In a world where dating reality shows only perpetuate harmful stereotypes, Love Is Blind sparked a refreshing change when Shake’s mom refused to stand behind her son’s misogyny and defended his fiance who had been wronged by him for the majority of the season.
It’s the way Shake’s mom and Deepti are on the same page for me pic.twitter.com/lokZrQt2Ax
— Love is Blind (@LoveisBlindShow) March 1, 2022
Fair warning: There will be zero sympathies towards Shake in this article. Love Is Blind is a social experiment set in a speed-dating format where singles “try to find a match and fall in love – without ever seeing each other face-to-face.” The contestants are situated in pods separated by a wall where they can only communicate via words. At any point, a couple can decide to propose marriage and thereafter, their relationship is put to test for a month. After getting to know each other for a month, they can choose to seal their fate with a simple yes or no at the altar.
The attraction is meant to be purely based on emotional connection as opposed to physical appearances, and our Bond villain Shake clearly did not understand the assignment.
Abhishek “Shake” Chatterjee (veterinarian by profession, human equivalent of stinking garbage by personality) spent the entire season being a male chauvinist pig, continually objectifying his soon-to-be-fiancé Deepti as well as the other female contestants. His shit personality was evident in the pods when he attempted to ask Deepti her weight in the slimiest way possible, “If we were to be at a music festival, do you like being on the guy’s shoulders?” When Deepti replies, “Yeah, you’re up for the challenge? You can pick me up?” Shake answers with, “Yeah, but will I have trouble picking you up?” The whole interaction made our jaws drop to the floor, leaving the audience cringing in disgust.
While Deepti did call him out on his superficial behaviour, she ended up accepting his proposal to marry him and what happened next was a royal trainwreck.
One of the most beautiful moments on the show is the reveal. The happy couples finally get to see who they’re about to marry. But our raging narcissist Shake managed to ruin this moment with his perverted jargon. In what can only be described as a 15-year-old teenage boy’s sexual fantasy, the first thing he did upon seeing Deepti was aggressively squeeze her ass, accompanied by the most nauseating comment, “That booty is not safe.” One might wonder, what could be worse? To top it off, overtaken with physical attraction he whispers in her ear, “I’m gonna get you pregnant.”
His behaviour towards his fiancé soon changed after he saw her in a bathing suit on a trip to Mexico and he began bad mouthing her body. This barely scratches the surface of Shake’s vile behavior towards Deepti. But enough about Shake. If we sat to analyze his shallow mindset, it would take all day and make my blood pressure shoot up.
Let’s talk about Sita, Shake’s mom:
On his wedding day, Shake had a very personal conversation with his mother, Sita about all of Deepti’s wonderful qualities. He also confessed to not feeling an animalistic attraction (barf) towards her.
Joking that it was TMI, Sita offered her son a much needed wake up call. She revealed, “Being very frank, I’m very much identifying with her right now more than you.” Sita started, “She could find someone who absolutely loves her the way she is. She’s a wonderful person.” As Shake The Snake tried to defend his stance, his mother stood her ground, saying: “She doesn’t deserve someone who gives her even half a percent less.” Her revealation left Shake speechless.
Nevertheless all ended well for Deepti. She dumped Shake at the altar and was hailed a queen by the internet.
However, it’s important to commend Sita on not siding with her son’s sexist mindset and calling him out on his bullshit. This is extremely rare, especially in South Asian cultures, where a male child is put on a pedestal and worshipped as a supreme deity, with his internalized sexism unchecked and maybe glorified. Not for Shake though, he was quickly put in his place.