In the New York Times opinion pages, author Jennifer Weiner has written âBreaking Up With âThe Bachelorââ, a piece in which she admits that she can no longer stomach rose ceremonies and scripted catfighting in a time when our president is an incompetent misogynist. Not only that, but she feels personally responsible for Donald Trump being in the White House. Could it be, Weiner asks, that Bachelor fans âplayed a part in [Trumpâs] victory by watching the shows that normalized his behavior and helping to make the social-media lightning that brought him to lifeâ?
Well, Iâd argue that every one of us played a part in Trumpâs victory. Itâs just a fact that our culture produced Trump. He didnât step out of a vacuum to regale us with all-caps tweets and unhinged speechesâhis ascendancy to the presidency has everything to do with our hidden prejudices, and the larger systems that feed on them. But is watching, or not watching, The Bachelor really the issue here?
Weiner calls the Bachelor franchise âflagrantly problematic,â and thatâs absolutely true. From the lily-white contestants to the rigid adherence to gender roles, the show is far from enlightened. I regularly refer to it as trash. The âcan I steal youâs, the âI think Iâm falling in love with youâs, the group dates, the belief that two people can really progress from strangers to fiances in just six weeksâitâs all trash.
But the thing about flagrantly problematic trash is that a lot of people tend to like it. One way to deal with that is to critically engage with popular mediaâto get to the heart of why a show like The Bachelor is so entertaining, and what lessons we might take from it about the way the world works. One could argue thatâs exactly what Weiner did in her piece, but I’m not sure she went far enough, and I think itâs possible to think deeply about The Bachelor without rejecting it outright. Those critical discussions are happening everywhereâa piece on the systemic racism that prevented a black bachelorette for 21 seasons, for example, or an explanation of why we need a disabled bachelor (both of which I discovered through Rose Buddies, an excellent Bachelor fan Facebook group). Writers have explored how the show failed Chad by using his disturbing behavior to make money. There are some takes that donât sit right with me (no, Corinne is not a feminist), but my point is that many who watch The Bachelor are looking at it not as unproblematic entertainment, but as a lens through which to examine issues that we might not see as clearly in other, more subtle manifestations.
As you may be thinking by now, most people who watch the show arenât scouring the internet for the deepest critical takes. Theyâre just enjoying it. But that doesnât make them horrible peopleânor does it make the rest of us saints. In the recently released book Why I am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto, author Jessa Crispin describes contemporary feminismânot nicelyâas âa decade-long conversation about which television show is a good television show and which television show is a bad television show.â When we put the blame on shows like The Bachelor for Trumpâs rise, simply turning off the TV can be enough to placate our consciences. It shouldnât be. Trump is in the White House because of racism, sexism and the widening gap between the rich and the poor. While The Bachelor may throw those problems into sharp relief, their roots go deeperâto the very beginning of Americaâs history.
So whether you choose to watch The Bachelor for its ridiculous escapism or reject it as an unholy scourge on humanity, we all have to accept that Trumpâs rise was built on a lot more than just one televised quest for love. We all have to accept responsibilityânot just to turn off our televisions, but to use our time, money and resources to bring the world closer to how we wish it could be.