We Need To Talk About The Way ‘Married At First Sight’ Portrayed Queerness Last Night
Last night, we were introduced to four new contestants on Married At First Sight, including one groom who got plenty of airtime, country boy Liam Cooper.
This self-described “Aussie bogan” was paired up with the pink-obsessed Georgia Fairweather, but it was an incident that happened during the reception that has Married at First Sight fans unhappy with the show.
In the set up for the wedding, Liam told viewers that he was openly bisexual, making him MAFS’ first bisexual groom and one of only a handful of queer people who have appeared on prime-time Australian reality TV. However, while queer representation on screen is important for the LGBTQIA+ community, I’m afraid that last night’s episode was far from great. It wasn’t even good — it was bad. Real bad.
As a queer person, I felt a lot of feelings last night, and I shall do my best to summarise them.
Liam Cooper’s Coming Out On Married At First Sight
If you’re queer, or you have queer people in your life, you’ll know that coming out doesn’t just happen once. In fact, because of our heteronormative society, queer people are almost forced to come out whenever they enter new and unfamiliar environments. And for Liam, that was on national television and in the company of a bunch of strangers.
You can watch it all unfold here:
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Now, you don’t need me to tell you, but this coming out scene was a mess. A literal mess. From the shocked look on Georgia’s face, to the insistent questioning from the rest of the MAFS cast, this coming out experience looked traumatic — which is fucked to see in 2021.
On a show that’s screaming for diversity both culturally and queerness, outing a bisexual man in such a cruel way is unlikely to attract people to applying for the show. #MAFS
— Daryl (@xwickedmindx) March 15, 2021
Coming out has historically been a traumatic experience for the LGBTQ+ community, but as our society has increasingly grown more progressive — and as we have started to normalise queerness in pop culture — it’s become a lot easier. But, not last night.
If you were to tell me that last night’s episode was filmed in the year 2004, I would have believed you — that’s how backwards it was.
The only response that I want to see to a person coming out is being welcomed with open arms. And we did not get that. Instead, we got Georgia telling Liam, “Honestly, I do believe that [all the] things you did before, it all led you to be here today and the person that you are…” C’mon sis, could you not have just said something along the lines of, “It doesn’t matter, who you are is who you are”.
But even worse than Georgia’s response was the role that Bec played in the whole ordeal. Bec’s question — “What happens if they didn’t swing your way?” — was the reason Liam was outed. At this point, it seems pretty damn obvious that the producers slipped a bit of info to Bec to potentially blindside Liam and his new wife. This is especially damaging, as the concept of blindsiding someone plays into harmful tropes of queer folks being deceptive.
And sure, I wasn’t there and there is a chance that the MAFS cast could have been super supportive and we just didn’t see that in the edit. But, regardless of this, the MAFS producers and editors truly failed queer people with their representation of Liam’s coming out story.
The fact that they built that up to look like she would have an issue with him being bisexual is an issue in itself #MAFS #MAFSAU
— Daisy (@daisyjane____) March 15, 2021
Some producer: "Hey Bec… Ask about non-negotiables. Ask what if he doesn't swing your way! Go on, do it!" #MAFS #MAFSAU
— Andy (@Skualg) March 15, 2021
The Internet’s Response
If you watched last night’s episode and thought “gosh that was weird” — don’t worry, you’re not alone. It would seem that the internet, especially Twitter, is on your side.
That was fucking so mean. The producers had obviously primed them to make jokes about swinging both ways. Now he's out. All the people involved in making this show are despicable #MAFS #MAFSAU
— Andy (@Skualg) March 15, 2021
It’s the shitty reactions to Liam coming out for me #MAFS #MAFSAU pic.twitter.com/KnauLMk0Cx
— Daisy (@daisyjane____) March 15, 2021
No one should be forced to come out like that on national tv. I want to give Liam a big hug. #mafs #mafsau
— Arianne Rich (@ariannerrich) March 15, 2021
why is everyone staring at Liam like he just said something absolutely horrific? he’s bisexual, move on! #MAFS pic.twitter.com/ajKPxJ4XDU
— alysha (@intosneedy) March 15, 2021
Let’s take this insecure bisexual guy, out him and treat him like he’s got 3 heads. Fuck off! #MAFS #mafsau
— Ele ✨ (@himynameisele) March 15, 2021
Jfc. Why are these people reacting like this? The dude said he was bi. The way they’re behaving you’d think he just said that comic sans was the superior of all fonts.
. #MAFS
— Alana Calvert (@AlanaCalvert) March 15, 2021
This morning, Liam appeared on Today Extra to talk about how he was outed on the show. “Now looking back at it, I wish I would’ve been able to talk to Georgia — just me and her — instead of having the whole group to come out that way,” he said. “I’m a big believer in we shouldn’t have to have labels. Heterosexual people don’t have to come out, so why do anyone from the LGBTIQ community have to come out?”. Good question, Liam!
This whole saga eerily calls back to other times when a reality TV contestant’s sexuality has been exploited as a way to drum up drama, including Brooke Blurton on The Bachelor. If you cast your minds back to the Honey Badger’s season, you’ll remember the whole ordeal that was Brooke’s coming out. Brooke telling Nick Cummins that she was bisexual was heavily promoted for weeks on Channel 10, and slated as some kind of shocking revelation.
In the aftermath of last night’s MAFS, it’s clear reality TV producers still haven’t learnt their lesson. Hopefully, we can get to a point in this world when ‘coming out’ is much less of a traumatic experience and not used for a reality TV plot line.