One Bachelor Nation, Under Authoritarianism
Yes, really.
There are few things that I’m embarrassed to admit in the world, but this is one: I occasionally watch The Bachelor. My daughter hooked me years ago, and I’m not so hooked that I’ll watch it without her, but the humiliating admission still stands. I know, I know… how could I waste precious hours of my life?
In my feeble defense, I’ll say that I haven’t watched in a few years. Then I’ll ply you with the wretched excuse that I stopped watching in disgust at the sheer vapid inanity and sameness of it all, which is sorta true, and plus, I had too much going on in my life, which is also sorta true.
The Big Truth is: my daughter wasn’t around and it just wasn’t fun without her.
But she’s living with us right now, so, well… sure, pour me another drink. I watched the double-header this week, and imagine my surprise in coming away with actual insights about the nature of authoritarianism. No, really!
In case you’re not watching this season, and I hope to god you’re not, there are just a few names you need to know.
The Bachelor: Joey is a handsome tennis pro who says all the right things so kindly and so often that I wonder if he’s part cyborg.
Three Contestants: Maria is a free-spirited loudmouth from Canada who just puts it all out there, including her ample breasts; Madina is an intensely displeased-looking mental health counselor; and Sydney is a self-appointed Human Behavior Sheriff with such thin skin it may actually be non-existent.
It all started with Madina saying aloud to whoever was in listening range something along the lines of, “I’m self-conscious about my age because I’m one of the older contestants here.” Maria overheard that statement and repeated it to someone else, adding, “She’s not that old,” because Maria is on the older side as well. It was clearly a “we’re in the same boat” commiseration.
But Sydney went to Madina and mischaracterized Maria’s comment, making Madina think she was being “bullied.”
Hang with me, here. We’re almost done with this nonsense.
Madina and Maria had a reconciling convo, so you’d think the issue would die there. But no.
Sydney wouldn’t let it go, Maria called her a troublemaker, which Sydney interpreted as yep, you guessed it, bullying… and the whole thing escalated to the point where Joey was “confused” by the animosity between Maria and Sydney, and eventually sent Sydney packing.
Phew!
The point here is not the machinations of manufactured drama, though there’s plenty of that. Bachelor Nation (BN) thrives on petty bullshit being elevated to DEFCON 1. Drama sells, and I’ll get to the implications of that in a minute.
What I saw clearly for the first time — maybe because I had stepped away from it all for a few years — was the silent complicity of the rest of the contestants. This is a repeated pattern on this show, but it’s so ubiquitous that I’d never really seen it.
Aside from a “best friend” back-door coaching one of the aggrieved parties, the majority of the other women in the house always just sit back and watch the conflict. Why? Well, in bizarro BN world, where everything is constructed around the mondo weirdness of its original premise, it’s because the “smart” ones recognize that being mum always wins. “Success” requires silent acceptance.
No outspoken truth-crusader has ever made it to the final three, let alone won the heart of the bachelor. It pays to keep your mouth shut, unless you already know you’re probably not in the running anymore and are looking to stir up some free publicity for your TikTok/Insta/Boho clothing line.
There were plenty of women during these two episodes who fully understood what was transpiring: a classic game of telephone gone wrong, as telephone always does. In fact, I’d wager that most of them understood it. At any point, one or more of those women could have cleared up the misunderstanding, explaining where it went astray and bringing harmony back to the house.
But searching for truth and illuminating it in a public way is not how the game works. Not if you have a vested interest in “winning.” No, you just sit demurely on the sidelines, letting the truth remain obscure, while two or more contestants duke it out. Conformity is rewarded and peacemaking is discouraged, unless it backfires to create more drama.
In this particular case, it was pretty obvious that Maria meant absolutely nothing by her comment. She’s someone that calls it like she sees it, which frightens other contestants. “Oh no! That kind of person gets sent home! I’m not going to stick up for her publicly, because I want to stay! I’ll just stare deep into my glass of merlot!”
And they are right, to a degree. Maria will get sent home at some point, though the producers will make sure she stays long enough to continue creating conflict and drama, because again, drama sells.
Is this not the situation in our country right now? And in other countries as well? Conformity to official narratives is rewarded, while outliers, questioners, and whistleblowers are demonized and their integrity impugned. And that’s if those brave souls are even given any airtime at all. Most often, they are simply left on the cutting room floor. Demonetized. Deplatformed. Orwell had his own word for it: “Unpersoned.”
Yes, there are a few exceptions: a handful of large personalities who are allowed to challenge the narrative because the drama they engender is useful. It keeps us all arguing about the show. It keeps us hooked. It makes us think we’re free.
Which brings me to other parallels between Bachelor Nation and our own.
The Bachelor and all its spun-off progeny take place a world in which contestants believe they have “choices.” In fact, the whole enterprise is billed as one big homage to crucial choice-making: who stays, who goes, which one gets a group date and which one gets a rose. (A poem!)
How wonderfully free. Yet as you’ll recall, everything is constructed around the mondo weirdness of its original premise. Before anyone ever steps out of a limo, The Producers have already funneled down all choices to those that adhere to the set-up they established 22 years ago when they, god-like, brought forth the Bachelor franchise. Yes, Joey gets to choose his future wife! From 30 women who have been pre-selected by The Producers for their suitability and drama quotient! It is written!
How about here in the U.S.? Sure, go ahead and vote… as long as it’s for one of two candidates, pre-selected by unelected party officials, in an outdated electoral system that has been continually challenged as undemocratic since 1800. More resolutions (over 700) have been submitted to amend the Electoral College mechanism than any other part of the constitution, but oh well. It is written!
Then there’s the figurehead issue. In BN, there’s always a Chris Harrison Jesse Palmer frontman, a smooth, kind, but somewhat-removed “host” who interacts with participants. He looks and acts like he might be in charge, but he isn’t; the ones truly running the show, The Producers, remain hidden.
The host exudes reassurance, because his true purpose is not just to interject the stunningly obvious, “Ladies. Joey. This is the final rose tonight. Whenever you’re ready,” it’s to legitimize mondo weirdness world and reinforce its rules.
In our nation, we have the same public-facing sock puppets singing and dancing to lull us into the same complacent confidence. The more blind faith we have in the legitimacy of the system, the less we question why certain rules are pre-determined by the ones selling to the participants.
Would you like election finance to change? How about deciding how much of your money is spent on war? Zoom out even farther and the game looks even more rigged: would you like to opt out of paying income tax? And why does a private banking corporation run the Federal Reserve?
The answer we get is, that’s just the way it is — possibly my least favorite five-word combo in the English language to hear from anyone, but especially from our Choice Forward™ government. The other answer we get usually takes some form of diversion: “Look how many choices you have! You can buy anything!” Gosh, thanks. Freedom reigns.
And if you don’t like it, you can leave. See? Even more freedom.
The Bachelor — every single pixel of it — is presented as reality, even though it’s carefully curated fiction. The Producers massage, manipulate, and edit footage and audio to foment drama.
(Speaking of footage and audio, participants agree to being filmed and recorded the entirety of the time, including via hidden cameras and microphones. Hmm. Did we agree to all the surveillance we put up with in our lives now?)
At the beginning of this piece, I introduced the women involved in the telephone game-gone-wrong, characterizing them as a free-spirited loudmouth, an intensely displeased-looking mental health counselor, and a self-appointed Human Behavior Sheriff. But what do I really know about any of these people? My impressions are based solely on what The Producers want me to see and believe about those three. (Okay, except for Maria’s ample breast display. Pretty sure that’s not a deep fake.)
We have reached a point in humanity’s history where technology makes it possible to turn everything — every issue, every event, every element of importance to the well-being of society as a whole — into a mediated, pre-packaged snack-sized wedge of emotion-shaping narrative. We are outraged, heartened, sad, or proud, because someone with a motive and a video editor has decided that’s what we should be.
My observation, “At any point, one or more of those women could have cleared up the misunderstanding, explaining where it went astray and bringing harmony back to the house,” is based entirely on fiction. Who knows? Maybe a bunch of those women did do that, but the footage of it didn’t fit the narrative, so out it went — into the hulking SUV like a rejected suitor.
The pattern of silent compliance just keeps getting reinforced because anything that is repeated over and over becomes, in effect, invisible. We forget that there are other options, other possible responses. We cease to see them. The line between fiction and reality blurs and blurs… until it finally disappears altogether.
That’s just the way it is.
BN has been running since 2002, spawning other variations on the same “reality” show formula: The Bachelorette, Bachelor Pad, Bachelor in Paradise, Bachelor in Paradise: After Paradise, The Bachelor Winter Games, The Bachelor Presents: Listen to Your Heart, The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons – Ever!, The Golden Bachelor, and the soon-to-come The Golden Bachelorette.
Not only do all of those shows reinforce the idea that we can and should believe what we see, they also model a sort of learned helplessness, by depicting a world in which “ordinary” people submit to arbitrary rules without question or complaint. That may be its greatest detriment: convincing an already-slackened body politic to give up the fight for what they know to be real.
I take heart in a BN exception, the outlier Colton Underwood, who, late in his season as the bachelor, ripped off his permanent body-mic, jammed his hand into the prying lens of a camera, and jumped the fence of the mansion to leave the whole enterprise. No matter how The Producers damage-controlled it to create more drama — of course they did— they couldn’t strip away the undeniable thrill of his defiant deed.
An act like that startles us out of our reverie. It reminds us that any one of us can do what he did, like Truman in The Truman Show: any one of us can speak up or opt out; any one of us can act from sovereignty rather than supplication.
We all have that choice. It is written.
Mary, you can glean insight everywhere you look! Thanks for letting us see with your eyes. So true: We’re all hooked on arguing about the show while the truth tellers and peacemakers are unpersoned and the producers run the world. But we can always choose to jump over the fence. Meet you there!
Thank you for the laughs I didn’t know I wanted but obviously needed. Only you would find insight in the most artificial of all artifice. Thank you for taking one for the team.
What is Choice Forward?