Argument Analysis

Jane Doe

D. Marsh

ENG 112.0903

3rd Nov. 2013

The Bachelor's Shameless Mockery of Reality

Among the plethora of programs in the reality television landscape today, few seem to have captured the mass appeal of our culture like The Bachelor has in recent years. First airing near the start of the new millennium on the ABC network, the show's main attraction is a single man of cookie-cutter, usually one dimensional desirability- our "bachelor," who simultaneously intermingles with a group of women- our contestants, all of which have the opportunity to prove their worth to be a possible wife for the bachelor. The show's conflict stems from the elimination format and assorted happenings of quasi-insanity among contestants that eventually culminates in what are known as "rose giving" ceremonies at the end of each episode.

Criticizing the negative impact of reality TV as a whole, both main and sub points in the article in Vanity Fair by James Wolcott titled "I'm a Culture Critic- Get Me out of Here," can be used to evaluate The Bachelor and it's mockery of A Administrator Good job here connecting their show to Wolcott. love, marriage, and relationships. Part cultural wreckage in the bad taste of the very idea itself and part television genius, The Bachelor has little to do with reality and one look at as the show's terrible track record for producing any significant lasting relationships for its so-called winners exemplifies this hypocrisy (Ross). Masquerading as a dating competition show that has more to do with the victimization of its contestants, no real talent is necessary to wining, unlike in Hell's Kitchen, Project Runway, or The Apprentice. While reality TV has reduced the overall content on TV to drama and attention seeking which is very appealing to members of the narcissistic generation, this show has further reduced and simplified relationship building down to fancy locations and expensive wines. The Bachelor is a new low in our reality obsessed culture as it rewards selfish, vulgar behavior while upholding false ideals about relationships, promotes class warfare while exploiting its cast members and audience, and has lowered the property value of the network it plays on R RCC Good work thus far. .

Love is not something that is bought nor manufactured, but is earned through hard work, trust, and overall, a serious commitment to their partner. The Bachelor's cultural reprogramming starts right out of the gate by appealing to self-centered and imaginary concepts about what love is. The "bachelor" himself, along with the contestants who are lucky enough to spend time with him, live an unsustainable life of extravagance that subliminally imprints to viewers that material wealth is what propels a relationship to be successful and that all real relationships should start this way. Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, every real, lasting relationship needs work and both partners won't always agree on everything every day nor be in the best moods sometimes. Being true to the highly evolved "reality" TV formula, The Bachelor is the complete opposite of the very thing it fails so miserably to portray.

Continuing the ridiculous fantasy that the best way to find true love is to go on a televised show for it, contestants are whisked away to walks by the beach side and expensive dinners in the candle light. It's important to note here that no ordinary man can offer thousands of dollars of jewelry to wear to dinner on a date or unlikely many others to come thereafter, and neither is an ordinary man going to be able afford a helicopter ride very often either, such as bachelor Jason Mesnick and contestant Natalie consume in episode 3 of season 13. Research in the Journal Of Broadcasting & Electronic Media has implied that those who grow up watching a multitude of romantically themed reality TV are less satisfied with real life relationships because they seem "less special" than the ones seen on TV (Vandenbosch). A Administrator Notice how the student has good research, yet, they do not put direct quotes around the passages taken from the source. Make sure you ALWAYS have quotations around info taken from a source to separate your words and the source ‘s words! These unrealistic expectations seen on The Bachelor and other shows like it help perpetuate a heightened sense of selfishness which further destabilizes the state of everyday relationships. Gia Allemand, who was a contestant on season 14, died at 29 by hanging herself (Caffrey). While it's unclear how much her boyfriend played a role and the trust issues between them, perhaps the loss beforehand on The Bachelor contributed to feelings of worthlessness and rejection- common with suicide victims, which, if true, would further support Wolcott's argument that reality TV may cause death. Even more, it is apparent that these ideals about love are so pervasive among viewers that many spinoffs have emerged from The Bachelor, including the equally absurd sister series The Bachelorette and almost a half a dozen more like it in other countries. This follows the rather typical lifecycle of these types of shows: a toxic mold that only grows larger.

Quality or any kind of social value mean little to the corporate media when compared to how much the bottom line matters. The Bachelor excels greatly at this by a crass exploitation and subtle promotion of class warfare among its cast members and audience. This can easily be seen by how the cast members themselves are treated during filming and how the show imprints onto its viewers to have them subconsciously believe that buying more and thinking less is the way to go in life, especially when it comes to matters of love. Just consider how the women contestants themselves are treated. Apart from practically jumping at the chance to be objectified, they all sit around with little if nothing else to do but toil over which rival is getting the upper hand. It is no surprise that through this setup the women really do go mad - as if they weren't already, and this is where The Bachelor succeeds to show women at both their most mean, ruthless, and helpless states- further ingraining crude stereotypes of different types of people and classes.

All of this sets the stage for the mainstream, national audience to pick fun and judge each of the cast members, thinking they are safe from the producer's manipulation themselves, but are mistaken. The audience members are a tool for the lifestyle and item advertisement purposes of The Bachelor, thereby promoting an urgency for compulsive consumerism that, like many of these types of shows, "skews America's economic realities beyond recognition, where product placement string-pullers aim to convince us that expensive frivolities... are not just luxuries, but lifesavers" (Pozner, 23) that should be emulated in order to achieve happiness, or in this case with The Bachelor, love. This can be seen through the lavish flood of "dream dates" that these women are treated to- sometimes entire segments of an episode can feel like a travel brochure in motion with gorgeous establishing wide shots coupled with a sense of romance we all feel when we see new places. The audience, whether knowingly or not, imprint on these images that further divide and signify who has, and has not.

In April of 2012, a lawsuit was brought against the show's production companies for an alleged "refusal to cast people of color in The Bachelor" (Pozner), or to treat them fairly when done so on the contestant side. In season 17 which began airing in January of 2013, four "token" black women were added to the mix to give the impression of racial acceptance: Brooke, Ashley, Leslie, and Robyn. All were eliminated by episode 5. Some may object or say that the bachelor himself is only attracted to one kind of female, and that's okay, but the overall casting choices are unbalanced and still imply that such romance and love can only exist between one color and not interracial or otherwise. However, not very surprisingly, lawsuits from the viewers plays its role effectively because negative publicity translates into more viewers tuning in to see for their own eyes. Whether there is a real injustice present or this being more a result of a manufactured class division on part of the producers, this seems to be why many reality TV shows contain these kinds of controversies because this all converts to more cash for networks and is yet just another way that this show manipulates its audience.

The Bachelor has lowered network property values with its continuous race to the bottom in entertainment "value" and provides hours of death-hastening diversion to current problems in the world of relationships and marriage. While some things remain mostly the same on the show, slowly over the seasons just about everything from the cheesy kisses to the fights between the contestants have gotten worse. In the 2013 season, a contestant named Lindsay showed up in a wedding dress and proceeded to act out and kiss the bachelor Sean, thereby giving away the kind of mentality that fuels this show's motivation. This also gives revives an old, negative part of marriage history, when people would marry for wealth or to preserve family ties (Everitt). We do not see equals here, or even love, instead the show plays with most women's seemingly innate desire to be swept off her feet by a spontaneously conjured rich man out of nowhere, which is for the mass majority as realistic as winning the mega-million lottery.

Instead of focusing on the real aspects of both relationships and what it takes to have a successful marriage, The Bachelor shamelessly ignores things like the stages of a relationship or when marriage should be the appropriate next step. Before one can commit to the next level in a relationship the couple should wait at least maybe a year until they are at a more stable state in their thinking and feelings for each other. If all has worked out, then they will become deeper friends and develop a greater intimacy with each other. The show ignores this and instead plays on feelings of hopelessness. Among the craziness here are when the first few contestants who get eliminated sometimes wail over a guy they met just a few days ago, sometimes accompanied by cringe-worthy phrases like "end up alone" and "this was my last chance," as if they've actually lost anything by having to go home from this charade. Why don't we teach others how to be great lovers and good people without watching the failures on screen?

Perhaps most people who watch The Bachelor and shows like it simply have a taste for others who may be down on their luck- a sort of curiosity most share of how bad things can be. Watching may be just a safe way for most to release their frustrations of the week and this show can serve as a device for that. But if The Bachelor is just mindless entertainment, then why does any of this matter? Well that's the thing about reality TV. When someone watches TV, they bring with them their own understanding of reality which affects how they perceive the images seen on screen. Everything from age group, susceptibility to impression, and culture matter are factors. If you asked most people how "realistic" The Bachelor is, most would say not at all. The problem is not necessarily that people don't know that this show is staged- from ABC choosing the locals for the dates to the men being attracted to all the women at once in the most shallow ways, no. It is that none of this stops the audience from passing judgment on what they are seeing on screen, thus, making it seem real.

There are an abundance of fan pages on the internet about The Bachelor and other reality TV shows where viewers invest their time and feelings into certain contestants. Many audience who can be everyone from acquaintances to family members can be so engaged and devoted to the characters that they read beyond the show and think of them as real events. We should not so easily think that just because viewers may understand that what they are seeing is fiction, means that they are not immune to conditioning or impression because what most don't realize is how it affects them beyond the television set. The overall success of The Bachelor just may be a perfect mix of good and bad entertainment, but reality, it is anything but. R RCC This is a good essay. Notice how lengthy it is and how well-worded it is. It is a good argument. The student focuses on their show and how it connects to what Wolcott has stated in his article. That is perfect. The in-text source use could be better. There are some grammatical and sentence level errors.

However, there are good sources used and overall, the student accomplishes the task. I hope this helps with your essay!!

Works Cited

Caffrey, Jane. "Bachelor Contestant Gia Allemand dies in Apparent Suicide." CNN .com. The Cable News Network, 15 Aug. 2013. Web. 26 Oct. 2013.

Everitt, Lauren. "Ten key moments in the History of Marriage." BBC Magazine. The British Broadcasting Corporation, Mar. 2012. Print. 23 Oct. 2013.

Ross, Robyn. "The Bachelor's Terrible Track Record: A History of Failed Romances." TV Guide. OpenGate Capital, 3 Mar. 2009. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.

Pozner, Jennifer. "The Bachelor and Bachelorette: Inside the Racial Discrimination Lawsuit." The Daily Beast. The Newsweek Company, 21 May 2012. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.

Pozner, Jennifer. Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth about Guilty Pleasure TV. The Seal Press: Berkeley, 2010. Print.

Vandenbosch, Laura. "A Prospective Cohort Study On The Role Of Romantically Themed Reality Television In Adolescents' Sexual Development." Journal Of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 55.4 (2011): 563-580. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.

Wolcott, James. "I'm a Culture Critic... Get Me Out of Here!" Vanity Fair. Conde Nast, Dec. 2009. Web. 23 Oct. 2013.