For seven seasons, “Love Is Blind” contestants shared difficult, sometimes life-changing conversations about issues like race, religion, money, birth control and abortion.
But one topic has been largely absent from conversations in the pods, despite being virtually unavoidable in the real world: politics. We never saw potential couples explicitly asked how they voted. And even though “Love Is Blind” premiered in 2020, at the end of President Trump’s controversial term, his name was never spoken on screen.
Then came season 7, set in Washington, D.C.
The latest installment of the dating experience, as the show markets itself, follows Capitol-area singles and arrives in the home stretch of another contentious presidential race. This is also the first season in which the contestants discuss their personal political beliefs in partisan terms.
“OK, let’s start with this,” Monica Davis, a 36-year-old sales manager, asks Stephen, a 33-year-old electrician, during a first pod date. “Did you vote in the last presidential election? And the elections before? Stephen Richardson explains that in 2016 he voted for Trump “because I didn’t like Hillary (Clinton).” But he came to “despise” the way Trump behaved in office and voted for President Biden in 2020.
“I’ll be happy to admit that my first vote wasn’t the most educated vote,” he tells Monica, who (briefly) becomes his fiancée, until she catches him sending racy text messages to another woman.
This is not the only mention the former president receives in the stands. Bohdan Olinares, 36, and Marissa George, 32, both military veterans, bond over their shared liberal views. Marissa admits she dated a Trump supporter for three years, but discovered that “there’s just a difference in the way our society works.”
“At the end of the day, are you going to vote for a guy who tried to overthrow the government? said Bohdan. “I will never agree to that.”
“I’m not going to vote for a rapist, am I?” she answers.
Marissa eventually becomes engaged to Ramses Prashad, 34, who works at a legal nonprofit and is perhaps the most performative woke person ever to appear on the show. With hair that Marissa’s brother compared to that of ’80s R&B singer El DeBarge and a wardrobe of leather pants and Coogi sweaters, Ramses is also the first person on “Love Is Blind” to quote James Baldwin or to use the expression “hammer of American imperialism”. ” between sips from a golden cup. When Marissa tells him that the movie “Barbie” made her realize that she couldn’t be with someone who supported the patriarchy, he scoffs: “It took “Barbie ” to make you understand that? He also openly despises Marissa’s military service and tells her he would break up with her if she re-enlists (Meanwhile, the only thing he does. should I’m judging Marissa because she thinks Adam Sandler is funnier than Will Ferrell, but I digress.)
On the one hand, this season’s political leanings should come as no surprise. Washington, DC, is one of the most overwhelmingly Democratic places in the country: Biden won 93% of the vote there in 2020. The entire region is full of people working in government, advocacy, lobbying, and the military. And while there are no members of Congress in the cast this season, there are plenty of veterans and at least one “clean energy policy consultant,” Taylor Krause, who recently released A white paper about hydrogen.
Ramses Prashad and Marrisa George end up getting engaged.
(Netflix)
Yet before, it often felt like the producers of “Love Is Blind” were going out of their way to avoid overtly partisan conversations, or that the discussions were so vague as to be almost incomprehensible. (In season 1, Giannina Gibelli and Damian Powers got into what appeared to be an argument about Trump, but no one was sure.) The singles from “Love Is Blind” seem to exist in a parallel universe, curiously devoid of intense polarization. that consumes the rest of the country and forces many Americans to evaluate their neighbors, potential romantic partners, athletes and favorite pop stars based on how they vote.
There were a few coded dog whistles (for example, Sarah Ann Bick from season 6, who described herself as a “patriot”, meaning “Republican”). But for the most part, viewers have had to draw conclusions about candidates’ political leanings based on circumstantial evidence such as their social media history or their predilection for star-studded clothing.
All of this makes Season 7, with its frank and uncomfortable discussions about the role of politics in people’s intimate lives, feel like a watershed moment for “Love Is Blind” as it finally bursts its escapist bubble. It also feels like a belated recognition of our hyperpartisan reality, especially as we approach an election in which issues like abortion, IVF, and child care will be central to how people vote, especially women, who were most affected by the fall of Roe. against Wade and bear the burden of raising children. Many experts expect this election to be marked by a more important vote than ever. gender gap between women, mobilized to support Vice-President Kamala Harris because of her position on abortion, and men, attracted by Trump’s boastful machismo.
But as we see with Ramses and Marissa, compatibility is about more than mutual contempt for Trump or shared support for liberal ideas. The couple’s initially happy relationship begins to fray as they return to Washington and realize that their personal values don’t necessarily align, even if their politics sort of do.
The first signs of trouble appear when Ramses expresses reservations about Marissa’s military service – which he knew about when they got engaged. “I don’t look at politics and that sort of thing as something that exists in a vacuum,” he says. “These ideas affect real people.”
In other words, the personal is political. This is true, especially when it comes to marriage and family, but for Ramses it appears more and more like an empty and selfish slogan. In last week’s set of episodes, he and Marissa shared a tense and infuriating conversation about birth control. (The maddening conversation about family planning has become something of a “Love is blind” trope.) She says she doesn’t want to take the pill, but he balks at the idea of using a condom during sex “because it’s not pleasurable” even though it is. Also categorically about not starting a family for several years. (Here’s where I ask, not for the first time: has anyone on this show heard of an IUD?) Ramses – or at least the edited version of him we see in the show – is a hypocrite, someone who brags about “not having an IUD”. “I’m not trying to follow traditional expectations of what masculinity should look like” and yet this gives his fiancée a hard time making choices about her body that create minor inconveniences for him.
This week we see another painful fight: after Marissa apparently refuses to make love to Ramses because she is sick, exhausted and suffering from nasty PMS, he makes her feel guilty about the lack of physical affection. He even implies that he has doubts about his marriage because of this rejection alone. Usually bubbly and upbeat, Marissa is visibly deflated and exhausted by her partner’s demands. She listens to his concerns, then replies that in the future she may not want to or be able to have sex for any number of reasons – like, for example, if she has just given birth. “This will probably come up several times in our relationship. Is this going to be a problem for you? she asks.
“That’s a good question,” he replies.
It’s also a question he’s not ready to answer, because for all his liberal posturing, he still can’t accept his fiancée’s bodily autonomy. The “Love Is Blind” fandom has already started lashing out at Ramses, calling him a toxic “gaslighter.” We still have a finale and reunion to go, so Ramses has a chance to redeem himself — or at least provide some context to his cringe-inducing conversations with Marissa. But this season has already made it clear that while love can be blind, relationships are still political.
