It takes two: Nietzsche, "The Ultimatum," and homogeneous homosexuality

I've never been a big fan of dating shows. No amount of royalty-free pop has compelled me long enough to discern between the bronzed bodies on my screen. And before you come at me, I’m not saying this to place myself on higher moral or intellectual ground. Everyone who has been subjected to my thoughts on Dance Moms or RuPaul's Drag Race knows that I am by no means immune to the draws of reality television. I've just never understood the appeal of matchmaking.

I mean, I understand the basics —

1. Enter a group of heterosexuals, typically clad in technicolor swimsuits and given a moniker like "sexy singles"

2. The heteros occupy a mansion/tropical island/pool house

3. Alcohol flows as the singles bravely declare that they are all (ostensibly) looking for love

4. [Insert plot device necessary to distinguish one show from another]

5. Chaos ensues.

I love manufactured drama as much as the next philistine, but the tired pattern has never really satisfied me. So imagine my surprise when I became hooked on the Ultimatum, a show as inauthentic and histrionic as the formula I just bemoaned. I began watching at the behest of my friend Jenna, who has never led me astray. Before the first episode had even finished, I was, as a "sexy single" would say, feeling a real connection. 

The Ultimatum is, well, exactly what it sounds like. We begin with established sets of couples, usually people dating for a number of years. One half of the couple wants to get married, while the other half does not. The marriage-seeking half thus issues the eponymous ultimatum to their partner, challenging them to either marry or move on. The drama begins when the lovers split up and begin 'trial marriages' with selected partners from other couples. After three weeks of marriage with their new partners, the original couples reunite for an additional three weeks, and reevaluate their relationships. The big payoff comes at the end of the season, when the couples decide whether to marry the partner they came in with, marry their partner from the trial marriage, or go home single. No matter the outcome, you can expect hysterics. 

Although the Ultimatum is by and large loyal to its dating show predecessors, there are a few key differences. Firstly, the couples are already familiar with one another. Coming into the show with past baggage adds a layer of intrigue to relationship dynamics, both old and new, making it quite the character study. Second, the couples are all dating each other. The swapping on its own is not revolutionary in the dating show canon, but the preexistence of the couples makes this exponentially more strained. Not to mention the show's relatively small sample size, making it all too easy for couples to become entangled with one another. In this show, the love triangle trope gives way to far more ambitious arrangements, fraught with the potential for drama. Finally, and perhaps most notably, the Ultimatum is gay! Effectively knocking down one of the pillars of the conventional dating show, this detail is not to be overlooked. Don't get me wrong, the show is just as shallow, tacky, and theatrical, but it's a nice change of pace from the Barbie and Ken pairings we've seen a million times.¹ 

My fascination with the Ultimatum is no great mystery. Simply put, it's entertaining! Not turn your brain off entertaining like other dating shows, but genuinely a captivating watch. The sheer sadomasochism of the premise was enough to get me hooked, and by the time I finished the show, I realized that the Ultimatum offers far more than it appears to. When the credits began to roll, I understood that my reservations were all wrong — dating shows aren't shallow at all. Actually, they represent something at the core of all human society — will to power. 

Here's where this entry gets pedantic. 

Friedrich Nietzsche was a philosopher and writer, best known for works like On the Genealogy of Morals and Beyond Good and Evil, which you may recall from that class you hated freshman year. I'll admit with equal parts pride and shame that I had a bit of a Nietzsche phase, and his theories, while contentious, are stuck in my brain.² One of Nietzsche's most popular theories is that of will to power, or the urge to assert one's dominance. Nietzsche tends to write about this in the context of political unrest, but the dynamics remain the same in romantic relationships. It is undeniably present in the Ultimatum, where power struggles are the defining aspect of each contestants' relationships.

According to Nietzsche, selfhood can be divided into two dominant archetypes — the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The Apollonian archetype, named for Apollo, bears allegiance to logic, discipline, and self-control. The Dionysian, from Dionysus, represents disorder, passion, and primality. The Ultimatum is purely Nietzschean through its staunch separation of these two camps. On one side, we have the givers of the ultimatum, the Apollonian partners in search of commitment and convention. On the other lies the Dionysian partners, reluctant to submit and unable to be tied down. The show pushes these archetypes to the limits of their binary. The separation of ultimatum givers and receivers becomes a means for self-identification, to the point where contestants are introducing themselves primarily by their respective placement on the binary.³ The terms are not just internalized but externalized. The reality television format provokes a degree of self-fashioning inherent to the medium. In the context of the Ultimatum, this dichotomy becomes the whole premise. 

Caravaggio, Bacchus (Dionysus), 1596

Everybody, television star or not, falls somewhere on this scale, but the Ultimatum is not the place for fence-sitting. This is exactly what makes the show so addicting. In bringing the dichotomy to the forefront, the Ultimatum removes the ambiguities of real life, transforming each contestant into one-dimensional, albeit entertaining, surrogates of Apollo and Dionysus. It's wonderfully messy.

While we're on the topic of disarray, I'd like to break down the most compelling storyline in the show — that of three couples who all become interconnected during the trial marriage period. It's a confusing, fascinating entanglement that's impossible to explain with words alone. After much deliberation, I figured the best route would be to go full Alice Pieszecki and make a chart of the lesbian nebula —

As you can see, the trial marriages gave rise to some giver/giver and receiver/receiver couples. It's no surprise to see homogeneous pairings when each individual is defined by where they fall on the binary. In other words, Apollonian attracts Apollonian, and Dionysian attracts Dionysian. The labels permeate not only each individual, but the very nature of their trial marriages. 

Xander and Yoly, the two Apollonians, have a relationship defined by their mutuality. The two are highly considerate of each others' feelings, and quickly bond over their original partners' reluctance to commit. Their excessive accommodation borders on saccharine, and the two fail to stay together, with both partners left missing the spontaneity of their original lovers. 

Dionysians Rae and Vanessa have chemistry that is questionable at best, but their partnership remains rooted in the qualities that provoked the ultimatum in the first place. Unsure and unstable, the two stumble through their trial marriage, with much tension and discomfort. By the time the trial is over, the two seem less close than they were when they began, and, unsurprisingly, they don't last. 

Funnily enough, Mal and Lexi, the only pairing that maintains the Apollonian/Dionysian dynamic, seem to be the most high-functioning. They aren't exactly a good couple, but they communicate well together, working through their respective issues. Unlike the homogeneous couples, the two are able to learn from each others' perspective. It seems as though there's potential for them to transcend the one-dimensional nature of their being. Though they don't end up together, they reenter their original relationships with a more holistic point of view. 

In his essay, On the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche writes that people are driven by ressentiment, which is just a fancy, French way of saying resentment. We see this manifested in the homogeneous Apollonian and Dionysian couples. Their trial marriages function to echo the preexisting criticisms each party aimed at their partners. Mutuality isn't a blessing but a curse, it renders growth impossible. Ressentiment is a state of arrested development, committed to deflecting blame unto one's foil. 

It is not until the Apollonian and Dionysian learn to coexist that harmony can be achieved. It's the very paradox of polyphonic dissonance that gives way to true balance. Incongruity is the crux of it all – romance, eroticism, and communication. For any couple to work, one must adopt both Apollonian and Dionysian tendencies. It's the only way to evade the trap of one-dimensionality. 

As Nietzsche puts it, 

"The intricate relation of the Apollonian and the Dionysian in tragedy must really be symbolized by a fraternal union of the two deities: Dionysus speaks the language of Apollo; Apollo, however, finally speaks the language of Dionysus; and so the highest goal of tragedy and of art in general is attained."

This begs the question — why were the original couples, all Apollonian and Dionysian pairings, so dysfunctional in the first place? The answer is quite simple — it makes for good television! The original couples don't work because both halves are fighting for dominance. The Apollonian side desperately seeks control by issuing the ultimatum, while the Dionysian side rebels by virtue of recoupling. The trial marriage period is a site of significance for will to power, in which every couple is given the choice to challenge the binary, or risk remaining fixed in ressentiment. No Apollonian or Dionysian can win without confronting their biases, but the purpose of the Ultimatum is not to enact growth, it's to perpetuate will to power. Why waste screen time on moral gray areas when you can watch insolent lesbians have drunken screaming matches?

So while I remain convinced that the Ultimatum is superior among the postmodern dating show sludge, I recognize that there isn't much distinguishing it from its contemporaries. Like any good reality show, it relies upon an axiom that extends beyond the confines of a screen. Will to power is a distinctly human urge, defined by its difficulty to procure. Dating shows take this fact, douse it in fake tanner, and give it a stage to play out on. You have to look past the artificiality to recognize how true it really gets. 

❤︎₊ ⊹

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1. I should mention that the Ultimatum actually got its start as a straight show, and that the season I am writing about is technically titled, the Ultimatum: Queer Love. I’m sure the straight seasons are equally relevant to my argument, but they say write what you know, right?

2. Truthfully, I think there's a million different approaches you could take with the Ultimatum. I mean, Baudrillard is written all over this show, but I'll let someone else tackle that think piece.

3. I’m inclined to wonder if the producers were aware of the nudge, wink nature of these terms in the gay community...