not 50, but, say, 30ish. When you’re 30, you have a lot more going on besides your surface. When you’re 20, you pretty much are your surface, so concealing it is practically a matter of concealing everything. “Sexy Beasts” is interesting, nonetheless, with little moments of revelation mixed in with the silliness.
Each 23minute episode introduces the person who will choose from among three possible love matches. Sometimes, a man does the choosing, sometimes a woman. All four participants are masked. They don’t know how the others look and, more important, we don’t, either. So, the impressions we have of all of them are totally on the basis of how they sound and what they say.
In the first round, there’s a speed date, after which the person choosing eliminates one of the contestants. Then there are longer dates with each of the remaining candidates, followed by a decision and then the big reveal of everyone’s actual appearance.
A few random observations:
(1) In the first couple of episodes, it was too easy to guess who’d be eliminated in the first round — it was whoever wore the ugliest mask. Thus people were still being judged on the basis of looks, only this time on the basis of a mask. Word to the wise, if you’re a woman trying to impress a man, it’s a disadvantage to be done up like a zombie. Fortunately, that oversight was corrected in later episodes.
(2) In one episode, a young male contestant talks a lot of spiritualism and sensitivity, and he seems authentic. Then you see the guy underneath the costume, and you realize, “Wow. That’s just his line.” You can get a lot from just looking at somebody, even for just a few seconds.
(3) It can also be instructive to hear someone without seeing them. In one case, a woman sounds nutty from under her mask. Later, she reveals herself to be very attractive, and you have to wonder if her beauty would have obscured the perception of her nuttiness, at least for a few dates.
(4) In the old “The Dating Game,” couples finally got to see each other’s faces, but, having met, they didn’t have to say anything to each other. They just had to stand there and hear about their upcoming date. But here, each reveal is followed by a brief bit of conversation, and those are the moments worth the price of admission.
In the very second that they see each other, a power dynamic kicks in. On one occasion, a perfectly nicelooking guy chooses a woman who turns out to be dropdead, howlatthemoon gorgeous. He’s thrown, and she more or less tells him that she just wants to be friends. Ouch. In another case, a woman chooses a guy, and as soon as they see each other the power shifts in the man’s favor.
Basically, sooner or later, the masks have to come off, and that’s when you find out not only how people look, but what’s really going on.