Very glad to see someone writing on this. As you much more articulately state, there’s a lot of weird stuff happening on The Marriage Ref. You touch on some red flags regarding the show’s representation of ethnicity and gender. I think there’s also a fruitful conversation here on heteronormativity, sexuality, and the institution of marriage. The celebrity panel is a particularly unsettling site – my favorite so far being Eva Longoria’s response to a husband’s personal hygiene practices: “What is this? Mani, pedi, tanny, tranny?” Perhaps I should not be surprised, but it is certainly worrisome and at times just plain bizarre that a show like this occupies a primetime space in 2010. That the show comes off as so forced, choking on its own humor and banality, is a reason to feel optimistic.