| Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent on the Vox Culture section who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness to skin care. |
|
|
| Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent on the Vox Culture section who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness to skin care. |
|
|
Love Is Blind: DC is light on Hill staffers and politics, but thankfully heavy on dating monsters |
While Virginia is reportedly for lovers, most everyone acknowledges that nearby Washington, DC, is not. The nation's capital has been consistently ranked as one of the worst places to date and one of the US's worst cities for singles. Too many type As, too many people too into their jobs, too many people ready to leave after two years — it's not exactly a city that screams romance. They say that politics is show business for ugly people, which would make DC the Hollywood of uggos. Given Washington's notoriety, it was only a matter of time before Netflix took Love Is Blind to the nation's capital. In its first season, the Netflix reality dating series asserted the hopefulness of romance — the possibility of falling in love with someone sight unseen and marrying them within a month — but it has become a show about irreparable incompatibility featuring terrifying tales of red-flag-waving monsters. There have also been lawsuits from contestants alleging toxic and inhospitable workplace environments in and out of the "pods." Yet the love experiment is one of Netflix's biggest hits, and each season a captive audience tunes in to see a new batch of daters and the horrors — body shaming, weaponized therapy speak, flies in toilets — that await them on the other side of the wall. Now we have what sounds like a perfect, hellish match: one of the worst dating cities in the US, combined with one of the bleakest reality TV dating shows in history. On paper, it feels more like a dare or taunt, a gift to haters. Truly only the freakiest freaks, some real District of Columbia sickos would sign up to be on Love Is Blind: DC. But while this immensely watchable season has plenty of villains and inter-crossing love triangles, it, sadly, doesn't feel very DC. For one thing, no one on this season explicitly works in government. To be fair, the show isn't very specific when it comes to its participants' professions, so an "IT specialist" could ostensibly be working for some military government contractor and an "engineer" could be doing research for, say, Lockheed-Martin. Still, the closest we get is a cast member being described as a "policy advocate," which seems like a nice euphemism for lobbyist. Capitol Hill keeping their employees from representing on Love Is Blind is understandable because of how embarrassingly and negatively many of the participants are portrayed. But that dynamic of an adjacency to national political power fueling a person's dating identity is exactly what makes DC dating unique and (from all these news stories about people who hate dating there) so hostile. That the show spent a season in DC and couldn't capture the snobbiness of a staffer asking "Who do you work for?" feels like a loss. There seems to be a reluctance to get into politics this season, too. A contestant talks about how he voted in the 2016 and 2020 elections, and there's a conversation about what kind of political beliefs one has while serving in the military, but politics as they relate to dating preferences — e.g., whether love trumps politics, whether similar politics mean compatibility, etc. — is barely addressed. That's a missed opportunity, not only given how politically active DC allegedly is, but also because finding partners who share the same politics has increasingly become more and more important to singles. |
That said, there's still enough relationship dysfunction this season to sustain its horror-junkie audience. Brittany, a beautiful woman who wants to be a trophy wife and tells the camera she cannot spell the word "physicist," falls for Leo, a young art dealer who tells everyone that one of his insecurities is that he inherited a humongous amount of money and never has to worry about anything financially. The more the audience gets to know Leo, the more it seems like this isn't an insecurity at all. The more Brittany gets to know Leo, the more interested she is in his "insecurity."
There's also Hannah, a 26-year-old woman who quit her "dream job" to be on the show. The dream job in question? Medical device sales. Perhaps there is honor and allure in, say, the vending of CPAP machine accessories, but she's given it all up for the possibility of sight-unseen reality TV love. To that end, she tells Nick, one of her pod suitors, that she dates athletes and she's always worried that men only see her as a hot girl. Nick tells her he looks like a less buff Henry Cavill. Neither is setting themselves up to overdeliver. Hannah, Nick, Leo, Brittany, and their cohort deliver a season draped in red flags and dealbreakers. From chilling fights about yapping too much to roundabout conversations about getting the ick from watching your partner straddle patio furniture, there's plenty here. If you're coupled, they'll make you breathe a sigh of relief that you're not in the dating pool. If you're single, they'll make you relish it. Love Is Blind is still a riveting, deranged exploration of the worst people falling in and out of love, even if it doesn't feel like DC. |
|
|
| Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro landed himself on the naughty list for stealing an election. He's hoping an early Christmas will improve his standing. |
|
|
Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/AFP via Getty Images |
Helene highlights the cracks in laws that criminalize homelessness: More jurisdictions, including Florida, have passed anti-camping laws in an effort to crack down on outdoor sleeping. Those laws have forced unhoused people to set up less visible encampments to avoid arrest. Advocates say that's making it harder to provide emergency shelter for those living outside, and that such laws sow distrust between unhoused people and the government. A $136 million "mega-flopolis"? After an exposé of its troubled production and weird debut at Cannes, Francis Ford Coppola's great white whale, Megalopolis, is finally here for all to see — and no one is quite sure what to make of it. It's a mess, declares our critic, but maybe still worth a watch. Feast your eyes on this. Influencers are sitting down and eating entire seafood boils, brunches, or multi-item Taco Bell orders on camera for all to watch (and hear). Called "mukbangs" — which translates to "eating broadcasts" — these videos have become so popular and ubiquitous that even Vogue has gotten in on the game.
The Supreme Court's life-and-death case: Two investigations have raised serious doubts about the murder conviction of Richard Glossip in 2004, in a case that landed the Oklahoma man on the state's death row. But Glossip has yet to be granted a new trial and could be put to death; now, the Supreme Court will weigh in on alleged missteps by police and prosecutors.
Are kids political? They are, and it's no longer just parents shaping their political worldviews. They're taking part in conversations online, and it turns out they have a pretty strong grasp of the big issues that concern us all, from affordable housing to the national debt. |
Daniel Steinle/Bloomberg via Getty Images |
Biden's student loan forgiveness plan is back on track. A judge is set to let a temporary restraining order on the plan expire, freeing the administration to offer relief to millions of borrowers in four categories, including those who now owe more than they originally borrowed and those whose schools offered "low-value" educations. Several GOP-led states had fought the effort. [CNBC] What app did you meet your AI girlfriend on? Some men are apparently "dating" online chatbots to satisfy their emotional and physical needs, which is not at all a sign of the end times. [Esquire] |
|
|
It feels like the world has been starved for a romcom that actually delivers on both the "rom" and the "com" elements, but boy are we feasting now. Netflix's Nobody Wants This, which premiered on September 26 and stars Adam Brody as the world's hottest rabbi and Kristen Bell as his sex-podcasting shiksa, is another entry into the genre of culture-clash comedies, with the enormous bonus that the two leads have really, really great chemistry. Like the rest of the television-watching population, I fell in love with Brody during his star turn on The OC, and somehow it's taken around two decades for him to finally land a role that matches the charm of Seth Cohen. There's been some critique of how the show handles its portrayal of Jewish women and Jewishness as a whole — its creator, Erin Foster, converted to Judaism before marrying her husband. Of the criticism, Foster said that "what I really wanted to do was shed a positive light on Jewish culture from my perspective — my positive experience being brought into Jewish culture, sprinkling in a little fun [and] educational moments." Ultimately, Nobody Wants This is big-hearted and frequently hilarious (Justine Lupe as Bell's sister is particularly great). Once you make it to the kiss in episode two — a kiss so good Bell's character jokes she got pregnant from it — you'll be hooked. —Rebecca Jennings, senior correspondent |
Are you enjoying the Today, Explained newsletter? Forward it to a friend; they can sign up for it right here.
And as always, we want to know what you think. Specifically: If there is a topic you want us to explain or a story you're curious to learn more about, let us know by filling out this form or just replying to this email.
Today's edition was produced and edited by staff editor Melinda Fakuade, with contributions from senior editor Lavanya Ramanathan. We'll see you tomorrow! |
|
|
Become a Vox Member Support our journalism — become a Vox Member and you'll get exclusive access to the newsroom with members-only perks including newsletters, bonus podcasts and videos, and more. |
| |
|
|
