Nicole Glidden
The best season of the year has finally arrived. Winter has almost passed, and spring approaches. It’s time for love and new romances. Ladies grab your friends, fro yo, and fuzzy socks and make your way to the TV: Bachelor season is upon us.
“The Bachelor” series, which first aired in 2002, has run successfully for fourteen years. The show gained extreme popularity, leading to the development of spin off shows “The Bachelorette,” “Bachelor Pad,” and “Bachelor in Paradise.”
Hopeless romantics across the nation have fallen victim to the dark hole that is watching a near flawless love story take place. The key word here being near flawless.
“The Bachelor” creates unrealistic expectations of love for all its viewers. Real relationships do no not involve flying in a private plane ten feet away from a waterfall on the first date. Proposals do not always occur in Hawaii on a sectioned off beach while the sun sets. Dating is not designed to be a competition involving bucket loads of tears. In the real world dating twenty five women at the same time is defined as cheating.
The women on these shows are absolutely gorgeous, and unfortunately, most of the time, white. Love does not have a race, or specific body type. On Chris Soules’ season of the Bachelor, plus size model Bo Stanley was sent home on the first night. The Bachelor has made little effort to include a wide range of nationalities, and seems to exclude women that do not possess a modelesque physique.
The Bachelor series has redefined the meaning of love by making it into a competition. Contestants on the show are focused on receiving a rose, rather than developing a relationship with the person they could possibly marry. The last episode of the show typically ends with a proposal. Contestants often fail to consider the life altering decision that comes with a diamond encrusted ring.
Hopefully this season’s Bachelor, Ben Higgins, has more success than past contestants. Couples that emerge from these shows traditionally break up months after filming. Out of thirty seasons between “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette,” only six couples have stayed together. The chances of an everlasting love are slim.
“The Bachelor” would not have much of an audience if it stuck to the realities of dating. After all, watching a couple share fries at In-N-Out does not result in the best television.
