If you’ve been following this site for any length of time, you’ve probably picked up on my annoyance with reality TV and romantic works. Sure, I may enjoy a subplot or two in a sci-fi or fantasy story, but it seems like romantic stories are the junk food of the entertainment industry. They’re relatively cheap to produce, gain huge followings rather quickly, and can generate explosive discussions across the Internet.
I’m not used to such a high dose of concentrated madness, so you can imagine my shock when I first admitted to myself that I have a problem.
Hi, my name is Eric, and I can’t stop watching The Bachelor.
No, seriously. Help!
Shall We Tumble Down The Rabbit Hole?
For those of you who are living in a hobbit hole, The Bachelor combines the traditional nonsense of a reality show with all of the batshit insanity of your average romantic dramedy. Every season focuses on the “romantic journey” of a particular guy… but it can’t be just any guy. It has to be a hunk who is probably rich.
Of course, every saga needs the woman of said Chad’s dreams, so The Bachelor decided to go with 30 of them! In each particular season, the titular lord of the manor must narrow this deluge of eligible women down to one special bride… by dating all of them in exotic locations at ABC’s expense!
By now, I think that most of you should be able to see the problems with this franchise, but it’s even funnier when one watches it!
It’s Editorially Manufactured For Maximum Melodrama.
Like almost all other forms of reality TV, the most important thing to understand about The Bachelor is that it’s only marginally based on reality. According to former contestants and producers, virtually every moment is either wholly manufactured by the production team or selectively edited to make it seem like something is happening. You’d be here all day if I told you about every documented flaw, so let’s just focus on the funniest ones.
In an interview with The New Yorker, Sarah Shapiro described her three-year run on The Bachelor as “complicated manipulation through friendship.” In essence, the producers told her to mislead contestants and manipulate them into expressions of intense emotion, especially when they were about to be dumped. She supposedly kept lemons and peppers in her jacket pocket so that she could dab it in her eyes and get something out of the reject by example, but it came at a supposed cost. At some point, she was told that she had to drive up and down the 405 until there were tears or the team would get fired.
But wait, it gets even weirder!
According to Insider, Ali Fedotowsky estimated that the star of the show spends about 72 hours with the “winner,” but that’s only if one includes their 12-hour sleepover in the “fantasy suite.”
I know, right? How mental is that? The TV is telling you that 30 women and 1 guy are going on a love odyssey, but the guy has to propose after fifteen(?) dates and a sleepover? Get the fuck out of here!
Now that your third eye has been opened, it’s time to take the hilarity to new heights. There have been 23 seasons of The Bachelor thus far, but only one of them has featured a true God-Emperor!
My Favorite Bachelor.
When Juan Pablo Galavis came along, the media smeared him as the worst Bachelor ever. However, that claim comes with a metric ton of baggage that we’ll have to sift through here. If you and I mix all that we’ve learned with a dose of brutal honesty, then it’s easy to see that the soccer star has been the closest that the public has ever come to seeing behind the curtain that the producers put up around the show.
In short, he’s not the worst Bachelor. He was the only honest Bachelor.
Think about it for a moment. On some level, the guy knew that he’d have a better chance of success by picking up a random woman on the street. Therefore, is it that much of a stretch to see why our lord and savior would make himself at home, screw with the producers, and point out the obvious fact that The Bachelor can’t produce anything other than a few flukes and a modest amount of social media fame?
One particular moment stood out during Juan Pablo’s finale. In St. Lucia, the ball kicker went on a helicopter date with a woman by the name of Clare Crawley, where he whispered something that is supposedly offensive. However, I think that it exemplifies the most extreme form of honesty that I’ve ever seen in a reality show.
According to Us Weekly, he said, “I love fucking you, but I don’t know you.”
In light of all that we’ve learned, this statement makes perfect sense. A woman may be good at getting funky, but why would any man honestly fall in love with her after such an infinitesimal amount of time?
Bow Before Your Emperor!
Of course, the subsequent barrage of nonsensical screaming from people who are not used to reality only added fuel to the fire. I could talk about the rants on Twitter or the reaction from the press, but that doesn’t meet the spiciness standards of this little corner of the Internet. No, you, dear reader, deserve better!
I want to focus on a Parade article by the first Bachelorette, Trista Sutter. Most of the article focuses on the usual whining about respect, compromise, and listening to one’s gut, but there is one passage that is far too juicy to ignore:
Honesty is a huge component in successful relationships, but you must choose your words wisely in order to prevent hurtful results and it seems that there is no filter for JP. It makes me wonder how he is with his daughter. Does he tell her she is horrible at something she is struggling with, in the interest of honesty, or does he tell her how proud he is that she is trying her best and that’s all she can do, in the interest of compassion? My hope is that he will take this opportunity and consciously choose kindness over honesty no matter whom he is speaking to… not only for his own benefit, but for the happiness of Nikki as well as Camila and all the people in his life.
In other words, Trista accidentally endorsed the Red Pill and destroyed the idea that anyone should take her seriously without even knowing it.
Stop and think about the doublethink for a second. Near the start of the paragraph, she points out that honesty is crucial for a successful relationship, but she also thinks that Juan Pablo should lie by omission in order to protect wamen’s feelings because they effectively have the reasoning capacity and emotional maturity of little girls.
Remember, I’m not the one who is saying this. Trista accidentally did by drawing an equivalency between a gaggle of adult women and Juan Pablo’s daughter, who was about five years old at the time of his season’s initial broadcast in 2014!
Conclusion.
Yes, there can be no doubt that The Bachelor is trashy television. Most of the drama concocted in the editing room, the conversations are an exercise in robotic repetition, and the romance novel atmosphere is ruined by a cursory Google search. On the other hand, the show is so damned funny that it sweeps any wonder of why one would spend an hour and a half watching it on a Monday night.
And besides, what are you going to do? Watch Man With A Plan? Quit lying to yourself.
You’re here forever.
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