Asian vs Western Dating Shows
Reality dating shows are an increasingly popular social phenomena that feel like they capture the attention of the internet whenever the latest one is ongoing. However, Western and Asian shows offer vastly different answers to what intimacy, relationships and attractiveness are supposed to look like. Popular Asian dating shows such as “Single’s Inferno” project aesthetics, restraint and unspoken rules in their relationships while Western shows such as “Love Island” or “Too Hot To Handle“ push drama, spectacle and openness in their portrayals. Do the differences in styles of dating accurately reflect the different cultural attitudes towards romance?
Different Standards of Physical Intimacy
The most noticeable distinction between the styles of show are in the displays of physical intimacy on the shows. In most Asian shows, examples of public displays of affection like hand holding are treated as a narrative climax that carry a large emotional weight. The reality for Western shows is almost comical in comparison as contestants are expected to have instant chemistry and the shows normalise kissing and sharing beds. Some fans who watch both Western and Asian shows joke that they won’t blink when seeing kissing on Western shows but find themselves squealing if someone rests a head on a shoulder in an Asian show. The result is one style of show that feels like a “slow-burn” romance where contestants tiptoe around unspoken boundaries and one where contestants dive right in and worry about consequences later.
Real Life Accuracy
To answer the question of if the depictions shown in the shows are accurate to real life, the answer is most likely no. The casts are curated to have extreme personalities, the timelines are very compressed compared to real relationships and producers manipulate editing to create their own narratives. Most fans realise that the goals of these shows are less about helping contestants find true love and more about creating an entertaining exaggeration that may reflect some aspects of real life dating culture.
Social Power
Both Asian and Western shows offer a window into the power dynamics of social groups in each culture. Fans find it fascinating to analyse and predict who has enough charisma to get the most attention and each season there are often some contestants who clearly dominate in terms of popularity and screen time. In the Korean shows these contestants are rewarded more subtly such as by being able to choose a partner while in Western shows these moments are dramatised such as with “re-couplings” where partners can be stolen.
Concerning Standards
One concern that critics have of dating shows is their tendency to reinforce stereotypes of beauty and gender standards. The norm on the shows is for contestants to be conventionally attractive whether that be more aligned with Korean standards of being slim with clear skin or the Western standards of gym toned bodies. At the same time, Men are framed as being confident initiators while Women are framed as being objects of desire who need to balance being modest with being approachable. These concerns exist across both Asian and Western shows and it is sometimes said that the popularity of these shows is a sign that we still have internalized traditional gender expectations.
Written by Sean Furniss