Am I the only person who doesn't watch the Golden Bachelor?
How I stopped worrying and learned to hate the reality show genre.
This past week, it was nearly impossible to avoid articles, analyses, social posts, and random commentary about a show called The Golden Bachelor. I’ve vaguely heard references to the series but had never watched it, and didn’t know that it resulted in a “marriage,” let alone the completely unexpected end of one after three months.
I mean, it was basically the only non-political topic all over my social media channels.
I hastily threw a thought up in my Instagram stories.
Yes, I acknowledge there is a certain irony in saying I don’t want to read about the Golden Bachelor while asking you to do that here. Let alone just having written about how much I believe in finding love later in life.
Just stick with me for a sec, because this isn’t really about that show at all.
I started to get responses to my statement. SO many responses. Like an overwhelming number of highly opinionated responses.
I expected a few responses like this:
I certainly expected a few like this:
I honestly didn’t expect I’d get dozens and dozens of responses like this:
I mean, these are some strong feelings!
Is reality TV truly the harbinger of all bad things?
Yesterday, when a relative responded to ask me what Golden Bachelor was, I wrote back, Let’s see if a woman over 60 is hot enough to attract a man! Tune in for this week’s most SHOCKING. ROSE CEREMONY. EVER.
Maybe that’s not fair, because I don’t know the show. But I do know marketing.
I used to be the most unapologetic reality TV fan. In the hazy days of raising toddlers, it was my easily-digestible, no-thought brain candy. My blog had reams of posts about Top Chef, America’s Next Top Model, The Real Life, the Surreal Life, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills/New York/New Jersey.
(To this day, I cannot pass up a chance to scream YOU PROSTITUTION WHO-AH and pretend I’m about to flip a table, when it the opportunity presents itself.)
And yes, I watched the show with what’s-his-name, the orange narcissist who fired people for our entertainment, sexually harrassed women behind the scenes, made horribly racist statements, and generated the ratings to reinforce that his lifelong abuse of other people was not only acceptable, it was profitable.
If you didn’t watch, you were missing out on all the big water cooler talk the next day. Because we still actually went to work then and talked around actual water coolers.
Those were still the early-enough days of reality TV. It wasn’t too long after The Real World kicked things off, and honestly, everyone watched the big shows. I went to a Hollywood premiere in 2002, and caught Brad and Jen excitedly introducing themselves to Alex and Amanda, the couple from the very first season of The Bachelor.
In 2003, my boyfriend came home from a shift at Balthazar, describing the silence that fell over that power room when Joe Millionaire’s Evan Marriott walked in the door.
In 2007, I interviewed Olympic swimmer Dara Torres at a blog event, and while most everyone else talked to her about her training routine, she and I discussed whether Bret Michaels would be better off with Daisy, Heather, or Jes.
All of the “dating as voyeuristic entertainment” shows were on my DVR: Rock of Love, Flavor of Love, My Fair Brady, The Joe Schmo Show (which is actually wonderful ), I Love New York. And always, always the Real Housewives, which offered its share of relationship subplots too.
It was a cultural phenomenon. We couldn’t get enough. Me, most of all.
Then something changed.
I was watching some not-so-real fight between a few of the not-so-real housewives, and I thought to myself, they are showing us the worst of women.
Careful editing turned each character into every negative feminine archetype: The bitch. The princess. The classy socialite. The doting wife. The ditz. The social climber. The ball-buster career woman. The woman who can’t keep her man. The woman who goes after everyone else’s man. The overindulgent mom. The disinterested mom. The backstabbing friend. The woman who flashes her boobs every time she drinks.
If you watch closely, you see how the producers change up the “heroes and villains” each season to keep us interested — suddenly the bitch we thought we knew is now a doting wife, while the classy socialite becomes the new bitch.
On the dating shows, it’s no different; a rotating parade of stereotypes each season. Every aspect of these women — their body size, their hair color, their wardrobe choices, their tone of voice, their slips of their tongues, their smiles, their laughs, their plastic surgery or lack thereof — it’s all presented to us for our judgment, commentary, and entertainment.
How can we resist?
We can’t. We’re human.
It’s absolutely cathartic to lose ourselves in other people’s dramas.
Cast members know this best of all; they learned quickly that the more backhanded, snarky, or outrageously they beahve, the more camera time they get, the higher their profiles become, the more money they can make selling shapewear or cocktail mixes.
Reality shows are anything but reality; we all know this. But it started to seem like maybe it was hurting our real realities to reinforce every awful stereotype about women — and our relationships to other women, in particula — and present it as something fun to watch.
So I stopped watching.
Just…quit all of it.
(Not including Cake Wrecks. Leave them out of this.)
I once took a meeting with a producer who wanted to do a “real mommyblogger” type show. They were very interested in me. I explained that I would like to hear more, but that they could not have access to my children.
She hardly even mumbled “thanks” before hanging up on me.
I wish we could spend more time thinking about what we get out of these dating-and-fighting reality shows, exactly.
I know I feel so much more nourished after watching a wonderfully scripted story. Great TV and movies can provide all the excitement, the drama, the catharsis of a reality show. But when two characters fight, I don’t worry that somehow real people got hurt in the making of that scene.
There’s also satisfaction for me in seeing characters exactly as they are written to be. They say “Never meet your heroes.” If I went to dinner with Selina Meyer or Peggy Olson, Fiona Gallagher, Jon Snow, or Michonne Hawthorne Grimes, they would no doubt be exactly who I thought they would be. And Michonne would definitely need a safe place to park her katana.
I truly don’t judge people who love reality shows, any more than I judge grown adults who eat cinnamon Pop-Tarts for dinner. (Have I mentioned how great cinnamon Pop-Tarts can be for dinner?)
We all need easy entertainment, fun distractions, a break from the weight of the world.
And I absolutely love when I say PROSTITION WHO-AH and someone gets the reference.
But if TV programming is a reflection of the appetites and inclinations of society, I guess I also wish we could all give them something better to work with.
I think this is funny because I’ve never watched the Bachelor /Bachelorette but I did watch Golden Bachelor because I wanted to see how women in their 70s (and I’m 71) presented themselves. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been I guess but it was predictable. I just wish the women could be more real - and by that I mean not all glammed up trying to look 20 years younger.
The guy did seem sincere FWIW. But it’s so contrived , and the decision process is so rushed and artificial, can anyone be surprised it didn’t last?
So I didn’t even own a TV for MANY years and I’ve missed a lot of pop culture / bad shows. I don’t like how voyeuristic reality TV makes us but I admit getting sucked into it 🤷🏼♀️. Better than watching/ reading about the evil orange guy but only marginally.
Love Undercover... I had NO intention of watching 5 famous, professional futbol players try to find love in the US with women who had no idea who they are. The premise seemed intriguing because these international stars cannot go anywhere and not be hounded... yet... the show just became a penthouse full of women, vying for the attention of these men. Same as it ever was.