Disability-specific romance series are on the rise, including new Netflix series Down for Love. But are they more harmful than helpful? Insiders talk backlashes, ableism and why ‘we all deserve that special someone’
For their second date, Carlos invites Aelinor to a cooking class where they learn how to make an authentic Italian pasta dish, before eating it together. He brings her a beautiful bunch of flowers in her favourite colour, and recites self-penned poems about the ways her presence and beauty makes him feel. Speaking to the cameras afterwards, he says with a straight face: “As a matter of fact, I don’t like her,” before breaking out into a huge grin and adding: “I love her.”
Carlos and Aelinor’s blossoming relationship is one of several chronicled in Down for Love, a new Netflix series that follows people who have learning disabilities as they embark on a journey to find partners. The show, developed in New Zealand by disability-first production company Attitude Pictures, follows on from the success of similar shows Love on the Spectrum (also Netflix) and the poorly titled The Undateables (Channel 4). It’s not hard to understand why disability-specific dating shows are cropping up – after all, if having a conventionally attractive body forms the basis of romantic connections in mainstream dating series, where does that leave those of us whose figures deviate from what’s typically considered attractive?
