The Bachelor is not top-quality television by any stretch of the term. The filming is grainy and the strange, yellow-tinged filter over each episode lends the visual material itself an outdated and an esoteric aura. Everything in Nemacolin Woodlands Resort, the sprawling venue that the latest season is filmed in, seems to be gilded in gold with flashy, overdone baroque detailing. That old-world glamor feels almost symbolic in light of The Bachelor’s outdated premise. The show’s entertainment and drama is derived from the sadly familiar pitting of women against women, where insults, conspicuous phoniness, and crass language are the norm. All of this led me to question whether a self-proclaimed feminist should watch this at all.

The Bachelor sees 32 women coming together to compete for a male bachelor’s attention and, eventually, his hand in marriage. I didn’t have to wait too long before I became uncomfortable with what was unfolding before me. In the first episode, the Bachelor, Matt James, is introduced to all the women who have come to compete for his love. Each woman, dressed in a beautiful evening gown, exits a limo and introduces herself to Matt, sometimes with a cheeky innuendo . After her brief introduction, the contestant turns and walks up four sets of stairs to reach the resort’s entrance. During that time, Matt turns to watch the women walk up the stairs, their backs to him. He’ll rub his hands while he looks at them, reminiscent of an old-timey Bond villain staring hungrily at attractive women. If there ever were a visual representation of the objectification of women, that would be it. 

But here’s an important distinction: you can’t label the contestants’ actions – their curve-hugging, beautifully cut dresses, their sashaying walks – as anti-feminist. Every woman’s and every person’s sexuality is her own to define and display. Loving your body and wearing what you feel sexy in is a feminist choice. It isn’t the women whose choices I’m uncomfortable with – it’s The Bachelor’s producers and the Bachelor himself whose actions and deliberate decisions I question. Why rub your hands together and watch a woman walk up the stairs when you could smile at her, bid her a pleasant evening, or position the camera to look at the women’s beaming faces and instead of their behinds?

This is, of course, not to say that Matt was purposefully embodying misogynistic behaviors. On the contrary, Matt speaks often about how much he respects and admires these women, how much he values their time and attention, and how much he appreciates their strong and confident personalities. But the fact is that the show’s producers chose to introduce us to the women in this way. We meet these women through the literal male gaze– that is, what is sexually alluring or captivating about them.

The women aren’t passive either. They certainly aren’t submissive – they don’t wait to be handed roses or wait for Matt to find them. When a woman wants to speak to Matt, she walks up to him and leads him away for a conversation. (In fact, this very thing has caused a few tiffs between women, some believing they deserved more time than they got before another woman whisks him away.)

It’s also a matter of personality. Man or woman, each person has their own way of dealing with tense situations. Some stoop down to insults, lashing out at people who contradict them. Others cling to their principles or try to remain non-confrontational to pacify more turbulent individuals. In that way, it’s not exactly anti-feminist that the contestants get upset with each other. It just so happens that in The Bachelor, women are competing with other women – competitive women aren’t lashing out at others simply because they are women, but it may appear that way because the competition is between women.

Image courtesy of Newsweek 

Could someone go so far as to say that The Bachelor is empowering? I think so. Each of these women recognized what they wanted – an opportunity to win Matt’s heart and begin a life with him – and took uncompromising action to go after that. But that dream can come at the expense of hurting other women, if you’re a contestant like MJ or Victoria, both of whom actively put down other women in order to rise to the top in Matt’s eyes. If you can be like one of the so-far unproblematic contestants and focus on developing your own connection with Matt instead of wrecking others’ connections, I think being a feminist and being on The Bachelor is doable. If you keep in mind that it ultimately comes down to each individual, you can watch The Bachelor and not let it conflict with your feminism. But I ask pay close attention to the decisions that the producers make – what conflict to show, how to stage on-screen arguments, where the camera zooms in – before determining for yourself whether the show itself is a relic of the past, or if it could be deemed feminist.

Sincerely,

Sanjana

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