Hey pals,

It has been a while since I really felt up to writing a blog post and this one is about the chronic illness representation within the recent series of MAFS (Season 10) Australia. It might be a shock to you, but three of the women contestants have chronic illnesses and spoke about them (not all were aired, and there wasn’t equally shared air time) and I wanted to discuss the differences in the representation we got thanks to the editing of the show. I have a lot of other thoughts generally when it comes the MAFS, you can see my past videos for that. This blog post will focus on chronic illness and the portrayals of them within the show this season.

First, I will introduce you to the three contestants I am talking about.

Lyndall

Lyndall is a young blonde white woman. She was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis (CF) and throughout the show is talking about the new ‘miracle’ medication she now has access to which has massively helped her symptoms and has opened up the possibility of having a longer lifespan (CF usually leads to a short lifespan of people dying in their 30s) Lyndall is also bisexual (but this was never mentioned on the show/was never shown in the final edit of the show)

Bronte

Bronte is another young white woman with long dark hair and very big blue eyes. Bronte has Endometreosis (endo) this was not feature much in the show and had a heavy split between herself and her on-show husband talking about it. It was only mentioned a handful of times (I think near the beginning) one time in particular was due to not being able to attend a commitment ceremony due to an endo flare up. We then had to witness her on-screen husband ‘cry’ about how awful it is to see her in so much pain.

Janelle

Janelle is a tall Asian woman with dyed blonde hair and about the same age as the other two. Janelle has Lupus, this did not make it to the final edit of the show. The time where it was brought up was during a particular week where there was a lot of other ‘drama’ happening, and not much else got screen time that week.

It is pretty shocking for a show to have so much chronic illness rep to be honest, and for it to vary in the kind of diagnosis. There could have been a lot of opportunity to learn more about all three of these conditions on international television but the main spotlight was on Lyndall’s CF. Now, I have a few theories why and I’ll get into those next.

Theory 1: Lyndall and Bronte are white women

Lyndall and Bronte are white women. It is a well known factor in much of medicine and media there is always a racial aspect to how much or how little people are listened to. It has also been shared by numerous contestants of this season that many aspects of people’s culture were cut from final edits. Many of the weddings involved different cultural practices, Claire had a lot of Greek Orthodox traditions, Janelle’s family did a traditional cheers… It seemed only applicable to the editors of MAFS to show culture when it came to Sandy and her Indian heritage because she wanted to have a more traditional dress and henna… it wasn’t as easy to ignore vs. the other brides who shared their heritage, it was much easier to snip out those moments when they wore more western wedding dresses.

Theory 2: ‘Drama’ surrounding these contestants

Other events happening on the show with these contestants often took away from the moments where they were or could have been sharing about their chronic illnesses. Bronte has a rocky go of things with Harrison (on-air husband) and they only spoke about Bronte’s endo when they were in a good patch later on in the show. Bronte spoke about it briefly, but it was actually Harrison who got the spotlight to talk about it? Considering he had no idea what he was talking about, it was a very surface level understanding and was very much centred around him hating seeing her suffer in pain like that (whilst sporting some crocodile tears). Janelle’s relationship with her on-air husband Adam was okay, but a little iffy at times until it came out that he had cheated on her and then tried to lie about it/blame Janelle for it. The week the cheating scandal came out was the week Janelle opened up to Adam about her lupus in a letter for a challenge. Lyndall had a pretty smooth ride for a good long while on the show with her on-air husband Cam. However, when things got rocky between them… there was little-to-no mention of her CF again. The issues with their partners overshadowed their lived experiences with their chronic illnesses.

Theory 3: Inspiration Porn Sells

Only one story was inspirational enough for non-disabled people to witness on television. This is with absolutely no hate or shade to Lyndall (coz I did really like her on MAFS and still follow her on IG) but it is pretty typical in media to only show tragedy porn, or inspiration porn when it comes to health conditions. Due to Lyndall now having what is basically deemed a life saving medication which helps her lead a lesser-symptom-full life and has extended her lifespan… that is much more palatable for a non-disabled audience. Lupus and Endo don’t have medication options like this that have such a massive impact, and those conditions alone aren’t known to shorten your life (this point is a bit more complex than that, but as it is on a TV show, nuance in reality TV isn’t really their vibe.) I am ecstatic that Lyndall has access to this medication, and I hope everyone with CF will have access to this as well, but it is an easier narrative to digest when you are not chronically ill yourself, to witness more of the reality of CF when you know there is this amazing medication.

In reality… it is probably a mixture of all theories and much of it is unconscious bias when it comes to the production, editors, and whoever else is involved behind the scenes. This is why it is important for more diversity in television (in front of the camera and behind) and to hire access consultants as well as sensitivity consultants. I’ve said many times that this show cuts way too much footage out and I would prefer to see more of everything that was actually happening, and this is part of that issue as well. They don’t deem these moments important enough to keep in the show, even if the clip was only a couple of seconds (and they spend 50% of their on-air time recapping everything for no reason… has anyone else noticed they recap literally everything even if it happened just before the ad break? we could see so much more of the shows if we… stopped doing that) and there is so much B roll of relatively mundane things, I think I would prefer B roll that included these more significant moments.

Generally, I hope these women live their best lives after MAFS. I will continue to follow them for a while (I personally really enjoy Janelle and Lyndall’s posts) and I really hope good things come their way after the shit show that was their season on Married at First Sight.

I hope you enjoyed my discussion and analysis of MAFS and chronic illness representation! Let me know if you’d like to see more conent like this on my blog and not just on my youtube channel, but if you’d like to see more of what is already available, I’ve made a few videos on MAFS so far including one for MAFS Australia season 10, and two for MAFS UK. Let me know in the comments here or on the videos what you’d like to see more of!

Your views, likes, comments and shares both on my blog and on my youtube channel are really important and highly valued by me. They really help support and boost my work. Don’t forget to follow my blog and subscribe to my youtube channel.

I’m hoping to be blogging more regularly again and am going to invest some more time into learning about blogging and SEO type things so maybe there will be some improvements over here!

See you next time

~ Artie