Last night The Bachelor premiered their "Women Tell All" episode. Basically the women from the season scream at each other, to which has been compared heavily to the Democratic debate. Last night through the screams and jokes about champagne-gate, the show had a serious moment. They brought out their former Bachelorette, Rachel Lindsay, the first Black Bachelorette.
Rachel spoke about the hate that Bachelor Nation fans throw at the contestants. She read off a few messages, all of them extremely vulgar, mean, and most of them racially charged. One woman, Tammy, even shared a story about people emailing her professional, work email address just to spew hate at her. And let me say, it's genuinely disgusting that people are hurling outrageously hurtful and racist things at these women. You truly have to be an awful person to feel comfortable sending a message reading "kill yourself" to someone you've never met in your life.
With all that being said, the network of ABC has a lot of power, and they are a syndicate of Disney. Their channel preaches for diversity with shows like Fresh of the Boat, Black-ish, Modern Family, and The Good Doctor. BUT, in the 18 years there has only been 1 Latino Bachelor (Juan Pablo) and 1 Black Bachelorette? TWO people of color in a 18 year history have played the lead for this widely viewed franchise.
You have to understand that not everyone that spews the online hate will benefit from seeing more diversity on TV, some are just too far gone. But, there's a wide variety of people that watch and say these negative comments simply out of ignorance. The Bachelor franchise needs to actually create a culture of representation among their leads and their contestants. Rachel Lindsay was the only Black woman to have ever made it to the final 4 on The Bachelor. That's crazy! It shouldn't be a running joke that you see 5 women of color in the first episode and know that only two of them will make it to the next week and all will be gone wayyyyyyyyy before they ever have a final four.
Side note: take a look at the men on Rachel's season, super diverse....none of them were chosen to be the next Bachelor.
While representation isn't going to fix all of the world's problems, it will help deconstruct and demolish the stereotypes that people have perpetuated from society and out of date media. It's frustrating to watch, as a woman of color, to see that there are such wonderful people that come through these seasons and don't get the recognition simply based on the fact that they are a person of color.
It's 2020, we are in a new age and a new decade. It's long overdue for us to have television that represents the society around us. So ABC, lets get some diversity in The Bachelor franchise.
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