Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday
Reality Show Screws with the “Sanctity” of Marriage / Dustin Rowles
Trade News | February 3, 2009 | Comments (32)
There have been quite a few truly odious reality shows over the last decade (enough, really, to warrant its own Seriously Random List). Can you even remember when “Who Wants to Marry My Dad?” was considered barrel scraping repugnance? Nobody would think twice about that show now, unless the father was transgendered and nobody informed the suitors (of course, that idea was already attempted in the UK with disastrous, litigation-intensive results).
Anyway, CBS is picking up its own entry into the mess with people’s reality reality shows; this one deals with arranged marriages. In it, four adults apparently incapable of finding a spouse on their own are fixed up by the producers with a wife or husband. It’s not an actual contest (it doesn’t appear); rather, cameras will follow the four couples’ marriage and, you know, see how it works out for them. So, basically, CBS et. al. are going to make a mockery of marriage, but since (presumably) none of the contestants will be homosexual, the conservatives will leave it alone. You know, because the definition of marriage is a union between one man and one woman — there is absolutley no requirement that the man and woman love each other or, really, knew each other before they met during the ceremony.
Granted, I’ll give this show the smallest benefit of the doubt, because it comes from Jane Lipsitz and Dan Cutforth, who were responsible for two of the better reality programs in recent memory, “Project Runway” (which I actually can’t stand) and “Top Chef” (which is maybe the best reality show on TV). It might make for an interesting social experiment, and though I haven’t checked any statistics on it, I might guess that arranged marriages last longer than traditional ones, although that’s probably more cultural than anything else.
Of course, it’s only a matter of time before reality shows will be inspired/produced by Clive Barker. My prediction: A reality show in which a strict, Hindu vegetarian is put in a room with a chicken leg and told she can’t leave it or eat anything else until she eats the chicken first.
It’s only a matter of time, people.
Comments
Posted by: BarbadoSlim at February 3, 2009 11:25 AM
I really can't understand why we don't use the arranged marriage system in the U.S. of A. It would put a stop most of the whoring and depravity of the current female generation.
They will LEARN to love their arranged mate.
PS: I'm already sick of Top Chef and Coliccio's (whatever) douchehattery.