First, let me make it clear that I am a fan of The Bachelor franchise. I come from a dynasty of Bachelor fans. When he was alive, even my 97-year-old great grandpa watched every season. The Bachelor is in my blood. I watch The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, Bachelor in Paradise. I even watched the failed season of The Bachelor Presents: Listen to Your Heart, ABC’s attempt to merge American Idol with a group dating show. I could lie and say I only watched it because it aired during the early days of the pandemic, but I probably would have watched it regardless. And I kept watching. I watched the seasons during COVID where they had to film in hotel resorts and couldn’t travel for hometown dates. I suffered through watching Tayshia “ride” in a cardboard cutout taxi cab only to fall out of love with the franchise when filming went back to normal.
For the last couple of years, the franchise has been critiqued for racism and only casting conventionally attractive contestants. While they have yet to cast a plus-sized lead, they have attempted to address the racism critique by casting their first Black bachelorette (Rachel Lindsay) in 2017 and first Black bachelor (Matt James) in 2021. Matt proposed to Rachael Kirkconnel, which ended in a massive scandal. While Matt’s season aired, photographs surfaced of Rachael at an Old South Antebellum party, which was some tough irony, considering he was the first Black bachelor. Chris Harrison, the long-time host of the series, was fired following the scandal. In an interview with Rachel Lindsay, he attempted to defend Kirkconnel. This led to him being canceled and subsequently fired by ABC. After Harrison left, the show appointed former Bachelorettes Tayshia Adams and Kaitlyn Bristowe as hosts, but before we knew it, the two were replaced by Jesse Palmer. The choice to nix Adams and Bristowe was disappointing and confusing. The two worked great together. They could mentor the contestants because they, too, had been through the process of the show. For a second, it felt like ABC had listened to the changes that its fans had begged for, but the choice to replace the two female hosts with a man signaled a regression back to the Chris Harrison era of The Bachelor.
The combination of trying to prove The Bachelor isn’t racist, combined with a Chris Harrison-shaped vacuum, led the franchise to an identity crisis that it cannot solve. The more viewership tanks, the more they panic, attempting to add new drama to the show. For example, the last season of The Bachelorette starred two bachelorettes, Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia. These poor women had to compete against each other for the contestants’ love. To me, it felt like the producers were hoping to rely on the women-hating-women trope by pitting Gabby and Rachel against each other. Thankfully, Gabby and Rachel rebelled against these pressures and remained close friends throughout the show. I admire them for subverting the negative stereotypes surrounding female relationships. The fact that this season was not followed by a season with two bachelors further proves that ABC’s choice to have two bachelorettes was influenced by sexist views of female relationships. This soured the already bad taste in my mouth.
I couldn’t watch the last two seasons of the Bachelor because of the guys they cast as the leads. Clayton Echard and Zach Shallcross are two of the blandest men I have ever seen. With Clayton, I quit watching because I was bored. But with Zach, I couldn’t begin watching because he gave me the ick. No wonder Rachel Reccia couldn’t look him in the eyes after their fantasy suite date on her season of The Bachelorette. This being said, I understand why the franchise cast them. They cast them because they’re boring, and ABC can’t suffer another Matt James-level scandal. But this backfired because both Clayton and Zach made mistakes that caused them to break the trust of the women they were dating and reveal intimate information on national television without their consent.
At what is now referred to as “the rose ceremony from hell,” Clayton told his final women that he was in love with both of them and that he had sex with both of them, too. Zach did not learn his lesson and essentially, did the same thing. As his fantasy suite dates approached, Zach told everyone that he would remain abstinent, but of course, he had sex with one of the women, Gabi Elnicki. He then told the woman he would end up getting engaged to, Kaity Biggar, that he broke his promise by having sex with Gabi. In this scene, he revealed private information that he had told Gabi would be “just between us” without her consent on national television. Gabi claims she didn’t find out that he told everyone they had sex until she watched it live when the show aired! Don’t get me wrong, I love reality TV for the drama but not when the drama involves revealing intimate details without consent to all of America.
To entertain myself without The Bachelor, I have started watching new reality TV shows like Love Trip: Paris. The show aired on both Hulu and Freeform, and it features four American women who move to France where they have the opportunity to date multiple French suitors. The show follows a format similar to Love Island where the contestants can choose who they couple up with, and it is hosted by a bodyless narrator like Lana in Too Hot to Handle. What’s cool about the show is that American women represent multiple sexualities and so do their suitors. Additionally, one of the leads, Josielyn Aguilera, is a trans woman. I loved that the show treated her and her love story just like everyone else’s. The central conflict with her journey was “Will I find love?” not “Will I be accepted because I am transgender?” It was the first time I have seen a trans woman’s story be portrayed in a way that normalizes her experience instead of sensationalizing it.
After I finished the series, I looked up each contestant and they all have only a few thousand followers on Instagram, which means no one watched the show. This is crazy to me because it was just as good as a Netflix reality show and infinitely better than a dated season of The Bachelor. I also think Love Trip: Paris is doing everything that those disappointed with the Bachelor have asked for. Its contestants and leads are beautiful, but they don’t perpetuate unrealistic body standards. They represent those who wish to find love outside of a heterosexual box. Additionally, the leads were not pitted against each other, and their storylines were treated with respect. So, if you’re looking for a new show to binge, check out Love Trip: Paris because it deserves to be renewed for another season.