Nick and Vanessa Lachey, Religious Elders (OBSESSED #16)
Netflix's "Love is Blind," available on Netflix, is not here to entertain!
Do Love is Blind reunions always feel like straight church? As somebody who’s deeply familiar with the works of youth pastors (re: gorgeous bullies), I’d say Nick and Vanessa Lachey have a bright future evangelical ministry.
Through the Love is Blind season six reunion, I’m convinced Nick and Vanessa were trying to dress up a burgeoning religious movement’s annual summit as an episode of frivolous reality television. Because the bulk of the dramatic tension in this weird-ass episode of televangelism was how emphatically Nick and Vanessa stressed, over and over again, how “the experiment” (re: marrying a stranger who has real opinions on The Avengers: Endgame) is to be regarded with the utmost respect. “The experiment” is sacred. And, most importantly, “the experiment” is not is about entertainment, despite, uh, everything we’ve been led to believe about reality television.
“Guys, I just wanna say, participating in Love is Blind — it’s really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” is one of the first things Nick Lachey (dancer, actor, pop star) says in a solid impression of a cool, firm youth minister who’ll let you have an extra Coke if you commit your soul to the cause for all of eternity. “Vanessa and I believed in it from season one. You can see the results — look around this room.”
Nick and Vanessa host the reunion from center stage, flanked by this season’s cast. In a cluster of bistro tables off-stage, married couples from past seasons are cozied up in booths: proof of the experiment’s legitimacy. Throughout the show, they’re referred to as “the Love is Blind family.”
“We do not want people to come here motivated by fame,” Nick continues. “That’s not what this (re: the show on TV) is about. It’s not fair to the audience and, most important, it’s not fair to the people right here — the people who have invested genuinely in what this thing is truly, truly all about. It’s just wrong. It really is. For people who come here with ulterior motives, we’ve gotta call you out for it.”
Nick delivers this righteous testimony to Trevor, a large sandwich with a mullet who’d just been brought out as a surprise guest two minutes earlier, only to be immediately confronted by Nick and Vanessa over leaked text messages he apparently exchanged with his then-girlfriend right before filming. An unthinkable betrayal in the world of reality television — a genre deeply respected for its firm grasp on reality.
“Did you come here to forward your career and be on TV?” Vanessa Lachey née Minnillo (model, actress, woman uninterested with entertainment) asks Trevor.
“No - what career?” Trevor says.
“I have no idea,” Vanessa says.
Let’s remember that The Bachelor, arguably the franchise that got us into the mess, ends in a marriage proposal. It, too, could be called “an experiment.” But you didn’t see Chris Harrison, the franchise’s long-suffering wax doll host, calling The Bachelor an experiment. He called it what it is: the most dramatic show on television.
And because he knew what the show was, Chris didn’t call out contestants who launch their online astrology businesses the moment their season airs. He’s a consummate professional who dutifully followed the astrology business’ dedicated Instagram, and maybe even bought a candle.
But Nick and Vanessa are not here to be consummate professionals. They are here to CONVERT! They are here to PRAISE the EXPERIMENT! And they certainly are not here, dressed in a sequin gown, tailored suit and seated in a professionally lit studio, to entertain!
Unlike The Bachelor, Love is Blind is deeply interested in propping up a traditional, monogamous marriage as aspirational. Nick, Vanessa and the rest of the Love is Blind family talk about marriage with more reverence for the institution than for the literal, flesh-and-blood people inhabiting these marriages. It reminded me of the ways organized religion can encourage people to prioritize the sacredness of an institution over their own personal well-being.
When a Love is Blind couple alludes to the “tough season” they went through, I cringe. Not because “tough seasons” are abnormal, but because, my goodness, these couples seem to go through a lot of tough seasons. It begs an unavoidable question: are you two actually a good fit? And look — I do believe lots of these couples seem to make great, if not dull, pairs. But c’mon! Most women here got married before they experienced a menstrual cycle!
“Eleven couples have ended the experiment by getting married, and nine of those couples are still married. Honestly, that’s a pretty extraordinary number,” Nick says at the start of the reunion. Then, he passed around a collection tin embossed with 98° seminal 1998 album: 98° and Rising.
Maybe they’re auditioning for the Joel and Victoria Osteen “Experiment”. It would be a nice bump in pay.
I like the idea of reality TV as a new kind of evangelical endeavor. And I say "I like" in the sense "Good catch, this is horrifying".
Their angers at one participant and not the other is understandable. The astrology business don’t undermine the ideology they’re trying to evangelize, but the guy’s behavior cast a spotlight on the show’s fakeness and that’s a real threat for them.
I recently wrote an article about our relationship to reality and fiction in reality TV
https://open.substack.com/pub/prosopon/p/i-will-suspend-my-disbelief-but-only?r=3hwnr4&utm_medium=ios