The current season of “The Bachelor” is on, featuring a group of beautiful women vying for the attention of a smoldering handsome man, with the attended drama, emotions, skin, and smooching. The ladies range from a food server to an “aspiring dolphin trainer,” while the object of their desire is a 36 year old software sales executive. The show has its following, since it has remained on the air year after year. But “The Bachelor” has its detractors as well, most recently basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Abdul-Jabbar has called “The Bachelor” the equivalent of “romance porn.” He penned his critique in a guest column in “The Hollywood Reporter.”
The criticisms that Abdul-Jabbar has for the show are some of the obvious ones.
“The Bachelor” makes too much of an emphasis on physical appearance at the expense of other qualities one might find appealing in a mate, such as character and intelligence. He also suggests that the show is racist because he believes black contestants are only kept around for the sake of diversity for a few episodes before being given the royal order of the boot.
Abdul-Jabbar also makes the not original but still cogent observation that shows like “The Bachelor” cannot be strictly speaking termed “reality” since the participants know they’re being filmed and therefore act according. The more accurate term for shows of this nature is “unscripted,” though some have suspected for years that some of the situations depicted are likely contrived and not spontaneous.
Abdul-Jabbar commits sociology by suggesting that shows like “The Bachelor” is causing millennials to have less sex, the theory being that it sets unrealistic expectations for romance. Some studies tend to back this up, citing the death of the dinner date because millennials do not want to spend more than a few minutes in the company of someone they do not instantly find appealing.
The whole business of getting to know someone and then finding them appealing seems to have escaped the 18 to 35 year old demographic.
On the other hand, the transactional nature of sex in the age of Tinder and hook up culture may have something to do with the bedroom problems that young people seem to be afflicted with. In any case, one would be well advised to watch “The Bachelor” only for the drama and don’t imagine it has any touch with reality whatsoever.
