Why Are Americans Still Watching The Bachelor?
What the problematic show reveals about our desire to be chosen
BY CHLOE CROPPER
I can distinctly remember my first breakup — sixteen year-old me heartbroken in the high school parking lot, certain the world would stop spinning. There’s no easy way to deal with the feelings of grief, confusion, and loneliness that come with losing a relationship, but at least that particular breakup coincided with a new season of The Bachelor. I laid in bed with my mom and watched ten different women get broken up with in the same night, and somehow that made me feel better.
Clearly, I’m not alone in my love for The Bachelor. The show has run for twenty-five seasons, and 6.9 million viewers tuned into last season’s finale. Perhaps there’s something about watching hot people go on ostentatious dates and fight over the same mediocre man that makes us feel better about ourselves. I would classify my rampant engrossment with The Bachelor as a guilty pleasure — an escape from reality but certainly not my proudest taste in media. The show is seemingly lighthearted, and laughing at melodrama while rooting for my favorite contestants feels like a harmless outlet for the other stressors in my life.
However, the fact that The Bachelor still has such widespread viewership is insane. Its premise is unrealistic and arguably problematic — thirty women vying for the attention of one man with an expedited engagement at the end. You watch the bachelor make out with one woman and tell her that he’s falling in love with her only to turn around and do the same thing to a completely different woman. Producers exploit the genuine emotional turmoil of contestants and use it to turn them against each other and against the bachelor. The show’s depiction of women is often degrading and emphasizes hysteria, cattiness, and other negative stereotypes. The standards for physical appearance are unrealistic and homogeneous. The show has unsurprisingly been riddled with allegations of racism, sexism, and misogyny, most recently when host Chris Harrison was forced to step back from the franchise after he defended a contestant who was seen in photos attending a party that celebrated the Antebellum South.
Why, then, do we continue to consume a show with such ugly undertones? What has cemented The Bachelor’s place in American culture?
The Bachelor, however fanciful and unrealistic it may be, presents a microcosm of our deepest desires, and there is something addicting about watching that microcosm play out onscreen. The popularity of The Bachelor, and our culture’s fixation on romance in general, is a reflection of our deep desire to be loved. I crave the same thing that Victoria the Pageant Queen craves, and that’s love. But, it is not just our desire to be loved that makes the Bachelor so riveting. It is more specifically our desire to be chosen, to be someone’s number one pick among other beautiful and alluring options.
An often-repeated concept on The Bachelor is having a strong connection with one’s partner. Having a companionship so powerful that a man knows he wants to spend the rest of his life with you after a mere two months is something that makes me skeptical but, if I am honest with myself, a bit jealous as well. I tend to see such a connection as the answer to the underpinning loneliness that I feel because I long to experience the intimacy of a connection with someone. Sharing something so deep and meaningful with another person feels rare. The Bachelor capitalizes on this common human experience.
I can count the number of successful Bachelor marriages on one hand, though, so connections are clearly fleeting. They are ultimately just moments in time that slip away no matter how tightly we try to hold on. No human is capable of providing us the level of connection that we crave. The connections that we share with others are beautiful, but they cannot fully fill the void. This desire for a connection more eternal than the world can give points to the existence of something greater than all of this — greater than the brokenness of the Bachelor and modern dating and yes, even greater than the most loving of human relationships.
My salvation, my hope, and my fulfillment rests solely on the fact that God chose me. The only reason I can even choose to follow Christ is because He chose me first. I invest so much of myself in finding someone who I can connect with to make life feel more meaningful when there is already someone who chose me before he laid the foundations of the Earth. My human pea brain will never truly fathom what this means, but it’s a truth that I find comforting.
SOURCES
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/6-reasons-bachelor-franchise-horrible-influence-men-women-alike
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/chris-harrison-exits-bachelor-franchise-after-defending-former-contestant-s-n1269960
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7reoIHgV4kc
Isaiah 45:4 ESV