The Bachelor Australia - On Heteronormativity and Exotification in Dating TV Trash
It's no secret that I consume terrible, terrible content. I don't subscribe to "guilty pleasure" philosophy. I am open and honest about all of the rubbish I subject myself to, because I think it's more important that we confront the reasons why we enjoy or dislike certain media and that we have a lot more transparency in enjoyment and meaning with problematic content. I watch Millionaire Matchmaker, but I am constantly debating whether or not my sickening voyeurism is outweighed by what is unavoidably support of a very damaging and exploitative show. These are decisions we need to be able to make, and we need to be aware of when enjoyment is outweighed by things that are far more important, and when shaming people for enjoying things is rooted in classicism or ableism or racism, etc.
I have been watching The Bachelor franchise for a very long time. I remember my mother and I watching that weird British season, and the off-the-wall conclusion to Jason Mesnick's turn as Bachelor. I think fondly of certain seasons - mum and I will always cite Ashley and JP as our favourite couple, and who can forget Ali's season with Justin Rated R and Kasey getting that "Guard and Protect" tattoo? As I've grown up, I've become a far more critical consumer. I grew up to understand the various reason The Bachelor is kind of an icky premise for a franchise, and the beats that the show pulls out that are in pretty heavy defiance of equal treatment and basic feminism and general representation. Getting women to race tractors in bikinis for no discernable reason? "Why did you make love to me if you weren't in love with me?" A near-complete lack of non-white visibility? Yikes. So while continuing to enjoy a franchise sinking oft deeper into depravity, with sexual misconduct claims played for ratings grabs and Actual Racists cast to undo whatever progress that has been made, I've tried to talk about my watching of the show alongside active critique and a probably over-analytic dissection. The Bachelor Australia's fifth season premiere last night isn't going to get the same level of dissection, because it's widely regarded as a lot more unrefined and silly. The tropes to it aren't as well-worn and the audience isn't as large (naturally). I'm going to turn my non-academic and under-edited ramblings to The Bachelor Australia and talk about a few things that I really don't want to get underplayed.
Plenty of people talked about the genuinely refreshing moment on Nick's season of The Bachelor when a contestant, Jami, revealed to no drama that she had previously dated a woman and everyone just kind of moved on. As a bisexual woman myself, it's rare to see that hand unveiled without it being something that is greeted with immediate sexualisation or as a point of secrecy and drama. The Bachelor has a long history of being essentially the height of heteronormativity in modern pop culture. Men and women marry each other and relationships are linear in their progression to marriage and people say things like "what woman wouldn't want a man like that?" (hint: one who isn't attracted to men) without hesitation. It's some of the most conservative television you'll find, globally speaking, even if the recent seasons have finally started trending towards things like sex positivity - the US has a terrible history with slut shaming, but from Jojo's season onwards, they've stepped that game up considerably in terms of speaking openly about sex. The fact remains: I don't expect an entry in this franchise to display particularly progressive ideas about sexuality and gender.
On her limo exit, Nat approaches Matty. She's already getting the loud-and-brash edit, so we know she's not an overly filtered individual. Fine, no problem. She tells him that the reason she came on the show was that as she watched him on The Bachelorette, she was dating a woman. That part is great! There's no shock or fuss and Matty's eyes don't spring out of his head while "awooga" trumpets sound. She then says that seeing him shirtless made her ask why she was with a woman and "turned her straight again". And it's a big old laugh, and then we move on, and I put my head in my hands and wonder why I would have expected anything more. As someone who struggles a lot with having my sexuality denied based on the gender of the person I happen to be seeing at the time, I'm always frustrated by the representation of bisexuality as an impermanent status, or even the idea that any same gender attraction is somehow phase-like. Women who are attracted to women get very few opportunities for real representation, particularly in reality television like this. It's frustrating to see a very real thing get played for laughs as the same stereotype that is consistent with the ideas lumped on people who have dated people of different genders. Her edit would have been consistent without that bit. She still would have been loud-and-brash. When you're a franchise that needs to actively work harder to be less shitty to people who aren't straight, at least in acknowledging their existence or acknowledging that love is possible in their relationships and not just in the singular mode you present, it's consistently disappointing.
Speaking of consistently disappointing, let's do what the op-eds surrounding the US Bachelorette have been doing and talk about race. So far, we have no Obvious Racists! But going from a season with an amazing, intelligent black lead with the highest ration of non-white contestants yet (plus one Obvious Gross Racist) to this rubbish is incredibly frustrating. Some great things have already been written about this season, based solely off cast photos and advertising - read Osman Farqui's excellent article at Junkee - and more will surely follow. As a gross white girl constantly trying to unlearn whatever racism I can, my two cents are definitely not the most relevant ones. I will say that it is a sad reflection on the state of casting when something like Australian Ninja Warrior has recently displayed a far greater grasp of diverse and interesting casting than a show that revolves around the people in the cast. Our country has one of the deepest set currents of racism and if anyone wants to change anything ever one of the key items is basic representation in some of the widest reaching media, which this kind of television is. When we get a contestant who is visibly non-white - Elora is Tahitian, and non-white in a way that sits comfortably with viewers like Catherine did circa Sean Lowe's Bachelor season but is still critically one of the few breaks in the whitest cast that has ever appeared on television - not only was she coded in the advertising as "exotic" but her entrance is...it's something. Elora is separated from the parade of limo exits to enter as an intruder, despite it being the first episode. She gives a talent display of fire twirling, fairly standard of a contestant entrance, but it's definitively presented as a cultural display. She is placed at odds with the other women, all of whom rare up to fight and "cut her grass". So let's take the one girl who has a cultural point of difference, separate her out, ramp up the exotification and then place her in a position against all of the other women in the house. It's the kind of thing that you'd see in early seasons of the US show, where the only black contestant would get the Angry Black Woman Edit (a great piece by Lindsay Smith on her Bachelor experience).
I'm not sure I'll continue watching this season. I'm not invested in our figurehead, I've still got plenty of US Bachelorette to go and that's far more interesting from an academic perspective right now, and I'm incredibly disillusioned by the amount of girl-hate in the first episode alone. Contrast with the first episode of Nick's season of The Bachelor, wherein the ladies joked around and threw food into Alexis' mouth while she was dressed up as a shark, it gets pretty upsetting to watch women tear each other to shreds over nothing and pick sides and to do so in ways that feel genuinely snide rather than for tv drama's sake. I might watch trash television, but the support of other women is something that means the world to me, and it's taxing to see women tear each other down on the basis of alcohol and pursuit of some guy who would probably have "loves the gym" in his tinder bio under a photo of him with a tiger.
Or I'll keep watching it, and I'll have more ramble-thoughts. I guess we'll see!
I have been watching The Bachelor franchise for a very long time. I remember my mother and I watching that weird British season, and the off-the-wall conclusion to Jason Mesnick's turn as Bachelor. I think fondly of certain seasons - mum and I will always cite Ashley and JP as our favourite couple, and who can forget Ali's season with Justin Rated R and Kasey getting that "Guard and Protect" tattoo? As I've grown up, I've become a far more critical consumer. I grew up to understand the various reason The Bachelor is kind of an icky premise for a franchise, and the beats that the show pulls out that are in pretty heavy defiance of equal treatment and basic feminism and general representation. Getting women to race tractors in bikinis for no discernable reason? "Why did you make love to me if you weren't in love with me?" A near-complete lack of non-white visibility? Yikes. So while continuing to enjoy a franchise sinking oft deeper into depravity, with sexual misconduct claims played for ratings grabs and Actual Racists cast to undo whatever progress that has been made, I've tried to talk about my watching of the show alongside active critique and a probably over-analytic dissection. The Bachelor Australia's fifth season premiere last night isn't going to get the same level of dissection, because it's widely regarded as a lot more unrefined and silly. The tropes to it aren't as well-worn and the audience isn't as large (naturally). I'm going to turn my non-academic and under-edited ramblings to The Bachelor Australia and talk about a few things that I really don't want to get underplayed.
Plenty of people talked about the genuinely refreshing moment on Nick's season of The Bachelor when a contestant, Jami, revealed to no drama that she had previously dated a woman and everyone just kind of moved on. As a bisexual woman myself, it's rare to see that hand unveiled without it being something that is greeted with immediate sexualisation or as a point of secrecy and drama. The Bachelor has a long history of being essentially the height of heteronormativity in modern pop culture. Men and women marry each other and relationships are linear in their progression to marriage and people say things like "what woman wouldn't want a man like that?" (hint: one who isn't attracted to men) without hesitation. It's some of the most conservative television you'll find, globally speaking, even if the recent seasons have finally started trending towards things like sex positivity - the US has a terrible history with slut shaming, but from Jojo's season onwards, they've stepped that game up considerably in terms of speaking openly about sex. The fact remains: I don't expect an entry in this franchise to display particularly progressive ideas about sexuality and gender.
On her limo exit, Nat approaches Matty. She's already getting the loud-and-brash edit, so we know she's not an overly filtered individual. Fine, no problem. She tells him that the reason she came on the show was that as she watched him on The Bachelorette, she was dating a woman. That part is great! There's no shock or fuss and Matty's eyes don't spring out of his head while "awooga" trumpets sound. She then says that seeing him shirtless made her ask why she was with a woman and "turned her straight again". And it's a big old laugh, and then we move on, and I put my head in my hands and wonder why I would have expected anything more. As someone who struggles a lot with having my sexuality denied based on the gender of the person I happen to be seeing at the time, I'm always frustrated by the representation of bisexuality as an impermanent status, or even the idea that any same gender attraction is somehow phase-like. Women who are attracted to women get very few opportunities for real representation, particularly in reality television like this. It's frustrating to see a very real thing get played for laughs as the same stereotype that is consistent with the ideas lumped on people who have dated people of different genders. Her edit would have been consistent without that bit. She still would have been loud-and-brash. When you're a franchise that needs to actively work harder to be less shitty to people who aren't straight, at least in acknowledging their existence or acknowledging that love is possible in their relationships and not just in the singular mode you present, it's consistently disappointing.
Speaking of consistently disappointing, let's do what the op-eds surrounding the US Bachelorette have been doing and talk about race. So far, we have no Obvious Racists! But going from a season with an amazing, intelligent black lead with the highest ration of non-white contestants yet (plus one Obvious Gross Racist) to this rubbish is incredibly frustrating. Some great things have already been written about this season, based solely off cast photos and advertising - read Osman Farqui's excellent article at Junkee - and more will surely follow. As a gross white girl constantly trying to unlearn whatever racism I can, my two cents are definitely not the most relevant ones. I will say that it is a sad reflection on the state of casting when something like Australian Ninja Warrior has recently displayed a far greater grasp of diverse and interesting casting than a show that revolves around the people in the cast. Our country has one of the deepest set currents of racism and if anyone wants to change anything ever one of the key items is basic representation in some of the widest reaching media, which this kind of television is. When we get a contestant who is visibly non-white - Elora is Tahitian, and non-white in a way that sits comfortably with viewers like Catherine did circa Sean Lowe's Bachelor season but is still critically one of the few breaks in the whitest cast that has ever appeared on television - not only was she coded in the advertising as "exotic" but her entrance is...it's something. Elora is separated from the parade of limo exits to enter as an intruder, despite it being the first episode. She gives a talent display of fire twirling, fairly standard of a contestant entrance, but it's definitively presented as a cultural display. She is placed at odds with the other women, all of whom rare up to fight and "cut her grass". So let's take the one girl who has a cultural point of difference, separate her out, ramp up the exotification and then place her in a position against all of the other women in the house. It's the kind of thing that you'd see in early seasons of the US show, where the only black contestant would get the Angry Black Woman Edit (a great piece by Lindsay Smith on her Bachelor experience).
I'm not sure I'll continue watching this season. I'm not invested in our figurehead, I've still got plenty of US Bachelorette to go and that's far more interesting from an academic perspective right now, and I'm incredibly disillusioned by the amount of girl-hate in the first episode alone. Contrast with the first episode of Nick's season of The Bachelor, wherein the ladies joked around and threw food into Alexis' mouth while she was dressed up as a shark, it gets pretty upsetting to watch women tear each other to shreds over nothing and pick sides and to do so in ways that feel genuinely snide rather than for tv drama's sake. I might watch trash television, but the support of other women is something that means the world to me, and it's taxing to see women tear each other down on the basis of alcohol and pursuit of some guy who would probably have "loves the gym" in his tinder bio under a photo of him with a tiger.
Or I'll keep watching it, and I'll have more ramble-thoughts. I guess we'll see!
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