Late: Looking for love – as the Ethiopian response to a bachelor caused a dispute

The boy meets the girl. The girl falls on the boy. The girl reflects on love and the boy – finally – he proclaims her commitment to her.

If you are a fan of the show of realistic television, you saw several variations of this story – it’s a well -worn storyline that has played out on the likes of the Island of Love, Love Slind and The Bachelor.

But in Ethiopia, this romantic scenario broke the convention.

Bethel Hetahun’s content creator won the Messiah Hilemeskel insurance agent in Latey: I am looking for love – a reality, which ignited discussions about dating norms in the conservative East African country.

The Latey premises reflected in the above hit, Bachelor (in fact, Latey is amharical for a bachelor/bachelor).

Ten women had to compete for Mr. Messiah’s commitment, 38-year-old Ethiopian-American, who grew up and lived in Dallas.

Throughout the series, the woman fought with this boxing, basketball competitions and even a bizarre competition, where they had to develop television advertising for the mattress, the “student”.

Recently, broadcasting on YouTube is a rare dating program in a country where courtship is traditionally a private business.

Having won such a terrible show, the 25-year-old Ms. Betel said BBC’s BBC on Podcast Africa. Weeks from the finals, which scored more than 620,000 views, her victory is still “feeling an honorary sign”.

Of course, not everyone feels the same.

“The concept of the dating show is completely (a) the Western idea,” says Vlogger Kassaye.

“Dating in Ethiopia has always been a private business, which is carefully educated and learned for the attention of the family or society when it reaches the level of maturity.”

Mr. Semer, at the age of 41, also believes that the show depreciates women, considering them as the items that need to be purchased.

Several spectators expressed the same opinion – one commentator on YouTube wrote: “Ladies, you are not an object that the one who has money can easily pick you up.”

Another asked: “A lot of creativity in production, but if it is against culture, what is the point?”

Ms. Bethel agrees that the concept of women who are openly fighting for a man face Ethiopian traditions, but insists that the show is more than its main prerequisite.

“The whole point of the show is to represent different types of women,” she says.

“If you have seen episodes, you can see how every woman in this episode has many different struggles, backgrounds and different types of things that were not actually expressed and presented in the media in Ethiopia.”

Probably, in this regard, Latey is successful. Women – who include hotels, flights and accountants – quickly communicates, share their personal stories with each other and viewers.

In one of the most broken scenes, the actress Vivian dissolved that she fled to Ethiopia from Eritrea, a neighboring country that, which, Applies an uncertain military conscription for all working citizens. He was also widely accused of human rights violations.

Vivian traveled alone in Ethiopia and did not see his mother five years later.

“I miss it that way,” she tearful.

Elsewhere, Rachel’s model explains that she gave up the school to take on several jobs and provide her siblings, while other women have emotional talk about sadness and their veneration to those who raised them.

Having captured these women’s realities – and their romantic desires – late fixed its place as “content of its times”, the producer of Metasebia Yoseph tells the BBC.

Ms Metasebia, co -founder D! NKTV, the Latey manufacturing company, says the show “flared the boat”, but far from the attack of Ethiopian culture.

“The number one is not hypersexual,” she says.

“We leave it for more innocent to find out what you are, dating stages.”

She says that the show also asks her viewers to interrogate the concept of culture “Iskra, the dialogue” What is our culture? Are we a monolith? ”

The adaptation of the universal realistic television formula to Ethiopia pleased many, and one fan comments: “I love the risk, given how reserved we are as society … I always wanted to see other shows in the Ethiopian version. This is a devastated moment.”

The second viewer wrote: “I never imagined how to watch the bachelor in Ethiopia, but you did a great job by enlivening it.”

Behind this success D! NK TV plans a second series.

This time, according to Ms Metasbia, a lonely woman can become the one who chooses her match from 10 men’s hopes.

“We get a lot of reviews from the audience, people want to see how the roles have turned,” she explains.

As for Ms. Bethel and Mr. Messiah? Unfortunately, their love story stopped.

“This is a great distance because he is now in America with his son. So it’s really difficult … I don’t know where it will go,” she says.

But Mrs. Bethel is still close to some of her colleagues, whom she calls her “Sar”.

She is proud to have demonstrated the “romantic side of Ethiopia” and believes that the show would lead to the best ideas about women in the Ethiopian media.

“This is a new way to demonstrate women and how they express themselves,” she says.

“This is a new way of vision.”