Susie O’Brien: Married at First Sight is just a bad look

Once it was claimed that Married At first Sight was a social experiment, but really it’s just a mob of misfits and morons thrown together and plied with cheap booze, writes Susie O’Brien.

Married at First Sight is crass voyeuristic crap with a side order of humiliation, titillation and exploitation.

There are adult virgin grooms, jokes about Viagra, back tatts, strippers, bad hair extensions, hot tubs and lots of hornbags.

No wonder it’s rating its a--- off.

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The Today show is tanking, My Kitchen Rules is missing in action, but MAFS is the No.l1 show nationally, attracting more than 2 million viewers across all platforms. TV reviewers don’t like it, but everyone else is saying “I do”. As one Twitter fan proclaimed, it’s “addicting”.

Five seasons on, there’s no longer any pretence that this is a social experiment; it’s just a mob of misfits and morons thrown together and plied with cheap booze. Then they’re given lines to deliver such as: “I hope he looks at me and thinks, ‘Wow, I would totally root her’.”

That was from Ines just moments before she walked down the aisle with Bronson. Romance was in the air, or maybe it was Bronson’s excessive use of Lynx Africa (Spoiler alert: he didn’t want to root her so she got back at him by rooting someone else).

The show is full of drunken dinner parties with classic, insightful exchanges such as: “Why don’t you pour yourself another f---ing beer and f--- off”. At one such event attended by all couples, the sensitive, gentle probing of Matthew the 29-year-old virgin proceeded along the lines of: “Have you let it out or what?” Also there was Jessika, who drew a “diaphragm” instead of a diagram. She was trying to prove she wasn’t fake but only succeeded in proving she was dumb. Meanwhile, Ines and Sam are battling it out to be the biggest villains.

Sam, a model, wanted a “natural, beautiful woman” and instead got Lizzie who has a fake mouth, fake face and fake hair. “She’s obviously not as slim as the girls I dated in the past. She’s bigger. Hopefully she’s into running a lot,” he said, raising the ire of women across the land. He then faked a funeral just to get away.

Who does things like that? All I’ve ever done is fake conjunctivitis by poking a red texta in my eye when I was at uni to keep a randy date at bay.

Much has been said about Sam’s misogyny, but Ines’s treatment of Bronson is worse. “When he smiles, I first wanted to punch him in the jaw. I don’t know why. It was just my instincts,” she snapped. “I’m getting a very … inbred vibe.”

Married At First Sight bride Ines, 28.

Other Ines classics include “Tinder is like going through your rubbish bin” and “I don’t know anyone with an eyebrow ring, except for lesbians who work at McDonald’s drive-thrus”.

Gay fast food workers are no doubt offended to be compared with Bronson, a stripper/pornstar/model who started his first company with “$50 and a G-string”. Or maybe it was $50 in a G-string. His Instagram posts show him sporting a massive tattoo with “Dust don’t give a f---” written on it. Perhaps that was meant to be “just”?

Ines, a legal secretary, isn’t impressed that Bronson used to take his clothes off for money, overlooking the fact that she’s willing to get married to a stranger on national TV.

No wonder Bronson’s friends have been planning a high-stakes, high-speed escape for him: “They wanted me to get on a bus and go home.” Yeah, that’d show her.

Bronson, the Greyhound Getaway bandit, knows he will never find anyone he loves as much as himself.

Other notable couples include Matthew, the anxiety-plagued virgin who loves to read books, iron and hang out with his mum, Rhonda. Lauren manages to lure him into bed after hours of foreplay involving spa baths and a dash to emergency.

He’s sensitive. She’s compassionate. They get jiggy with it and no doubt Lauren is relieved Rhonda’s not providing advice from the sidelines. It’s all very uncharacteristically tasteful, then Channel 9 ruins it by tweeting, “Happy hump day”.

The rest of us on the couch are left wondering how much these bizarre and deluded people are getting paid in order to parade their horniness and heartache in front of 2 million strangers. We may not all have perfect relationships, but at least most of us have our own hair and tatts that are spelt correctly.

It’s no wonder only one MAFS couple since 2015 is still together, which gives it a success rate better than Tinder but worse than being drunk, desperate and available in a seedy bar.

If that’s you, don’t stress. There’s always next year’s show.

MORE SUSIE O’BRIEN

Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist

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@susieob