Core Post #4 - Daniela

 This year has marked quite a few amount of "firsts" for me. It marked my first time using zoom, my first time teaching a class, and most importantly, my first time watching an episode of the Bachelorette and the Bachelor. The Bachelor also experienced a first. After 25 years, the show finally featured its first ever Black bachelor, Matt James, a  28-year-old real estate broker. This occurred after being on the air for only 19 years, 25 seasons, and over 5 spin-offs of the franchise. Phew! The show has not been without its criticisms over the lack of diversity that it is chronically complicit of, but this year this lack is on screen and the audience is thus forced to consider how the rules of the game change when Black is no longer mutable and becomes center stage.

In Sabrina Strings & Long T. Bui's "She is not acting, she is", the authors discuss the ways in which gender is problematized while race is either rendered invisible or naturalized, gender appears to be mutable, but race is made to look 'real' or natural" (Strings and Bui 822). In the case of The Bachelor,  gendered norms are what are made to look "natural" and expected, while race is generally rendered mutable until race becomes palatable (and marketable) through "one-on-ones" with Matt James and a female contestant. Race really takes center stage when you take the show out of its on screen quarantined context and move it beyond into social media where the fans are able (sometimes unfortunately) to share their opinions on the show as well as dig up old instagram posts. First, I want to briefly discuss the heavy weight of gender in the show. 

The female contestants on The Bachelor play heavily into "catty" feminine stereotypes (that are actually somewhat subverted in The Bachelorette). Much like contestants on RuPaul's Drag Race, the women on The Bachelor play into this idea of a "real" feminity, one in which the women are beholden to a single man (much of what we see on camera is seriously just the women waiting to see Matt). They are rarely without make-up (even when they are lounging around, waiting) and during the rose ceremony they are dressed in gorgeous, shiny gowns that are rarely ever worn more than once. The environment of the show practically forces the women to perform in such a way in order to "win" the engagement ring from the Bachelor. A similar pressure to perform in order to win the competition is discussed in with Strings and Bui, but in the case of The Bachelor it is far less twisted as the women do to some extent retain a form of agency, one that is not afforded to racialized members of the LGBTQ community. They are not twisting or deconstructing any norms, but rather reaffirming them: "reality TV has been known to contribute to the naturalization of stereotypes, often done in an effort to create gossip-worthy moments on a show" (Strings and Bui 824). The women are reduced to being available and catty, while Matt often finds himself on display (often shirtless) less as a human being and more as a prize. Are there any real winners on The Bachelor?

In terms of race, as I mentioned earlier, Matt James's race is hardly mentioned on the show until James sits down with the women on "one-on-ones" (James talks privately with one other contestant) or when the fact that he is a novel exception to the extremely white history of The Bachelor is mentioned, most often by the host Chris Harrison. Recently (to my personal delight) blonde-haired, blue-eyed Chris Harrison has come under fire after defending one of the female finalists after an old instagram post has surfaced of contestant Rachael Kirkconnell attending an antebellum plantation-themed ball. Kirkconnell faced immediate backlash from fans and observers alike. Rather than recognizing or at least questioning why the photo is racist, host Harrison immediately defended Kirkconnell, alluding to the fact that she is being "victimized" by "cancel culture". Cancel culture, of course, is merely a phrase thrown around predominantly by the privileged in order to reformulate the narrative in a way that will make them appear to be victimized when in reality, even the "canceled" predators with power manage to re-emerge (think Louis C.K.'s return to stand up). Harrison is just another example among the many white men/women/non-binary people that when faced with consequences of their actions backtrack, "educate themselves", and eventually return to the public eye with an alleged re-education. As discussed in last week's class, whiteness is the invisible race that goes unnoticed in order to assert its definition of what is "normal". For Kirkconnell, the antebellum South was a period in time in which women dressed in gowns and attended cotillions. She is "not constrained by the history of racial marking in the same way as the black and brown persons" (Strings and Bui 832) are.  Kirkconnell, at least in 2018 when she attended to plantation party, thought of the party as simply that- a party. In the end, I see no real winner of The Bachelor in sight. Not now, not in 2 weeks... possibly not ever. In my lifetime at least.