Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess with long, silky hair and sparkling brown eyes - and she is looking for the woman for life.

While in Europe discussions about rainbow flags in soccer stadiums will (have to) continue in the summer of 2021, a summer fairy tale of a different kind is being told on German television: RTL produced the world's first lesbian dating show.

“Princess Charming” is the name of the format that previously existed with gay men under the title “Prince Charming” and which can be seen on the RTL streaming portal TVNow.

The principle works exactly like that of the dating shows "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette": "Princess" Irina hose meets 20 candidates who are vacationing in a house on Crete and casts their dream woman.

Johanna Dürrholz

Editor in the Society department at FAZ.NET

  • Follow I follow

So far, so common, one might assume that a right to trash is not only enjoyed by heterosexuals.

And anyone who knows the previous formats “Bachelor” and “Bachelorette” knows that it is rarely about true love and big feelings, but about the opportunity to become known to a broad audience, to collect a few hundred thousand Instagram followers and, at best, to go into the afterwards To be able to move into the “summer house of the stars” in order to destroy the new relationship immediately with a media effect.

“Princess Charming” is different. The candidates are not driven up in their evening attire in limousines, as is customary with the "Bachelor", in order to then undergo the meat inspection in front of the camera and the panting Bachelor. In the lesbian version there is also a lot of hairspray and high heels, but other ladies shave their skulls or iron their suits before meeting their RTL princess for the first time. Afterwards, they drink together by the pool and are simply happy when Irina Schlauch is pulled up in the red convertible: She is wearing a simple black jumpsuit and little make-up. The women are delighted.

And the presentation of the candidates is also different. The women want to find love, maybe get on television, but they also have a job. “I think it's very important that this format exists” is a sentence that almost every candidate utters in the first episode. She needed a woman who loves women on television as a teenager, says one - as a role model to see that this is normal. "We want to show that there is lesbian love - not just in porn," says another. The candidate Wiki says she is pursuing an educational mandate. At first glance, this political claim seems contradictory - after all, it is still a dating show.

And in the first episode, as happens on reality TV, there is a tangible argument between two candidates. Right at the beginning it becomes clear that these two women were probably not cast because they would have been considered as possible ladies of the princess's heart. Unlike in other formats, you don't show the situation, you only hear a scream from off, and a text panel is faded in: The scenes would have no place in this program. Nonetheless, the remaining candidates are concerned: They don't want their community to be associated with this behavior. The women's sense of mission, the message, is clear: “I'm here for political reasons,” says one. So can a dating show be political?