“What is wrong with people? Can’t they just follow the rules? ”
My usually quiet friend is furious. When I understand that it’s about SVT’s reality series “Married at First Sight” and not about the war, I do not immediately calm down.
“It simply came to our notice then. Yes, the whole genre “, she continues with a wild look.
I know exactly who she’s talking about. It is, of course, the fatal dark-haired bride Märtha who, together with her brutally rejected “Married at First Sight” groom Axel, has become the snack of spring. Together, they make up this year’s version of “The Disappointed and Increasingly Woman” and “The Hopeful and Increasingly Submissive Man”.
For “Married at first the glance ”actually has – despite its self-proclaimed matching expertise – a long tradition of this unfortunate combo. From the second season, we have the floor layer Ragnar (then Per) Rydergård, who was matched together with the golf-playing self-employed Eva Strand. Eva was disappointed with both the groom’s Ikea bag and lack of golf skills and let him share a room with the cats’ toilet.
In the sixth season, Elina Raeder, fitness instructor, seemed to get annoyed with the good-natured informant Albin Ringstad from day one – it is unclear why. Last year, it was the sociologist Susanna Lundberg who dissed the excavator operator Johan Skantz after a joke of a boyish nature (Johan was, however, supported on social media with the call #backagrävis). And now, in the last season, it is the graduate economist Märtha Bonnevier and the server technician Axel Kratz who are the disappointing match. But Märtha and Axel seem to be the couple who aroused the most emotions.
After the wedding refused Märtha to move in with Axel with reference to her integrity. And on her honeymoon, she built a wall of pillows between them in bed. The program’s experts hummed something about the fact that they obviously could not compromise on the participants’ integrity. But then patience tired even for us raw-barked feminists.
“This is what the program is about for hell. Getting married at first glance. And to then move together. Regardless! That’s what the experiment is about, ”my friend roars.
The episodes where Märtha repeatedly explains what is wrong with Axel (apologizes too much, among other things) and that she does not feel any attraction have been described on social media as mental abuse – by the viewers. It has also given rise to the hashtag #freeaxel. When the couple chose to drop out of the series (Axel no longer wanted to continue), the reactions were divided into two camps: the relieved and the angry disappointed. That my friend belongs to the latter has probably become clear, but she is far from alone.
The Twitter threads about Märtha are not gracious and when she recently participated in SVT’s Morning Studio, it was noticed that she perceived this public anger and joked that people wanted to spit on her in town. But why are we really so angry at Märtha?
I think part of The anger is about the Märtha example becoming a kind of recurring proof that women who demand a changed male role are in fact hypocrites. In the interviews before the marriage, Märtha said that she was looking for a man who did not suffer from toxic masculinity. That was one of the reasons why she was paired with the charming and soft Axel.
The very antithesis of toxic masculinity, the experts may have thought. To no avail, as it turned out that Axel’s softness only seemed to irritate Märtha. It became a bit like in “you searched for a woman and found a soul” – the poem (Edith Södergran’s “The day cools down”). She was looking for a man without toxic masculinity. She found one – she’s disappointed.
Read more chronicles by Catia Hultquist