Last night, ABC hosted the most recent in a series of "The Bachelor Wedding." The wedding, a live telecast of the marriage between contestants Tanner Tolbert and Jade Roper. While neither of them were the victors of the season in which they competed, they met on a season of "Bachelor in Paradise," and fell in love. The night's festivities included the appearance of all in Bachelor & Bachelorette history, many stories, and a performance by Seal. In true Bachelor fashion, however, there was drama. Ashley Iaconnetti held the fated reality tv "money shot" of crying to the camera, about a man. As we discussed in class this past week, romance reality tv relies on the tears of women to sell. Ashley's apparent adoration for Jared, was first seen in a season of Bachelor in Paradise where they had a fiery tryst, followed by Jared's complete rejection of Ashley. While the wedding was meant to focus on Tanner and Jade it reaffirmed the series' necessity for making women cry. This reiteration of women as "overly emotional," "crazy," or "obsessed," with a man creates more harm than it does good. The constant portrayal of women with valid feelings as delusional further genders emotions as masculine and feminine and continues the dismissal of confronting these emotions. Instead of focusing on the unreciprocated feelings of Jared, ABC should have spent time focusing on what really mattered: the nuptials at hand.
You know, it sounds bad when we talk about it in class, but it's just horrible to actually see it playing out in real life. Seeing a television network occupying a TV screen, paid televising time to the public, displaying their logo in the corner, and showing nothing but a woman hysterically crying about her affection for a man, it makes me genuinely sad and concerned. I know drama makes good TV, but this is just simply not tactful. I'm glad you pointed this out and showed this real life example, because I don't watch reality TV, and apparently it's a lot worse than I thought.
ReplyDeleteI find it horrible that ABC capitalizes off of women crying, and furthermore seems to push them to these edges with their false promise of "happily ever afters" and the fairytale lies. The Bachelor has been doing this since day one and it is a shame that it is such a phenomenon because truthfully what they do is very pitiful. They pit women (or men) against each other for the attentions of men (or women). Women are taught to tear one another down instead of building each other up, and it ought to be different.
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