New crop of dating shows seem blind to body diversity
Despite twists, contestants are conventionally attractive. News & Views,
It takes some commitment to go on a date with a woman who’s dressed like the devil. But that’s exactly what three men do in Netflix’s cheeky and disturbing new reality dating series, “Sexy Beasts” (streaming Wednesday). And during their dates, the men are elaborately costumed as a baboon, a marble statue and a mouse. “Beasts” is part of a new trend in reality dating shows that take “blind dating” seriously. “Beasts,” Netflix’s “Love Is Blind” and even ABC’s more G-rated “Celebrity Dating Game” (Mondays, 10 EDT/PDT) offer the promise of love connections even when the suitors can’t see each other. What if, the brave reality TV producers muse, people could make emotional connections before physical looks get involved?
But it seems like a moot point when all the contestants have one thing in common: They’re conventionally attractive and thin.
What is the point of adding “blind” to dating if everyone looks like they’ve been cast in a CW drama? Why isn’t there more diversity in body types? What makes these series interesting if the face behind the devil literally is a fashion model?
The answer is obvious and shallow, of course. Mainstream media, from Hollywood to Madison Avenue to the influencers rising on your social media feeds, have long upheld one body type as the ideal.
Over the past few decades, brands have woven “body positivity” into their ad campaigns, and a
few A-list stars of size have risen through the Hollywood ranks. But the vast majority of the images we see feature a homogeneous group of people who meet impossible beauty standards.
The dearth of body diversity in Hollywood is a huge problem that needs to be addressed. Just as in so many other facets of identity, representation matters for viewers who need to see people who look like them on the screen. Such series as Hulu’s “Shrill” have tackled these issues head on, while providing great romantic comedy with stars of different body types.
But a lack of body diversity in
dating series isn’t just a question of poor representation – it makes for misleading, dull, predictable TV.
The tone of “Beasts” suggests an element of risk to the blind dates, as well as an element of freedom. As the devil bachelorette fashion model explains, men judge her as a hot bimbo before they ever really get to know her. While red makeup obscures her face to the suitors wooing her, it doesn’t hide that she has a model physique.
Were the baboon, the mouse and the marble statue really judging her only on personality?
When the masks come off, everyone is blandly attractive and the winner is blandly happy with the date they got. The counterargument is that if everyone weren’t so beautiful, the series could be a mess of awkwardness and cruelty. And surely, if “Beasts” was mostly about body shaming during reveals, it wouldn’t be palatable.
Still, it feels remarkably safe and boring considering that a trailer promises a dolphin woman on the dating scene. Don’t worry, human grasshopper she meets at a bar: Underneath the disguise,
she’s sure to be hot.
On “Blind,” (an “After the Altar“spinoff streams July 28) the format takes bodies out of the equation by having couples date with opaque barriers between them (viewers can still see both singles). Those who hit it off eventually meet in person, go on a trip, evaluate their compatibility and decide whether they want to walk down the aisle.
The problems that arise between the couples rarely involve physical attraction
– many engage in sexual relationships right away. The real drama comes from the fact that many of the people who signed up for the dating experiment weren’t willing to marry a stranger after only a couple of weeks on a dating show. It’s as though the “blind” part of the title is simply an afterthought.
Things are slightly better on “Dating Game,” which, despite being a vapid remake of a show that first aired in 1965, offers a swath of celebrities and contestants that look slightly more like its viewership. It’s uncomfortable, however, that the producers appear to offer larger contestants only as dates for larger stars. That a plus-size person could have a straight-size partner is the stuff of Kevin James sitcoms.
The reality dating genre has never been the most enlightened or diverse. ABC’s “The Bachelor” franchise unveils a well-toned group of contestants each season, with noticeably infrequent racial diversity among the leads. The run of 1990s and early 2000s MTV series – from “A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila” to “Singled Out” – routinely cast conventionally attractive people. But we are a long way from the lows of many of the trashiest reality dating series.
Leaving out plus-size people feels particularly egregious in the blind dating genre, in which contestants have a chance to bond without beauty standards, for body size or anything else, getting in the way. It could be a moment of enlightenment, and offer depth to series that routinely lack it. These shows could help our society change the conversation around body positivity. The stories would be more engaging, more surprising and unique.
Dating the devil is an easy sell, but according to Hollywood, going out with a fat person is a bridge too far.