Media personalities, television scripts, and reality shows in the modern era are influential in challenging and reinventing values that society deems important to a loving home and healthy upbringing. There is disagreement whether The Bachelor and The Bachelorette American reality television series’, whose main focuses are about finding love on national television, advertise healthy or unhealthy family values. Proponents of the shows say that because a large amount of contestants “find love,” the shows represent healthy family values (Brides.com, 2014). Those opposed to the shows say that the commercialization of love in a capitalist society, where the American Dream of “having it all” is tantamount to real happiness, advertises unhealthy family values (Adorno & Rabinach, 1975; Palmer, 2012; Eidell, 2015; Gustafson, 2015). The latter view is the most accurate. The Bachelor and The Bachelorette exhibit unhealthy family values in the way that they standardize traditional sexual and gendered family structures, trivialize the complexities of finding a life partner, and commercialize love and the institution of marriage. Several applications will later be discussed on incorporating value back into contemporary television.

The Bachelor and The Bachelorette revolve around supposed traditional family values: heterosexual relationships, stereotypical gender identities, traditional gendered power relationships, and the fundamental desire to procreate. All relationships on these shows are heterosexual. The women in The Bachelor and The Bachelorette are feminized and flaunt long hair, thin physiques, and wear heels and ball gowns when they dress up; men in these shows are masculinized and are muscular and wear suits when they dress up. While the bachelor and bachelorette are free to date all contestants at once, traditional double standards remain as women are slut-shamed on both shows for promiscuity (Holmes, 2014; Reiher, 2014). Each contestant must see procreation in their future as a precondition to having a family and entering the shows. From the onset, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette use shallow and gendered markers to pre-define the ultimate building blocks of a successful partnership. Similar to the effect of magazine covers, these superficial markers of success and beauty only serve to confine viewers’ idealization of success and may lead to unhealthy self images, less tolerance for people who fit outside this external mold, and unrealistic expectations for a life partner.

In addition, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette reality shows trivialize the complexity of finding a life partner by providing a limited time frame, a limited number of contestants, and an enabling environment for contestants’ ulterior motives. The show has an artificial time limit of six weeks, with a maximum of three dates a week, for the bachelor or bachelorette to find a life partner among the contestants, and for the contestants to bond with the bachelor or bachelorette. While some dates are group dates, and the bachelor/ette may get to know multiple contestants within one date, the relationship process remains limited to superficial interactions for the duration of the show. Knapp and Vangelisti’s staircase model of relationship development and deterioration describes “coming together” and “relational maintenance” stages that have little time to develop or even be addressed in The Bachelor/ette seasons’ short run time (Kellas, Bean, Cunningham, & Cheng, 2008). Alongside The Bachelor/ette shows’ primary goal of finding love is the publicized acknowledgement that there is no guarantee that contestants participate in The Bachelor and The Bachelorette reality shows for the “right reasons.” In the nature of the competition, contestants who make it to the final rounds have a higher chance of becoming the next Bachelor or Bachelorette. Similarly, contestants desirous of fame may try to prolong their participation in order to receive more screen time, which includes more of a media presence in the editing of earlier episodes as well (Gustafson, 2015). While it seems like The Bachelor/ette shows may reflect natural romantic game playing that happens in real life, this is unfounded. Even though viewers may relate to the bachelor’s or bachelorette’s plight from their own frustrations with dishonorable dating partners, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette invite dishonorable intentions within their core premise. In real life, lasting love is not built on competition and fame. Unlike real life, the basis of the show creates a twilight reality that injects competition and fame seeking into the groundwork for finding lasting partnership. Further, the seriousness of these reality shows allow no room for internal satire of this conflict of interests.

The Bachelor and The Bachelorette reality shows commercialize love and degrade the institution of marriage not only by revolving around traditional gendered ideals and trivializing the complexity of finding a life partner, but also by throwing the entire premise of the show into a surreal environment that is broadcast globally. In a hyper-real world, one’s “being” is degraded into “having,” or the possessions one owns; and one is further degraded into “appearing,” where one’s products and appearance are commercially branded as their identity (Kingsepp, 2007). Viewers and contestants, alike, are lured into the American dream of “having” success and happiness, and may internalize family values from reality shows like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette that give this impression. Each date is professionally-planned, set in exotic countries and expensive locations, and videotaped. Many of the contestants’ lines are scripted to the show’s guidelines. Contestants hope to find a life partner in six weeks in front of cameras with viewer interaction. Not only are contestants’ realities altered by attempting to engage in a natural process within an unnatural surreal environment; but viewers are tricked, as well, into idealizing unhealthy commercialized representations and unrealistic foundations of love and long-term partnerships. Perhaps on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette series’, the contestants’ values align with each other’s attention-seeking goals to live in the spotlight. If this is the case, coming on the show with the intention of finding one’s “soulmate” may not be entirely unrealistic. However, the overall message the show leaves one with is a gross commercialization of love that not only marginalizes family values to stereotypical ideals of heterosexual family structures and gender stereotypes, but also trivializes the complex nature of finding a life partner.

The Bachelor and The Bachelorette reality shows exhibit unhealthy family values by standardizing, trivializing, and commercializing love. It would benefit society to redirect audience engagement from The Bachelor and The Bachelorette reality shows to shows with positive family values. Two proposed methods to redirect the audience are: (1) creating shows that satirize the premise of “finding love” on reality television; and (2) injecting irony of standardized love into modern sitcoms.

(1) The creation of satire television shows that unequivocally poke fun at unrealistic and socially harmful dating shows like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette may work to redirect engagement of the Bachelor/ette audience. Because the Bachelor/ette audience is captivated by the materialistic acquisition of love in a simulated environment, they may enjoy a show that builds on a similar idea. The satire version would play to the audience’s intelligence, and expose the problems of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette reality shows in another surreal environment.

(2) Media that create an ironic replication of traditional family structures encouraged by The Bachelor and The Bachelorette reality shows, yet with unloving households, may help counteract the fantastical and unhealthy commercialized ideals of “moral” family values. The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt sitcom exposes how a couple that was interested in each other for status and fame has morphed into a pill-popping perpetually inebriated mother and an affair-seeking father who is rarely home to see his wife and children. The Weeds dark comedy-drama television series includes a family whose mother is obsessed with her personal image and antagonizes her husband and children, and it is used as an ironic comparison to the family whose single mother sells marijuana but treats her children lovingly. The Inside Amy Schumer sketch comedy television series pokes fun at the standardization of gendered norms, and societal flaws and misconceptions, in every episode. Any of these shows, with a clever injection of irony, help to promote better values than those in The Bachelor series’.

There are many types of television shows that expound unhealthy family values; the Bachelor series’ is just one example. It goes without saying that the financial motives to create shows that attract viewers run tantamount to any family values or educational function that the shows may portray. It is up to private networks to take on a social responsibility platform and establish a discerning approach to television. This is not an easy task. It is only the most resourceful networks and producers that can create shows that demonstrate healthy family values as well as engage the audience.

Sources Referenced

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