Married at First Sight

• Queer
• Marriage

RPG system: LARP
Participants: 6-14 players

By

Description

Married at First Sight is an enormously popular reality TV show around the world. In the show, strangers are legally married to each other at the altar, without seeing each other beforehand. After a few weeks of married life, including sharing a honeymoon and briefly living together, the couples decide if they want to stay married after the show.

Just as many current reality shows, Married at First Sight seems to play out in the fifties. Some couples express a wish for ’traditional family values’. Almost all couples are heterosexual, and success is measured by the longevity of the relationships and the number of children produced. As a blogger wrote: ”If the goal is not to create a family and grow old together, then it’s little point in going along with the process”.

The scenario explores those traditional family values through the lens of a mix of characters where some are straight and monogamous, and others decidedly not. We play through some of the iconic scenes of the show, ending with ‘Decision day’ when the characters decide if they want to stay together.

About the authors
Annika and Alexis have both been active in the Nordic larp scene for more than twenty years. Together with Staffan Fladvad, they co-designed ‘Cabaret, the larp musical’. Annika has also designed a range of shorter scenarios, including ‘You want it darker’ that was run at Stockholm Scenario festival and the Smoke. Annika works at Uppsala University as professor in Human Computer Interaction and dean of Social sciences. Alexis works as youth minister in Svenska Kyrkan. Annika is the main designer of this larp, and Alexis has designed some of the characters.

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