The Bachelor: everything so so problematic to me these days
I located the Bachelor on ABC.com. It was easy to find because it’s the website on which ABC puts “just aired� episodes of all of there current TV shows. ABC studios is part of the Disney television production company.
I am so disturbed by the depictions of heterosexual love upheld by dating shows such as the Bachelor.
Personally, my “fairy tale� ending does not include competing and selling myself as a desirable commodity for some random man I didn’t choose.
This type of show seems so so dangerous to me. One man, 25 women. The suggestion for me is that women are disposable in relationships, there are always many to choose from. It upholds male control in male female relations. He is the one with agency; he has the absurd power of the rose ceremony, the power to reject.
This is also upheld through the way in which the show is shot. I counted several low angle upward shots of Brad, (this seasons bachelor). As the viewer, you were looking upward at him as though he was a giant. In his interactions with the women, many are of him embracing and lifting them; into a hug, into a pool, into a boat. Efforts are taken to present him as masculine, powerful, and benevolent.
Of all the shots they have to choose from, they make sure to include ample, unnecessary footage of the women stripping down into their bikini and either showering, or jumping into water. Doesn’t matter who they are right? Nope, not as long as they look sexy almost naked. I mean, that’s what’s really important right?
Hmm. I couldn’t help but notice that of the 3 final women, one girl differed in body type from the other two. She had a larger chest and was a little thicker around the hip region. I never would have noticed it had it on been for the way the camera filmed her. The other women were shown repeatedly in their swim suits, from multiple angles. Dianna, the woman with hips was only shown from the chest up immersed in water in her swim suit, and one very quick shot with the Bachelors arms around her, thereby hiding most of her body.
“If I don’t see the true women in her today then I never will.�
-Brad, the Bachelor
Ok…can we talk about the commercials shown during the show?
Please?
“Boys, lets face it, they’re just built different�
-Toy commercial
I think this next one speaks for itself. Can we please gender our children a little more? Yeah, that'd be great.
Rose Petal Cottage
Scrubbing bubbles automatic shower cleaner
The tag line is “maid for your shower.� It seems to me that these commercials are aimed for young mothers, or women who want to be mothers. They positively reek of domesticity. I am bothered by the cleaning commercial reinforcement of the white middle class woman and her shower, (her oh so very important shower) and her need to have some sort of “maid� to clean it for her. Especially when one of the women portrayed as maid is an older woman, and another is a woman of color.
Or how about Nexus’s slogan in their commercial, “I used to be wild.� Apparently, there is a certain amount of “taming� that must be done to our hair. The commercial was filled with a long series of shots of white women with their long straight hair. I am sick of being sold a hair product (or a life product) meant to tame me. I will exercise my own private rebellion by way of teasing my hair. I shall embrace and empower myself through split ends and fly away frizz.
Then again…lets check out what hair products are sitting on my shelf:
Ego boost
Hard head
Manipulator
After-Party
Creative Genius
Small Talk
Cocky
Boy Toy
Head Rush
Head Banger
All by the company Tigi, whose BEDHEAD hair products I adore.
Damn it.
I’m still a product of advertising. Just because I choose which specific product doesn’t make me an less of a consumer.