Looking for Romance on “Unscripted” TV? look elsewhere. This style has been taken over by hard-hearted planners
Usually, nothing.
Of the 24 courtships that have happened on the show so far, only two have actually tied the knot and only one of them are still together (which would be Season 1’s Lauren Speed and Cameron Hamilton, who married on day 40). show and announced last February that they were trying to have a baby). It has a success rate of around 4%.
Still, in the world of reality dating shows, that’s what makes “Love Is Blind” a resounding statistical success. Compare this to the dating show’s grandson “The Bachelor”. That series has been on ABC for 25 seasons, has matched over 300 contestants, and has had just five marriages, of which only one is still going strong (Katherine Giudici and Sean Lowe from season 17). If you’re counting, it’s 0.3%.
But, of course, Happy Coupling isn’t really what dating shows are about these days. Today, the true prize in this genre is not love and marriage. This is money and fame. and Instagram followers.
“There’s a reason why half of the cast of every season of ‘The Bachelor’ is wannabe actors from Santa Monica,” Hunter Hargreaves, a contemporary American television studies professor at Cal State Fullerton, told TheWrap. “There are just too many opportunities for you to stake that fame. So, you can say, ‘Yeah, I’ll play someone who can pretend to fall in love at the right price.'”
There’s still a pretense of romance — especially on “The Bachelor,” the oldest dating show currently on the air, where Amore is still the presumed target — but for the most part, dating shows are now pretty much morphing into “Survivor.” It’s not so much love in players’ minds as it is strategy. When and how stealthily do I need to backstab to advance my agenda? Love will always be playing a Machiavellian, but it’s so steely Never played with Conspiracy before.
When you think about it, this change was inevitable. Because in the real, no-TV world, marriage is becoming less of a reward in itself. US Census Bureau informed of The number of unmarried adults has been increasing over the past year, especially among those aged 25-29. Gen Z, the eldest of whom is currently 25 years old, is taking an even slower approach For dating compared to previous generations.
“The reality dating show was, for many decades, the most resistant to change, simply because our perceptions of heterosexual love were so influential,” Hargreaves noted. “Now that both technology and culture have really broken those codes, our approach to marriage is changing. And reality television has always been important to how we think about cultural differences as a country. Is. ”
Comedian Ian Sterling, who has been the voice of “Love Island UK” for the past eight seasons, has seen firsthand how his take on the popular dating series has changed, in which contestants spend weeks together in a villa without any outside communication.
“I think a lot of people get real feelings,” he told TheWrap. “but [contestants] Definitely think it through. It would be nave to think that he didn’t. ,
The vibe of romance has completely disappeared in some shows. Take HBOmax’s “Fboy Island,” which puts three women on a tropical island with 24 potentially single men — 12 of whom are self-proclaimed “nice guys looking for true love, and 12 of whom have found themselves”. fboys”, only looking to cash in on the $100,000 grand prize by convincing one of the unsuspecting women that he is really, really interested in a relationship with her.
In other words, “Fboy Island” has figured out a way to monetize the cold-hearted betrayal.
“Yeah, it’s a dating show, but it’s also a game show,” said Alan Gale, the show’s creator, who previously spent 10 years as a producer on “The Bachelor.” “Can you learn something about people? Absolutely. Does it matter? Absolutely not. And we’re not going to pretend it does. We’re not going to pretend that whatever we do It’s for the ultimate relationship.”
