Bachelorette Bubble
"All the smart women I know watch this show", a coworker once told me, baffled.
Funnily enough, I can’t self-plagiarize because my previous thoughts on the matter seem to have been eaten by Facebook, or at least I cannot find it digging through my log. That’s ok- this is a different medium after all, and thank you in advance for reading my rambling on reality television.
The Bachelor franchise has run for 18 years, but I only became fascinated with it in the last four years initially as a way to see my grad school friends. But, now I am fully invested because it’s a funhouse mirror into what the producers (The Powers That Be, or TPTB) think America finds attractive and how that shapes the narrative of who deserves the Journey for Love.
Part of the draw is spectacle. Falling in love is such an intimate, personal thing and yet here we are, televising a journey of about two months where a lead tries to find their future spouse in a pool of ~30 eligible contestants. Statistically, the show doesn’t have a very good success rate (this survey is from 2017 and doesn’t include the Bachelor in Paradise spinoff which has a slightly better success rate, likely because the dating pool all has the shared experience of being on these shows) but millions of eyeballs still look on Monday (and currently Tuesday) nights to see who will catch feelings.
A lot of viewers take it at face value, but what intrigues me is figuring out the narrative that TPTB try to create through editing and musical cues. Who is getting a lot of face time and in-the-moments? Are some of these audio clips frankenbit from other recordings? Is this footage of a contestant with a scrunched up face from later in the day (as in, do you notice people are in a different seating arrangement from the immediate scene)? In the last few seasons, leads have gone “off script” and it’s neat to look for the seams where producers try to cobble together a narrative from the footage on hand.
There are a LOT of people who don’t think deeper than what they see though, and that’s where applying a critical eye to the franchise is more meaningful. The cast of contestants are always very conventionally attractive because these are who the lead (and America) are supposed to find as potential spouse material. The franchise as a whole has a type: fit, young, and predominantly white. People of color exist, but it’s rare that they make it to the final two contestants. To me, this says, “Hey, we think y’all are cute, but mmmmm I dunno if I’d take you home to meet my parents.” I’ve experienced this at a friend level, where a college friend’s parents didn’t realize that Danielle wasn’t a blonde girl until I showed up at a football tailgate, but OOF it’s so much more damaging when it’s someone you might spend the rest of your life with.
This is a silly franchise; let’s be clear. Dating and getting engaged in a two month pressure cooker is an absurd scenario. But, it does say that if we’re in an accelerated fairy tale situation, these ARE the people you should pick from, and that both reflects and perpetuates harmful stereotypes of how attractive people of color are. Notably, contestants who are floated to be potential leads have to be exceptional: old/mature enough to seriously think about getting married, minimal drama, educated and/or with a decorate background. If you’re not familiar with the Bachelor franchise format, typically one of the runners up of a season goes on to become the lead of the next Bachelor/Bachelorette. They’ve broken from that format in the last several seasons though [1]. If the goal of the show is to feed on human drama, they certainly got it, but if they wanted to bring in people serious about finding a husband/wife, they skipped over MANY Black men and women who are worthy of being loved and who have more emotional maturity than the leads that were picked. By reducing screen time for contestants of color, TPTB visually sends the message that these aren’t serious contenders, and if they aren’t in a fantasy world, what does that mean for real life?
Speaking for my own community, I’ve seen in reddit discussions on r/asianamerican and elsewhere people say, “but why would we want representation in this show? It’s trashy.” I think a lot about Roger Ebert’s defense of Better Luck Tomorrow at the 2002 Sundance Festival, when during a Q and A period someone asked Justin Lin why he would make a film that depicts amoral Asian Americans- isn’t that bad for the community? Ebert stood up and said,
“What I find very offensive and condescending about your statement is nobody would say to a bunch of white filmmakers, ‘How could you do this to your people?’ Asian American characters have the right to be whoever they hell they want to be. They don’t have to represent ‘their people!’”
The model minority stereotype exists because we think we need to be Good to be accepted, and anything less jeopardizes our status as Americans when in reality, we contain multitudes including the spectrum from messy wannabe instagram influencers to genuine Spouse Material. Our depiction in dating shows is fraught because of the sexual stereotypes that our men are sexless and our women are objects, but that is why it’s important that we have representation at ALL levels. The true American Dream is that we can one day exist in mediocrity instead of always having to be excellent. Venmo John enjoyed a mini-Bachelor season of sorts on Bachelor in Paradise, but otherwise our most visible reality show representation is A Shot of Love with Tila Tequila and she became a Nazi (but I guess is born-again now??) so we can do better, y’all.
I watched the first episode of Clare Crawley’s Bachelorette season (at age 39, she is the oldest lead the franchise has had, and it’s interesting to look at the ages of her contestants and think about the show’s ageism), and it will be interesting to see how the pandemic affects her season. Bachelor is already filmed in a bubble in some ways (contestants give up their phones and are isolated from outside world news, creating an environment where producers encourage them to only think about their relationships leading to a very weird pressure cooker environment), but without the typical tropes of travel and outside dates I can see how [spoiler redacted] happens this season, and I’m very excited to see what happens after [spoiler redacted]. There are some very cute and/or hopefully mature dudes on this season, so I am hopeful to see what comes next (while being skeptical at the franchise’s ability to be progressive in any sense). A fan campaign called Bach Diversity debuted this year, calling on the show to diversify not only the cast but also the crew behind the scenes, as the show very much follows a white gaze, and also for the show to make statements when racism occurs in Bachelor Nation instead of shrugging its shoulders and expecting Rachel Lindsay, our only lead of color, to say something. Time will tell if any meaningful change happens when Matt James steps into the role of First Black Bachelor (incidentally, something fictional unREAL did before the real franchise).
[1] Rachel Lindsay (our first and only lead of color so far) was announced as Bachelorette before she was eliminated for Nick Viall’s season after Fantasy Suites (top 3-4), possibly so they could get applications from men of color for her season. No one from her season was picked for Bachelor despite some very good candidates narrative-wise. Eric, the man who had never fallen in love until Rachel could now go on his own journey! Kenny, the Pretty Boy Pitbull wrestler who’s a single dad! Diggy, stylish and all around chill dude! Instead, TPTB pulled a contestant from five years prior in Arie Luyendyk Jr., a former race car driver from Arizona.
Arie broke the format in that after he proposed to Becca, he slid into the DMs of his runner up and decided to let ABC film his breakup with his fiance, only to propose on the aftershow to Lauren. Becca was a shoe-in for next Bachelorette, and her pool had some strong candidates for Bachelor… only for TPTB to go for the easy(?) path and pick Colton, a fresh-faced 20-something football player whose special thing was his Virginity. Easy-ish in that he also went on the summer spinoff Bachelor in Paradise before being cast as lead. Colton was a lead aware of the game who caught on to how dates were organized, and as he told This American Life he deliberately kept his favorites from the producers so he could see them more. He ended up NOT proposing at the end of his season, and despite third place Tayshia, 28 years old at the time and a divorcee from a military family very ready for marriage, TPTB decided to cast 7th place Hannah Brown, the 25 year old Miss Alabama 2018. Hannah got engaged on her season only to break up with her fiance for having a girlfriend, and while the producers courted 31 year old Mike Johnson (Black vet, cute, thoughtful, also very ready to get married) to the point where he discussed what kind of women he’d want to cast on his season they ultimately went with Pilot Pete, who also got engaged but broke up with his fiancee. Peter is white passing but has Cuban heritage; having him occasionally speak in Spanish felt like a slap in the face after the fan momentum behind Mike.
Thanks for making it to the end! If ~1,500 words didn’t scare you way, why not share this post? Always fascinated to see how everyone else thinks about the media they consume!