By: Sandra Vo, Staff Writer
As a melodramatic reality television show with a questionable premise and a hearty dose of misogyny, The Bachelor truly serves as a paradigm of American entertainment. For anybody unfamiliar with this show, The Bachelor essentially picks a multitude of women to compete for the heart of a handsome, eligible man who has been named as the “bachelor.” The show continues over multiple weeks, as the women and bachelor go on both group dates and one-on-one dates. At the end of the season, the bachelor will select one woman whom he can either propose to or simply continue a relationship with.
Like every reality television show based around romance, The Bachelor is packed to the brim with drama and problematic elements. A lot of the show centers around villainizing certain women (sometimes rightfully so), broadcasting contestants’ vulnerable moments to the entire nation, and purposefully generating conflict between the contestants. However, this is nothing new to those familiar with the world of reality television; every producer needs to get their ratings up somehow. So, why does Bachelor Nation (the nickname given to fans of The Bachelor) remain alive and well?
America’s obsession with this show makes complete sense when you think about it. Where else could you watch a show where a man will passionately confess his deep attraction to a woman and then make out with five different women immediately afterwards? What other television show could stir up so much drama over a bowl of shrimp? Could any other show top the insane way that the contestants will attempt to win over the bachelor? One woman introduced herself to this season’s bachelor, Clayton, by showing him a pillow plastered with a poorly cropped image of his face. In the scenes following, the cameras showed her passionately making out with the pillow.
On top of that, the producers of the show don’t ever miss out on a chance to strip down both the bachelor or the contestants (as proven by the latest episode’s beach scene and scavenger hunt through downtown Los Angeles in their underwear). Fans are almost always treated to a close up of a contestant’s thighs or the bachelor’s muscles between every ad break.
While the show’s host always introduces the season as a way for the current bachelor to find love, any audience member can see that the show actively highlights the ludicrous nature of its own premise. Perhaps it’s this unintentionally satirical nature of the show that continues drawing viewers season after season.