Why Love Is Blind made the right choice in excluding fat people

Slate

The Netflix reality show is accused of being fatphobic. "Not having any plus-size people as part of the experiment undercuts any thesis the show purports to test," writes Teen Vogue's Matthew Rodriguez. But as Daniel Schroeder argues, Love Is Blind would be a genuine nightmare for fat people. "There is certainly a version of this show where the producers would choose that angle, but it wouldn’t belong on Netflix," says Schroeder. "That level of cruelty is reserved for TLC. And cruelty is what it would be, because every person’s otherness would consume their whole storyline. Let’s remember this is reality TV, with all the crudeness about human experience that implies. Just as we saw Carlton struggle with his bisexuality on Love Is Blind, we would see each overweight character constantly fret about their appearance, calculating when the right time would be to come out of the fat closet to mitigate disappointment and hurt." Schroeder adds: "People who aren’t this kind of reality TV attractive are treated as objects, not people. Their sole function is typically the way their bodies don’t fit into this televised version of the world, and any storyline that develops is in conversation with their physical self. It’s something they can’t escape. There’s no room for a personality when your body takes up all the story space."

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