By Virginia Trioli

Topic:Community and Society

Virginia Trioli tunes into the most watched television show in Australia with her son.  (Supplied: Nine)

The writer James Baldwin once observed that children "have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them".

Which makes my household's recently adopted strategy of watching Married at First Sight as a kind of aversion-therapy for the education of our teenage boy either crazy-brave, or just crazy. Because he could walk away from weeks of this interpersonal melodrama with a programmed horror for toxic behaviour — or he might become a total master of it.

Never was there a stronger example of "do as I say, not as they do".

Watching the largely fake, but also completely true, juggernaut reality TV series Married at First Sight with our 14-year-old was never a deliberate choice: unlike my strict requirement that our son be properly versed in the ways of Andor, this one wasn't mandatory. Instead, it was opportunistic — and it's potentially very powerful.

MAFS contestant Paul has admitted to punching a door off-screen after learning about his on-screen wife's romantic history. (Source: Nine/Married at First Sight)

A real-time social studies exercise

I only had to once see my child's eyes widen in horror as he accidentally caught sight of me watching a bunch of lying, manipulating reality TV stars screaming at each other on TV to see the potential. Sitting together analysing the behaviour we see on MAFS has now become a sort of real-time social studies exercise for us that I reckon should be taught in schools.

And for those who might suggest that these outlandish people and their even more outlandish behaviour offer nothing of value to developing minds, don't kid yourself. There's a teen-size version of MAFS playing out at your kid's school right now, and they're either stuck in it or unwillingly observing it.

And like all good sex education, being properly informed is being properly protected.

Let me explain.

It is compelling to watch human psychology play out under pressure in most of these so-called TV experiments. No matter the motivation of the contestants — fame, more followers on Instagram or being able to monetise their persona — almost nobody can avoid reverting to form and falling into the ways of their personality and psychology when they are put together in intense social connection. Thus, the bully reveals themselves as a bully, the traumatised child comes out in the high-functioning adult, and the carefully constructed persona falls apart when far away from its carefully constructed social circle.

A kind of TV truth will always come out.

So, it was fascinating to see the federal minister for social services, Tanya Plibersek, use her social media to scold the makers of this season of MAFS for casting Tyson — a bloke who had once been married to a Mormon and who wanted a "submissive" wife with no "masculine" energy, who would adopt a "traditional" role of keeping house and kids and leave him to be the provider.

You can imagine how this guy's energy went down in a group of ambitious, opinionated, independent women.

Plibersek thought it was irresponsible to platform these views on MAFS at a time when the "manosphere" was quietly brainwashing young men with misogynistic and dangerous views.

I completely disagree. Tyson's views are everywhere — they trip from the lips of young men, and women, with many not even realising from where they originate. The algorithm is persuading young kids of this toxic stuff on a minute-by-minute basis. And I don't imagine many of them are going to sit down and watch Louis Theroux's "Manosphere".

(A peevish side-note here: is Louis's streaming show the greatest example of mansplaining of modern times? If we'd listened to the thousands of women educators around the world who have been telling us about this dangerous underworld for the last few years, Louis could have shot a nice food series in the south of France instead.)

Louis Theroux faces down "red pilled" figureheads in "Inside the Manosphere".

The power of theatre

But with MAFS it was incredibly reassuring to watch my son see and hear Tyson himself, in conversation with the bewildered woman he'd "married" and see him reach his own conclusion: "Mum — he's an incel!"

Yes indeed, my child, and that moment of a bright young woman calmly rejecting the notion that working hard and having ambition was somehow only a "masculine" quality, landed far more powerfully than anything I could say.

Yes, a lot of MAFS is theatre — vaudeville, even. But that's the power of theatre: our brains are wired to understand and respond to the archetypes of performance.

The villain and the hero shine very clearly, very brightly on a well-lit stage.

Those characters, real or confected, have become incredibly useful tools for learning.

As a family, we have sat down together most nights and watched unbelievably bitchy behaviour that has taken me straight back to high school.

And as our kids enter their teen years, we've had the benefit of all sorts of MAFS relationship behaviour. We've watched bids for connection and genuine affection. We've seen poor communication and sulky withdrawal. We've seen unkindness and defensiveness. We've seen some contestants wobble, lose their nerve and fail in the moment of being called out, and through it all, we haven't needed to say a thing. The example is there, the effect it has is clear and our son gets there all on his own.

Start your weekend with the best of the ABC's journalism, presented by Virginia Trioli. Discover compelling features, big ideas and revealing analysis to understand the stories that matter to Australians.

"Mum, that's terrible!"

"Oh, he seems nice."

"He should have just owned his own shit there, Mum."

And I couldn't be prouder.

I heard the radio presenter Carrie Bickmore interview one of the more chaotic contestants the other day — someone whose self-regulation still seems to sit in the five to seven-year-old range — and she said that she pointed the behaviour out to her young daughter and asked her to never be like that. It was, as the therapists say, a teaching moment.

As is all of MAFS — but of course, for all the wrong reasons.

This weekend, here's a more ABC-like way to talk to kids and young men about the manosphere if you just have to have the hysterics of MAFS on your screen — I get it. And also: here's this week's episode of my show Creative Types to stream and a lovely behind-the-scenes with pianist Andrea Lam, who has made the show The Piano her own.

What to read this weekend:

'They honestly saved my life': The bikers helping abused kids feel safe

A DNA test, a match and a decades-old IVF mix-up

Why Yothu Yindi's 'black Elvis' turned his back on a wild rockstar life

How to talk to boys and young men about the manosphere

These musicians stole our hearts on The Piano. Where are they now?

Dance company takes over bowling alley to defy assumptions about disability

Have a safe and happy weekend — and with news this week of the death of Bernie Lynch, the co-founder of Eurogliders with Grace Knight, there's only one song to play. Heaven, indeed. Go well.

Virginia Trioli is presenter of Creative Types and a former co-host of ABC News Breakfast and Mornings on ABC Radio Melbourne.

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