It’s bad enough that grownups would expose themselves to the humiliating spectacle of competing on national TV to be a total stranger’s spouse. But that this contrived farce makes for entertaining television for millions of Americans speaks volumes about this country’s cultural maturity.
(At least with Soap Operas there’s some redeeming social value in knowing that the people on the screen are just acting like lovelorn fools for our entertainment….)
Clearly, I am not a fan of The Bachelor; nor of its equally degrading counterpart, The Bachelorette – a show which only proves that women are just like men, not only in requiring no stimulation above the shoulders to “fall in love” but also in having no compunction about making asses of themselves.
That said, I was truly stupefied when an otherwise intelligent black woman began waxing indignant at a dinner party last night about why the latest bachelor chose the bad girl instead of the good one … duh! To my surprise, if not dismay, this kick-started a pretty animated discussion among the others (3 women, one man, all white, and all rabid fans of the show) on the merits of which of the two finalists would prove a more suitable wife.
Well, since I had no clue who they were talking about, I could not contribute to this surreal and embarrassingly voyeuristic debate. But I am familiar with the show, which has become almost as much a cultural phenomenon as American Idol. Therefore, after my dinner companions settled their debate by all agreeing that he chose the wrong member of ABC’s harem to be his bride, it occurred to me to ask this question:
Why do you suppose, of all of the bachelors [10] and bachelorettes [3] ABC has featured on this show, none of them have been black, Hispanic or a person of any color?
Talk about being the skunk at a garden party…. I soon gathered, though, that they were all just waiting for a non-elitist reason to stop watching anyway.
Still, given the prevailing presumptions about living in a post-racial world, you’d think that such a glaring exercise in social eugenics would be unthinkable. Yet it thrives openly and notoriously. And by the way, littering the harem with token blacks is even more patently contrived than the premise of this show.
There’s no denying that the selection of whites only as the stars of this show reflects a Jim Crow mentality, which holds that watching black people making out on TV is anathema to white people. Fair enough. I just wonder why this “white reality” resonates with so many black people…?
Frankly, I thought we relegated this prejudice to the dustbin of history over three decades ago. Remember Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Hell, that was over four decades ago.
But I can just hear producers at ABC rationalizing it by saying that if folks want to see that they can switch to BET, or to some other cable channel – like MTV or VH1 – that even “condones” miscegenation (mixed-race relationships)….
Who will be the next Bachelor? Well, chances are he won’t be black. But in this case, paradoxically, that’s a good thing, right?
Selly says
I read your article because I’m not a fan of the show — I find it inane. Let’s pray to God that a black bachelor won’t be chosen for fear that a crop of black women who are more interested in exhibiting awful behavior for the fleeting moments of fame will be featured as exemplary of the females of our race.