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S I G H T S | review
A Boy’s Dream Chris, the host, and Alex, the bachelor, prepare to the meet the women / ABC
I admit I am one of the 10 million viewers watching The Bachelor, ABC’s latest contestant for sleaziest reality TV. But to be honest, I have to push the blame for this onto my wife. She’s mesmerized by the show and calls it “car crash television”; like a roadside accident, once you see it, you just can’t turn away. So, Mondays at 9 p.m. we watch in fascination as 25 women (now whittled down to three) vie for the attention of — and ultimately a life-long commitment from — Alex Michel, a 31-year old management consultant. We also engage in an hour-long therapy session, trying to figure out what possesses seemingly normal women to submit to this kind of public flogging. On Tuesday mornings in the office, a bunch of us compare notes: How many women did Alex grope last night? Doesn’t he look like Jack Nicholson as the Joker with the turned up smirk? Could this guy be more of a player? And so on. Surprisingly, there’s no money involved (although ABC has admitted that the finalist will get a small remuneration). At least the contestants on Fear Factor have a shot at $50,000 for eating cow brains; women selected for The Bachelor risk public humiliation for a blueblood Harvard grad with peninsula hair and a dorky demeanor. Most of the media attention given to The Bachelor (including this piece in The New York Times) has centered on the show’s premise as an exercise in feminist backlash. For the record, I agree with this assessment. However, let’s add a male critique, specifically a critique of Alex himself. Although some critics have questioned the women’s intelligence, listening to the banal and empty-headed questions Alex poses while attempting to get to know his dates — he asked one woman’s parents what their daughter likes to do in her spare time — makes me wonder how smart this Ivy Leaguer actually is. And despite all the on-air discussion about his being a “nice guy” and ’sweet,” he comes across as superficial (in both his actions and reasons for choosing which women to keep) and as a total player; his dates include kissing and more, and although the women know what they’re in for, they’re still plainly uncomfortable with ’sharing.” For all Alex’s education and wealthy upbringing, our hero is not the kind of guy you would want as a model for men of any age. For example, on the day he went to Trista’s home to meet her family, Alex asked Trista (who has been cool to him from the start, making him feel insecure and focused on ‘the thrill of the chase”) to consider them dating, as he said, “exclusively.” This was right before he left to visit the two other remaining ‘dates’ and meet their families. When she told him she could not consider them exclusive because that would mean he was cheating on her with the others, he balked and later (speaking alone with the camera, where he doesn’t have to face the women) insinuated that it could hurt her chances of moving on. Worse, he’s a bully. The most flagrant example of this happened while he was with Shannon (who deliciously spent more time playing with her dog than doting on him, which led to his scowl being caught on camera more than once). While in the limousine, the sweet, wonderful bachelor tried to force Shannon into talking about sex — the whole time with his hand firmly gripping her knee. Trista and Christina get ready! / ABC
Not only would he not let the issue die when it was clear she was uncomfortable, but he kept badgering her until she broke out in tears. He wanted her to speak to him as if they were in private, but she blurted out, “We’re not alone” and gestured to the camera. She told him to imagine that her mother and grandmother were sitting there with them. He scoffed at the notion, insisting they were alone, even though every moment is taped for national television. Amazingly, Shannon’s parents were the only ones who appeared concerned with the dating arrangement. They seemed dumbfounded after he left their home and were quick to question their daughter’s actions. Their concerns about the compatibility between the two flustered Shannon to the point that she protested the “grilling” she was getting and fled the house. Finally, I thought, someone on this program has shown some commonsense. To be blunt, I simply don’t like Alex and wouldn’t want any female I care about associating with a guy like him. Though the other women’s parents seem to think he’d make a great “catch” for their daughter, viewers privy to his interactions with each of the women can’t help but feel that Alex enjoys manipulating the women and lording over them, like some kind of pimp-daddy guarding his “ladies.” If this guy’s the cream of the crop in the dating world, I feel sorry for single women (an egotistic, goofy-looking, inauthentic player — what a catch!). Each week after watching The Bachelor, I question why any one of these women don’t decline the rose that signals they’ve made it into the next round and, instead, look directly into the camera, smirk, and kick Alex in the family jewels. Now that would be an “accident” worth watching. Bob Batchelor is a business writer and historian in San Rafael, Calif. He is the author of The 1900s, an examination of the intersection of popular culture and history in the first decade of the 20th century (Greenwood, 2002) and is editing a book of original essays on the history of basketball, Basketball in America: From the Playground to Jordan’s Game (Haworth, 2003). Related Sites |
