I’ve been watching The Bachelor for a few years now, and I am no stranger to the catty drama that inevitably comes along with getting thirty men or women together in a house to fight over the same person. The drama and callouts that happen within the house are some of the appeal of the show. But, I can’t be the only one who has noticed that this season, the show has become almost unwatchable because of the actions and pettiness of the girls competing for Matt James’s heart.
The Bachelor franchise always has its fair share of controversies; most recently, host Chris Harrison announced that he is stepping away after being called out for defending a contestant’s past racist actions. The close examination of this very serious issue will, I hope, be the start of a closer look into the entirety of the Bachelor franchise and the severe problems that are making the show almost unbearable, especially this season.
The contestants in Season 25 have a bullying problem. Every single episode that has aired so far has shown some of the girls erupting into arguments and generally being downright mean to each other. It creates a toxic environment that is uncomfortable to watch, and I’m sure even more uncomfortable to be in.
In previous seasons, there has been one toxic contestant that is normally painted as the villain; as viewers, we’re not supposed to like them, and all the other contestants don’t like them either and normally warn the Bachelor or Bachelorette about them in an attempt to get the toxicity out of the house. This is not the case this season, mostly because if all of the toxic girls went home, there would hardly be anyone left. The dynamic of this season seems to be the opposite of previous seasons; instead of the contestants trying to get rid of the toxic environment, they all play off of each other’s mean girl energy and amplify the toxicity. They all tend to gang up on one or two other contestants, creating an unsafe space and sometimes even driving them to self-eliminate, like in Sarah’s case at the beginning of the season.
In my opinion, the bullying and toxicity reached an all-time high with the introduction of the new contestants. Bringing in five new contestants a few weeks into the process was a terrible idea. I know that, you know that, we all know that. But, what we as the viewers also know is that the decision to do so was entirely the producers’. The new contestants didn’t choose to be sent in late; that decision had already been made for them by the producers. This is a fact that seemed to be overlooked by the girls who were already there. They immediately blamed the newcomers, creating a hostile environment and overall being very exclusionary and critical to them. And it wasn’t just one of them; it was most, if not all, of the contestants who had been there since night one. Some of the statements said even went past bullying and went straight into the category of defamatory assertions and rumors.
This behavior by the girls that is being broadcasted to millions of people on national television is distressing. It sets a bad example for younger people who might be watching, and it sets a terrible precedent for what could potentially happen in the future seasons. And the fact that the producers are exploiting this toxic behavior is even more distressing; it gives toxicity and bullying the centerstage attention of national television, all for the sake of entertainment. The show no longer seems to be about one person finding love among thirty; instead, the drama and arguments are given much more screen time.
The toxicity of this season is worse than that in the past, and it feels like a breaking point. It’s setting a bad model for what the show will look like from now on, and it threatens to create a normalization of this bullying and mean girl behavior. The Bachelor producers need to take a step back and think about what they want people to take away from their show, because I can’t imagine that this toxicity is it.