<em>Love Is Blind</em> Was the Ultimate Reality-TV Paradox
This story contains spoilers for the first season of Love Is Blind.
It’s a safe bet that Geoffrey Chaucer didn’t have a reality-dating TV series in mind when he wrote The Canterbury Tales, the 14th-century story collection that first popularized the phrase “love is blind.” In Chaucer’s original chronicle, “The Merchant’s Tale,” an elderly man named January forsakes all reason when he falls for May, a beautiful but philandering young woman. Netflix’s viral hit Love Is Blind, meanwhile, stretches Chaucer’s warning into a “three-week event.” The show, which ended yesterday, billed itself as a corrective to the shallow, app-driven “market” of modern dating, in which singles appraise one another based on superficial qualities.
, for those doled out enthralling train wrecks (and a handful of tender moments). But the show ultimately contradicts its own disingenuous premise—especially in the finale.
