‘The Ultimatum: Queer Love’ Breaks Ground on Netflix
Netflix’s latest dating reality show, “The Ultimatum: Queer Love,” wrapped up on Wednesday, after focusing exclusively on queer and nonbinary couples. This show went beyond earlier queer-inclusive reality shows, like the bisexual-themed competition “A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila” in 2007, and MTV’s all-pansexual season of “Are You The One?” in 2019. Unlike its predecessors, “The Ultimatum: Queer Love” emphasized lifelong commitment over competition, culminating in a marriage contest exclusively between queer couples.
The Success of “The Ultimatum: Queer Love”
Couples who appeared on “The Ultimatum: Queer Love” agree that the production company, Kinetic Content, created a show that accurately portrayed the ways queer and nonbinary people relate to one another. “Queer Love” also captured the specific struggles and triumphs with partners, trial or otherwise, that are common to all couples. As a result, it has been well-received and highly memed, with writers and viewers praising it for giving queer women and nonbinary people a chance to see their own relationships reflected on an enormous platform like Netflix.
The Importance of Representation
As universal as relationship frustrations can be, “Queer Love” also captures the specific ways in which queer women and nonbinary people relate to one another, such as spending time with one another’s exes, whether intentional or not, that is common in such a small community. For straight viewers, this show serves as a voyeuristic microcosm, while for queer ones, it provides a more relatable analog to the messy behavior of heterosexual dating shows like “The Bachelor” or “Love Is Blind.”
Queer relationships, depicting them accurately and without exaggeration, are vital because historically, these relationships have been ignored or misrepresented on TV. Queer programming is life-changing for those who cannot find representation in their families or communities. It also exposes a new set of viewers to queer narratives, potentially broadening the cultural context in which social acceptance and legal protection for queer people are sought.
Critical Success of “The Ultimatum: Queer Love”
“The Ultimatum: Queer Love” is like any other marriage reality show. Their struggles and triumphs with their partners (trial and otherwise) are not unlike those experienced by “Love Is Blind” competitors after they emerge from their pods and pair off. While the show includes many of the trappings that are familiar to reality dating shows, it breaks ground through its focus exclusively on queer couples.
The show puzzled some cast members and viewers by hiring a straight host, JoAnna Garcia Swisher, but Executive Producer Chris Coelen argues that Garcia Swisher had the essential quality of a host: curiosity. “Is JoAnna queer?” he said. “No, she’s not. Does she need to be to do a good job on the show? I don’t think so.”
The Responsibility of Visibility
The cast members of the show had the weight of displaying themselves in such a public way on the show and felt a responsibility to not embarrass communities that historically have been ignored or misrepresented on TV. Today, same-sex marriage became federally recognized eight years ago, and it’s taken that long for L.G.B.T.Q. people to get their own dating show focused on love and commitment.
Goldberg, the youngest castmate, remarked that the importance of being good representatives was something they considered every day, but it does not mean they don’t get to have relationships and feel and cry and deal with problems the way they arise. “It just meant we do have to remember that this is important, and that there will be a lot of people that watch this and that look to this as a sense of normalcy in queer relationships that maybe they just never knew before.”
Conclusion
Queer programming is crucial to creating a fairer and more accepting society, along with broadening our cultural context. “The Ultimatum: Queer Love” captures a wide range of queer experiences that have generally disallowed standard programming, let alone mainstream airing. The show’s relatability and specificity are lowering barriers between people, precisely as Executive Producer Chris Coelen anticipated. “Queer Love” was a compelling success, and we wish such narratives continue to be the steady elements of our storytelling.
<< photo by Stephanie Lima >>
