Following up on my last post: While "Dining in the Dark" uses blindfolds to simulate blindness—a deeply problematic practice—Netflix’s *Love Is Blind* raises a different but related issue: the casual use of "blindness" as a metaphor.
The title refers to the idea that love can transcend physical appearance, but it uses blindness to symbolize ignorance or a lack of perception. This isn’t new—our language is full of metaphors like "turning a blind eye" or "blind ambition" that associate blindness with negative traits like ignorance or inability.
As a blind person, I see how language shapes perceptions. These metaphors may seem harmless, but they perpetuate outdated, ableist notions of blindness as a deficiency. They turn our lived experiences into rhetorical devices, erasing the richness of blind culture and reducing us to symbols of "lack."
No, *Love Is Blind* isn’t offensive in the same way as "Dining in the Dark," which makes a spectacle of our lives. But the metaphorical use of blindness shows how ingrained ableism is in language and culture. Casual metaphors matter—they reinforce unconscious biases that we must challenge.
Blindness isn’t a symbol. It’s a lived reality, full of challenges, skills, and a vibrant community. Let’s think more critically about how we use disability in language and storytelling.
💬 What do you think?
Sean Randall
in reply to Charlotte Joanne • • •This comes up a lot.
My concern about inclusive language is that one day, we'll go so far that we can't understand each other.
For me, far too many people treat me like blindness is more of a problem than it is. The person I have been dining with has been asked for my meal choices on far too many occasions to count. Nonetheless, if we stop using the word blind in a metaphorical context, this doesn't change their actions. In fact I could make an excellent case to argue that it distances them even more from the idea of blindness, a widening I already struggle with when in some parts of the world, someone can both be legally blind and drive a vehicle. I already feel that the term blind is appropriated by those who have corrective vision. To want the word even less in use seems ridiculous.
I am happy that my love is blind. I love my life partner without considering her visual appearance overmuch, and love being blind encapsulates that perfectly.
I love things being blindingly-obvious. people have blind spots in their vision, and I see no harm in transfering that concept to an emotional one (there are people with whom i cannot discuss certain topics because they have a blind spot about it in an emotive context).
mobile phone companies are being advised to avoid the term blackspot for an area of poor signal coverage because it is offensive. Man hours are no longer applicable to people because they disinclude women. Processes at work have to be unalived because terminated sounds harsh.
Language is an ever-evolving system of expression. I worry that being militant about a word like blind will, if we are not careful, see us using so many tortuous tautologies that we are divorced from richness in language full-stop.
The Blind AI
in reply to Sean Randall • • •The Blind AI
in reply to Sean Randall • • •Sean Randall
in reply to The Blind AI • • •Tell a child that you'll turn a blind eye to their unflattering drawing of their dad one day, they'll understand that an adult with real blind eyes can't see. Boom. Life lesson.
The Blind AI
in reply to Sean Randall • • •