Love is Blind has been a controversial show from the beginning. So, to say that in Season 7 of the US version of the show, with multiple international versions already in the books as well, two contestants from our communities just managed the most controversial conversation in the show’s history is saying a lot. But if social media reaction is to be believed, Season 7’s Marissa and Ramses conversation about Marissa’s military past might just be the show’s most polarizing conversation yet.
In the conversation, Ramses, who was born in Venezuela, takes a very critical view of the US military. “I will always heavily critique how the US has sort of just destabilized entire countries,” he says, and later in a different conversation with Marissa’s friends, he makes a reference to his experience with his home country of Venezuela.
To this Marissa responds that “Strategically, we need our military at this point,” and at Ramses urging she admits that the reason for that is that “we put ourselves in this position where we bullied other countries,” adding that “we’ve gone to other countries, we’ve destroyed countries, societies, communities.”
Marissa makes it clear she is critical of it but goes on to say she supports the troops in the military, to which Ramses responds that they do sign up for it. Marissa’s counterpoint is that like her, most people don’t understand the gravity of it, but the conversation doesn’t really end with the two of them seeing eye to eye. It’s just a dialog of two people expressing two different viewpoints, one that Netflix shockingly left in the final edit for a show that has previously steered clear of political discussions.
The context behind it makes Ramses’ position easy to understand. US intervention in Venezuela and in Latin America in general has been notorious. Perhaps the most notable event for Ramses would have been the US-backed coup against Hugo Chávez that ousted the Venezuelan leader for a total of 47 hours before he returned to power in 2002. Considering Ramses is 35 years old, this is likely an event he remembers quite well, and one that shapes his view of the “hammer of US imperialism,” as he tells Marissa’s friends in the conversation he has with them later.
In this same conversation, Ramses brings up the US position on Palestine and makes it clear that he would divorce Marissa if he ever decided she wanted to join the military again.
The internet reaction to both the polarizing conversation and the fact that we actually got to see the polarizing conversation has been about as divided as the conversation itself. From a lot of support from his position on the military and his pro-Palestine stance:
To side-eyeing about the fact that Ramses dated Marissa despite the fact that he knew her military past and then judged her for it:
With some people rightfully pointing out the fact that he has a very different life experience than her and is just seeing it from a different point of view:
Again, Love is Blind has never been a stranger to controversy, but the controversy has typically been about romance, never about politics. With an election around the corner, it’s an interesting moment for this polarizing, and very valid conversation to take center stage. That’s especially true when you take into consideration that Netflix has an estimated 260.28 million subscribers and that the season 6 premiere of Love is Blind had 907 million viewing minutes reported according to Nielsen streaming charts.
We don’t know yet if Marissa and Ramses found their happily ever after with each other on Love is Blind. But at the very least, their polarizing conversation about the US military has helped educate some people and made others curious enough to do some research of their own. Perhaps, it will also help people understand the perspective of those who grow up outside of the United States and have a different perspective of US interventionism. And that might be the most important thing to take away from this conversation.
