Kriti Mehrotra
If there’s one thing absolutely nobody can deny, it’s that Netflix’s ‘Love is Blind‘ has done wonders for hopeless romantics across the world by showcasing fairytale relationships do exist. Of course, there are some completely disastrous connections too considering how this original is, first and foremost, a reality dating social experiment, but the good does outshine the bad. Though with that comes the question of whether what we see is actually real or if it’s all pre-planned and scripted by producers to create great television as well as a money-grab opportunity.
Love is Blind is As Real As It Gets
Although many reality series’ carry the essence of this genre very loosely, ‘Love is Blind’ is an incredibly refreshing outlier since every single connection it explores is authentic to its core. In other words, it does indeed revolve around a group of young singles as they try to find true love and get engaged without not only seeing one another but also producer involvement. However, the journey that follows does seemingly have a bit of back-end manipulation in the form of location setups, pushing loved ones towards particular topics of conversation, plus editing.
This much has actually even been confirmed by series creator Chris Coelen — he’s also behind ‘The Ultimatum’ — with season 1 contestant Rory Newbrough backing it up with his own viewpoint. “As a producer, I was [initially] kind of nervous like, is anybody actually gonna get engaged?” Chris once told Entertainment Weekly. “Is anyone going to make it to the altar? And, in the end, we actually had more couples get engaged than we were able to follow on the show.”
It thus comes as no surprise that Rory, who had gone down on one knee for Danielle Droui along the way, has since also attested, “As we were preparing to go to the Mexico trip, the leads of the show came in and said, ‘Hey, we were expecting maybe one or two [engagements]… We prepared for five…, so we had to pick who we were going to follow.’ We got our phones back. They thanked us graciously and said, ‘Sorry, we just don’t have enough to cover everybody.'” His story was thus cut, and his connection with Danielle sadly didn’t pan out either.
As for how it was decided who to cover, a source claimed in 2020 that names were essentially picked “out of a hat because it was hard to predict what the outcomes would be for anyone.” Therefore, of course, with the phenomenon its debut witnessed, it’s clear producers have stuck to the same plan to release several more seasons as well as international spin-offs until now.
But alas, we can’t forget to elaborate more on the manipulation aspects — there’s location set-ups, conversation pushes, plus editing, all of which ensure we get the best overview of every storyline/relationship. The former two are admittedly more producer-driven since it makes for more aesthetically pleasing and entertaining television, yet the fact of the matter remains no one is given any scripts or dialogues to adhere to — there’s no scene manufacturing.
However, editing is a completely different ball game because it helps producers not just cut off entire plots (like with Rory Newbrough), but also effectively bring together a smooth flow within all other narratives in the program. In other words, despite some possible gray areas, Netflix’s ‘Love is Blind’ is as real, genuine, and authentic as possible because no conversation, expression, or feelings are pre-penned for the contestants to portray. If they were, we probably wouldn’t have heard season 6’s Matthew Duliba repeatedly using phrases like “America’s gonna be watching” or “America loves an underdog.”
