Show notes
Dating shows often push contestants to extreme measures in pursuit of love. Reality-show producers will impose fake deadlines, physical obstacles, and manufactured drama to create the juiciest spectacle. But on TLC’s 90 Day Fiancé, a high-stakes and wildly popular reality show, the producers didn’t need to dream up a deadline: It’s a requirement of the rigorous U.S. visa-application process. The show follows real-life couples pursuing a K-1 visa—the “fiancé visa”—which allows a U.S. citizen’s foreign partner to enter the U.S. legally, but only for 90 days, the deadline by which they must get married. The show documents the complications of those emotionally charged 90 days, when two people from different countries, cultures, and sometimes races have to decide whether their relationship is real. “From the very moment that the federal government became involved in immigration, you see the influence of biases of race as it’s intersecting with class and sexuality,” says Felicity Amaya Schaeffer, a professor of feminist studies and critical race studies at UC Santa Cruz. Be part of The Experiment. Use the hashtag #TheExperimentPodcast, or write to us at theexperiment@theatlantic.com. This episode was produced by Tracie Hunte and Gabrielle Berbey, with editing by Katherine Wells, Julia Longoria, and Emily Botein. Fact-check by William Brennan. Sound design by David Herman. Music by Column (“Quiet Song,” “｢The Art of Fun｣ (Raj),” and “Sensuela”), water feature (“a horse”), Laundry (“Films”), r mccarthy (“Contemplation at Lon Lon”), Parish Council (“Walled Garden 1”), and infinite bisous (“(Terminally) Lovesick”), provided by Tasty Morsels and Nelson Nance. Additional music from APM (“Ordinary Fantasy,” “Yaas Queen,” “Your Fault,” “Ballroom Big Band,” “Brasillia,” “Sinking Feeling,” “Boogie Woogie,” “Duplicity (a),” “Oh My,” “You Got It Baby,” “Getaway,” “Into the Mist,” and “Freewheeling”). Additional audio from TLC, TLC U.K., and C-SPAN. A transcript of this episode is presented below: (Playfully plucky marimba-and-horn music plays.) Tracie Hunte: So, to begin, I am going to send you a link. It’s a little bit long—it’s like seven minutes or so—’cause this is your first time watching 90 Day Fiancé, anything having to do with 90 Day Fiancé, right? Julia Longoria: That’s correct. Hunte: Okay, okay. Longoria: I’m just curious, like, why are you interested in this? Like, why should someone care? Hunte: (Insistently.) Watch the clip, Julia! (Laughs, and Longoria joins in.) (Music shifts into long, sustained notes to build drama.) Longoria: We start today with correspondent Tracie Hunte guiding me into the unknown: the world of reality TV. (A dramatic but upbeat musical flourish plays, like the intro to a theme song, before moving back to the plucky, quirky music.) Hunte: Okay. So, Julia, 90 Day Fiancé is a wildly popular show on TLC. It’s about couples who are international—like, it’s usually one person lives in America, and the other person lives somewhere overseas—and I want to begin your 90 Day Fiancé journey with one couple in particular: Colt and Larissa. Longoria: Okay. I’m gonna—do I hit play? Hunte: Yes. Hit play! Colt: My name is Colt. I’m 33 years old. I live in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hunte: We are in Las Vegas, Nevada, and we’re at the airport, and we’re meeting Colt and Larissa. Colt is a white guy in his 30s. He lives in Las Vegas. Larissa: I am Larissa, 31 years old, from Minas Gerais, Brazil. Hunte: And Larissa is from Brazil. She is also in her 30s. And they met online. They went on vacation together—to Cancun, I think—and after five days of this vacation together, Colt asked Larissa to marry him. And so she said yes. Longoria: After one date they decided to get married? Hunte: Yes, effectively one date. So what we’re doing right now is that we’re meeting Larissa for the first time. She’s just flown into Las Vegas, and this scene is basically her first impressions. Longoria: First impressions of Las Vegas, right? Hunte: Yes. Larissa: Here is hot. Colt: I don’t have air-conditioning. [A chuckle.] It’s going to get a little hotter too. Larissa: Oh my. I can feel the hot, warm. Hunte: First of all, she’s hot. [Longoria chuckles.] It’s not the same sort of warmth in Brazil. I’ve been to Brazil; I know the difference between desert heat and beach heat, [Both laugh.] and I know which one I vastly prefer. Larissa: My first goal in America is marry. Second, apply for the green card. And third, buy a car with air conditioner. [Laughs.] (A beat.) Larissa: I thought that was more big, you know. Colt: It’s pretty big. Larissa: Like New York. (Up-tempo, jazzy, big-city ambience plays.) Hunte: Las Vegas is also this thing that’s exported to the rest of the world through our movies and television shows—Ocean’s 11. Like, you get this idea that it’s this glamorous, glitzy, big city, you know, “American dreams.” Longoria: Totally. Hunte: Blah, blah, blah. Longoria: Totally. Tall buildings, big lights. Hunte: Yeah. Longoria: Like, casinos. Hunte: Exactly. Larissa: My first impressions of Las Vegas? Not a city I expected. I confused Las Vegas with Beverly Hills, Hollywood, and New York. It’s not like the—the movies. Hunte: And so you see her, like, get out of the car. She’s still very hot. She’s still very uncomfortable. And she’s like, “Oh, here’s the sign!” And this is the world-famous Las Vegas sign. It’s on postcards, it’s on magnets, it’s everywhere. And it was actually surprising to me, ’cause I also didn’t realize it was that small. (Laughs.) Colt: Are you going back to Brazil? (Chuckles.) Larissa: No, no! I’m sorry. It’s—here’s so warm. Colt: Yeah? Larissa: (Sighs.) Not in my American dream. Colt: This is America. (Melodramatic, heavy piano music plays for a moment.) Hunte: So yeah. I think that there’s just a lot more going on here other than just, like, a disappointed woman coming from Brazil. I think it’s, like, way bigger than that. (A musical descent pulls us into a dreamlike tapestry of synthesizers and percussion.) Longoria: Okay, back me up for a second. Why is the show called 90 Day Fiancé? Hunte: Well, it’s called 90 Day Fiancé because, if you’re an American person who wants to marry somebody from another country and you want to bring them to the United States, you can bring them to the United States on something called a K-1 visa, or a fiancé visa. And that gives that person permission to come to the United States to get married, but they have to do it within 90 days. And so—at least, how it functions in the world of the TV show; I’m sure it’s different for a lot of couples—you’re going to spend those 90 days not only planning a wedding, but just, like, getting to know each other better, and figuring out whether or not you could actually live together, and whether or not this is what you want to go through with. Longoria: So what you’re saying, like, 90 Day Fiancé is a TV show based around this one piece—or, really, like, this one clause—in U.S. immigration policy? Hunte: Yes. Longoria: I—I did not realize that. [Hunte laughs.] Like, I guess I’ve always … The thing I don’t like about reality shows is that, like, they’re sort of contrived. It’s like, “Oh, 90 days to fall in love.” And it’s like, “That’s not the way the world works.” But, in this case, it is. [Both laugh.] It literally is how the world works. Like, the U.S. government came up with this premise. Hunte: Yes! Yes. And, Julia, because you haven’t been watching reality TV, you’ve been missing a very important lesson about U.S. immigration policy. [Both laugh.] And I think this show is also, like, a really good textbook example of Americans’ relationship with the world, and how the world sees Americans. (Tonal shift: The music loops over the same few notes, hovering.) Longoria: This week, correspondent Tracie Hunte, our resident reality-TV expert, watches one of the biggest shows on television and tells the story of how love got written into U.S. immigration law. I’m Julia Longoria. This is The Experiment. (The notes hover for a moment more before cutting out.) Hunte: Okay. So, new couple. This is Big Ed. Big Ed: I’m Ed. I’m 54 years old. People know me as “Big Ed.” (Fast-paced plucky guitar music plays.) Big Ed: I’m from San Diego, California. [A camera shutter clicks.] And I am a professional photographer. Hunte: Big Ed, American white man in his 50s. He actually gave himself the name “Big Ed.” Big Ed: It’s funny because I’m not tall. I am actually 4’11. Hunte: And then there’s Rose, who is much younger. She’s 23. (Whimsical, reality-TV-show-style music plays, ostensibly to play up the comedy of the circumstances.) Rose Vega: My name is Rose, and I am 23 years old. I’m live in Caloocan City, Philippines. Hunte: They met on Facebook, and they’ve had their relationship just on Facebook, and, like, texting and calling. And he’s traveling to the Philippines to meet her and her family—and hopefully fall ever more deeply in love with her, and ask her to marry him. Longoria: Yeah, okay. (Laughs.) Big Ed: I spent the night at Rose’s home. Hunte: And in this scene, Big Ed is waking up after spending the night in Rose’s house. Big Ed: And this was one of the worst nights of my life. I’m completely drained. I haven’t slept. The mattress that I slept in was soaking wet. This was the first night I’ve ever spent without access to air-conditioning. And I hated it. And I feel broken. (Music fades out.) Longoria: (As Hunte giggles.) This is just so, so deeply uncomfortable to watch. Hunte: So, like, a lot of this show is cringe. I should just say. Longoria: Yeah. So walk me through what’s happening here. Hunte: So, throughout the time that he’s in the Philippines, there’s, like, a scene where he’s asking her to shave her legs, because he doesn’t find her feminine enough for him. Or he makes a comment about her breath and gives her toothpaste and a toothbrush, but then it comes out that she actually has had an ulcer for many years, and that’s what’s causing her breath, and she’s actually self-conscious about it, and she brushes her teeth all the time. But, on top of all that, Ed travels to the Philippines from San Diego—something like six, seven thousand miles. And he goes because he’s gonna rescue Rose from this situation, this poverty that she’s in. And he’s already been doing that. He’s been, like, sending money to her and her family to help them out. But, from the second that he’s in the Philippines, he’s so completely helpless, and she’s the one that ends up having to rescue him this entire trip. Why I find this so interesting is just, you know, to see this kind of power dynamic play out. And, also, like, it’s just also really interesting to see the disconnect between how Americans see themselves and how the rest of the world sees Americans. (Soft, lo-fi music plays.) Hunte: And so on this show, you see men like Big Ed. They say they lost hope that they could ever find a partner in the U.S., so they turned to international dating. And this is not just, like, some bizarre reality-TV show setup. Like, there’s a whole industry built around this kind of relationship. (Music out.) Felicity Amaya Schaeffer: Marriage is one of those ways in which women have—for many, many generations and decades—used marriage to get ahead. Hunte: Felicity Amaya Schaeffer is a professor of Feminist Studies and Critical Race Studies at UC Santa Cruz. She’s also the author of the book Love and Empire. Way before 90 Day Fiancé, Felicity became interested in how immigrants were using marriage to cross the border into the U.S. Over three years, she talked to dozens of men and women who were interested in these kinds of relationships. Schaeffer: I ended up in Colombia and Mexico, interviewing women and men at these vacation romance tours about why they were interested in dating someone. Um … Hunte: Wait, what’s a “vacation romance tour”? (Schaeffer chuckles lightly while Hunte laughs outright.) Schaeffer: So, that is, um, these sort of big social parties that different companies host so that men from the United States and Canada can travel to Latin American countries and meet women in a big social event. (Lightly bouncy music plays.) Hunte: So here’s what Felicity discovered. Say you’re a woman in a foreign country interested in marrying an American man. You might contact one of these international dating sites, and they’ll get some photos of you and include some of your stats. Schaeffer: Their weight, how tall they are—all kinds of personal information—and then their contact. Hunte: The company then compiles these packages filled with these photos and contact info for all these women into these digital catalogs, and American men can look through them. And if they see someone they like, they could email them. Schaeffer: And then, usually, they’ll all come together for these big sort of social parties. And it’s a quick way to meet lots of women and for the women to be introduced to lots of men, all in one place. Hunte: Which is where Felicity would show up, asking questions. Schaeffer: Part of this that I’m also interested in is the fantasies that foreign women usually have of life in the United States, and vice versa. You know, men sort of think that U.S. women are much too feminist and too modern and too independent. And they think that they’re gonna find something very different in Russia, Latin America—you know, wherever it is—Asia. And so they often are surprised that women, um, are very strong, have strong personalities, they need certain things, and that they don’t want to usually live in rural areas. Hunte: Did you peer into the dark heart of American masculinity? Schaeffer: Yes. Hunte: What’d you see when you looked—when you peered it into it? (Laughs.) Schaeffer: Oh my God, I mean, so many insecurities! Given the way in which desire is so entwined with status and money, you know, it’s—it’s a sad structure, that sort of capitalist context in which certain people become no one if you don’t have some game. I have this amazing interview with a guy who said to me something that really clarified things. He said, “You know, in the United States, I’m just the average Joe. But when I cross the border, I become Tom Cruise.” It was hard, in some ways, and I felt really creepy. And then it was also sad, you know, to see that there’s so many lonely people that are just sort of in the shadows, um, that can’t meet anyone and just, like, really want to connect. Hunte: Hmm. Schaeffer: And these women are just desperate to come to the United States. And that the men, in some ways, broker their ticket to getting here. Hunte: Have you ever watched 90 Day Fiancé, or heard about it? Schaeffer: Yes. I have watched some of the episodes, of course! (Laughs.) Hunte: You watched it. Okay. Schaeffer: It’s hard to watch too many. Colt: (Over funky music.) I never thought I would get married. All my previous relationships have ended with me getting a broken heart. (The funky music continues under Hunte’s narration.) Hunte: Watching 90 Day Fiancé, I got this feeling that, for a lot of the cast, they might actually believe that a shot at the American dream is all they have to offer in exchange for love. Here’s Colt, the guy who lives in Las Vegas. Colt: (Over the funky music again.) After having struck out a few times online with American girls, I thought maybe I could search outside the country, maybe find a girl. (The music fades out.) Hunte: But, as Americans put themselves on the international marriage market hoping to find someone more beautiful, more loyal, more grateful, if that love turns out not to be true, they also have the power to take that American dream away … Which brings me to one couple I think about a lot: Ashley and Jay. Ashley: (Over soft-rock acoustic guitar.) My name is Ashley. I’m 31 years old, and I’m from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Hunte: Ashley is in her 30s. She’s white, blond, pretty, and a mother of two from Mechanicsburg, a town in Pennsylvania where more than 90 p…
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