Why does a show like that exist?
Reality TV and Dostoyevksy appeal to our same base desires for indecency and schadenfreude - but also for truth
There are with old liars who all their lives have played the actor moments when they begin to show off to such a degree that they of a truth quiver and weep with emotion, the fact notwithstanding that even at that very moment (or only a second thereafter) they may whisper to themselves: ‘Why, are you lying, you old brazen-face, you’re being an actor even now, in spite of all your “holy” anger…
The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (David McDuff translation). Ch. 6, Why is a Man Like That Alive? p. 100.
I’ve developed the trashy habit of playing Love Is Blind in the background while cooking. There’s an unbelievable satisfaction in watching someone get stranded at the altar by somebody that they met six weeks ago:
I haven’t seen this season, so I don’t know whether any of this is true, but it doesn’t matter.1 A solid pair of “I do”s is always a crowd pleaser, but what really makes this show tick is the delicious drama that ensues when somebody, for some reason or another, decides to say “I don’t”. Gasps from the audience abound. The other family looks mortally offended and walks out. Tears flow, friends hug, insults are hurled, people are praised for being “brave” and “true to themselves”. People who, 20 minutes ago, were making bold pronouncements about having found the love of their life will completely disavow that very same person. It is every bit as dramatic as watching Fyodor Pavlovich crash a dinner party in a monastery.
We, as the audience, don’t have to feel too bad about our schadenfreude either. After all, these clowns did it to themselves, right? What kind of crazy person looks for a spouse on a reality TV show? And how could they possibly have expected it to go well?
You might think, at first, that the show is compelling because it’s so unrealistic. I’ve been to a number of weddings, including ones that really should have been an “I don’t” kind of situation, yet I’ve never actually seen it happen. As appealing as a Taylor-Swift-esque “meet me when you’re out of the church at the back door” moment might be, nobody has ever bothered to speak now when the critical moment came.
Decorum forbids it. How mortifying it would be. We don’t actually want to cause drama at our friends’ weddings. Crazy reality TV show people do that kind of stuff. Normal people don’t. Right?
What’s interesting about the character of Fyodor Pavlovich in The Brothers Karamazov is that he is initially presented as a buffoon, an embarrassment to his family, a lout who spews vulgarities in front of holy men. Here he is, making a fool of himself at the monastery where his (very respectable) son Alyosha lives:
“Shameful”! What is shameful? It may be that this “brute creature”, this “woman of immoral conduct” is more holy than you yourselves, resident gentlemen of the hieromonach status! It may be that she fell in her girlhood, a prey to her surroundings,” but she “loved much”, and even Christ forgave the woman who loved much ...”
‘It was not for that kind of love Christ forgave…’ burst in impatience from the meek Father Iosif.
‘Oh yes it was, it was, for that very same kind, dear monks, that very same kind! You live here on cabbage and think you're men of honest report! You eat gudgeons, a gudgeon a day, and think you can purchase God with the stuff.’
‘Impossible, impossible!’ said voices from every corner of the cell.
Ch.6, Why is a Man Like That Alive? p. 101
Here he barges in, uninvited, to the monastery’s high table dinner:
‘Now what have they got lined up here?’ he said, going over to the table. ‘Factori's Vintage Port, Médoc bottled by the Brothers Yeliseyev - why, holy fathers, this beats your gudgeon, doesn’t it? Look at all the bottles the fathers have set up, heh, heh! And who has supplied all this? The Russian muzhik, the toiler, with his calloused hands, brings hither his earned groat, snatching it from the bosom of his family and the state’s requirements! Why holy fathers - you leech upon the common folk!’
‘That is quite unworthy on your part,’ said Father Iosif. Father Paisy remained stubbornly silent. Miusov fled in a headlong dash from the room, followed closely by Kalganov.
Ch. 8, A Scandal. p. 120
Yet his accusations of religious hypocrisy are not unfounded. I found myself growing surprisingly sympathetic to Fyodor Pavlovich as the episode progressed. Just as Shakespearean fools are permitted blunt honesty in ways that “serious” characters are not, his role as a “buffoon” allows him to spew truths that no decent or holy gentleman would ever be allowed to utter. A man with nothing to lose is a man who can afford to be honest.
Likewise, it may be the preposterous nature of a 6-week reality-TV engagement - precisely the falseness of it all - that allows people to do the one honest act of saying “no” at the altar. The entire premise is already absurd, so what’s another piece of absurdity on top? The irony is that after six weeks of deluding themselves for Netflix’s benefit, the “I don’t” is often the first time2 that the couple shows any integrity or acknowledgement of a truth that the audience has figured out long, long ago.
It’s an honesty that requires suspension of normality. The world is full of absurd, incomprehensible forces that cause us to do and say things that we don’t mean, for reasons that we don’t believe in3. It may take an equally absurd and incomprehensible counterforce to make room for the truth. Whether this absurdity is provided by the deranged mind of a great novelist or a quasi-sociopathic reality TV producer is simply down to taste. Perhaps lovers of Dostoyevsky and reality television are really after the same thing: a certain delicious, brutal brand of honesty in human interaction, of the kind that we rarely encounter in real life.
To save you the trouble of having to watch any episodes, I’m pleased to report that the vast majority of the time, it works out to a "everyone sucks here” kind of situation, à la r/AmITheAsshole
BUT if you are going to watch it, you might as well skip straight to the good stuff:
…And principally, above everything else: stop telling lies.’
‘You mean the sort of things I was saying about Diderot?’
‘No, it has nothing to do with that. The main thing is that you stop telling lies to yourself. The one who lies to himself and believes his own lies comes to a point where he can distinguish no truth either within himself or around him, and thus enters into a state of disrespect towards himself and others. Respecting no one, he loves no one, and to amuse and divert himself in the absence of love he gives himself up to his passions and to vulgar delights and becomes a complete animal in his vices, and all of it from perpetual lying to other people and himself. The one who lies to himself is often quick to take offence. After all, it is sometimes rather enjoyable to feel insulted, is it not?
Ch.2, The Old Buffoon. p. 62