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Bride & Prejudice: Why on Earth would anyone go on a show like this?

What would motivate anyone to lay bare their most personal moments on a reality relationship show.

 In Seven's latest foray into relationship train-crash telly, the big question "will you marry me" is but a sideshow. The real drama is in the disapproving response of the couples' families to the looming nuptials.

But after watching Monday night's premiere, you'd have to say Bride & Prejudice raises a whole bunch of other questions too, all of them revolving around the word "why".

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What happens when a couple is ready to say 'I do' but their loved ones say 'I don't'?

Like why, in this day and age, are there still people so narrow-minded that the thought of their (white) child marrying someone with dark skin is a crisis big enough to demand a UN peacekeeping intervention?

Why do we still have parents so threatened by their child's homosexuality that they'd rather cut off communication than learn to cope with a little mincing? (And, as a side note, why do some gay men hook up with a partner who looks, well, a lot like them?)

Why does an 18-year-old Kardashian wannabe – with botoxed lips, hair extensions, and falsies of every stripe – think she's ready for marriage when her true love is clearly herself? Why does her 20-year-old fiancée think the statement "I've had my fun" – with its implication that there'll be no more of that, thank you very much – is a good basis from which to launch into married bliss?

And why does his mother think she has the right to prevent his plump-lipped Barbie-doll betrothed from "taking my boy away from me"? As Dr Freud would no doubt tell her, it's his matrimonial bed of (false) nails – let him lie in it.

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But the biggest question Bride & Prejudice prompts is why on Earth would anyone go on it?

Dysfunction and emotional trauma is bad enough when borne privately; surely parading it in front of the camera and a scoffing/judging/disbelieving audience only makes it worse.

Then again, maybe Grant and Chris, the gay couple on Bride & Prejudice, and Donny (whose heritage is Indian) and Marina (Ukrainian) aren't reality show dummies at all, but rather martyrs for a cause.

Maybe they are on this show to remind those of us who live inside the liberal rainbow-coloured bubble that there is a whole other world of prejudice out there. Maybe they're hoping to show those who live outside that bubble what they look like from the other side: racists, homophobes, narrow-minded bigots.

I sure wouldn't do it, and I don't imagine everyone's motives are quite so honourable. But if that's how any of the star-crossed lovers of Bride & Prejudice answer the question "why", I'm more than willing to shower them with my handful of confetti.

It'll make a change from the brickbats coming their way, at least.

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