Tuesday, March 22, 2011

For Colored Girls

Guilty pleasures – we all have them. Mine happens to be the junk food of reality TV – “The Bachelor.” I got into “The Bachelor/ette” franchise (again) when my sister and I decided to start watching it together, even though we live 700 km apart – it started out as something to bond over and send snarky text messages about. However, a couple of seasons ago, my sister stopped watching. I continued on. I can’t really explain it, but there is something so delightful about watching 24 beautiful women self-destruct on national television. Ok, so maybe I can explain it.



One thing I have noticed lately is that there is a distinct lack of non-Caucasian bachelors and bachelorettes. Earlier seasons would sprinkle at least one or two “colored” contestants in for good measure, but these men and women would seldom make it past the top 15. This has always kind of bugged me until this recently published interview Entertainment Weekly online conducted with “Bachelor” producer Mike Fleiss:


EW: Will we ever see a bachelor or a bachelorette who is not white?


Mike Fleiss: ...We really tried, but sometimes we feel guilty of tokenism. Oh, we have to wedge African-American chicks in there! We always want to cast for ethnic diversity, it’s just that for whatever reason, they don’t come forward. I wish they would.



I HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE PROUD TO BE SOMEONE OF COLOUR IN MY LIFE! (Sorry, Obama). Look, while I love this show, it basically scrapes the bottom of humanity’s barrel in terms of casting. The women they find are either fame-seeking whores, delusional divorcees in their early twenties or desperate cat-ladies in their late thirties – as an added bonus, these women all seem to regress and behave like lovesick teens when forced to live together and vie for the affections of a man they know nothing about.


Would it be nice to see more non-white faces on TV? Of course. Does it need to be on a trashy reality television show? No.
Yes, I am as stupid as I look.

1 comment:

  1. i love at the beginning of the quote he says "I think Ashley is 1/16th Cherokee Indian"... hooray for diversity on television!!! ohh goodness....its true, it would be good to have more cultures on these shows, but i think most people of colour know they will be type casted and put in a box 5 min after stepping out of the limo...

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