--:-- [Sound of a podcast intro]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for Today Explained comes from BetterHelp. Let me tell you a true story. Last weekend, I got an email from a listener who wanted to discuss their problems with me. And I said, look, I don't think that this is about me personally. At least I hope it's not. Why don't you try BetterHelp.com slash Explained? Absolute truth.
--:-- Noel King: As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Find the one with BetterHelp. The one is not me, guys. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash explain. That's BetterHelp.com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We all have moments where we could have done better, like cutting your own hair. Oh, yikes. Or forgetting sunscreen, so now you look like a tomato. Ouch. Could have done better. Same goes for where you invest. Level up and invest smarter with Schwab. Get market insights, education, and human help when you need it. Learn more at schwab.com.
--:-- Noel King: If you believe what you hear on the TV or on Facebook, man, that cancel culture is coming for just about everything these days. Dr. Seuss is supposedly getting canceled for his racist caricatures. The Muppets are apparently getting canceled because an old episode featured a Confederate flag. It's getting so bad that this past weekend's Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, held in Orlando, Florida, was themed around uncanceling America.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Of course, even they had to cancel a speaker who called Judaism a complete lie. You can't win these days with cancel culture, y'all. And now they say cancel culture is coming for one of reality TV's crown jewels, The Bachelor.
--:-- Noel King: The latest season of the show was supposed to be an historic one. Instead, this season's been mired in controversy that's left one of America's most reliable reality TV franchises in a pretty serious identity crisis.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This reality TV show is starting to look a lot like reality. Before we get into what's afoot in Bachelor Nation, a quick primer on the show from someone in the know. My name is Brandy Monk-Payton. I am a professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: Yes, The Bachelor. Mondays at 8 Eastern, 7 Central Time on ABC. I teach reality television. I teach a lot of TV courses. And so The Bachelor is right up my alley. Will you accept my final rose? Absolutely. Yes. Yes.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So The Bachelor is a reality television dating competition series that premiered on ABC in 2002.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: Hi, I'm Chris Harrison. And no, I'm not The Bachelor. Tonight, the journey ends again. And it started out with just The Bachelor, but there have been offshoots, spinoffs of The Bachelor, The Bachelorette. Tonight, the tables have been turned. The roles are reversed. For the first time in television history, a woman will be calling the shots.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's also been a short-lived Bachelor Pad, where former Bachelor contestants come on to just sort of find love. And it's more of a kind of game show. Think Love Island for the Bachelor Pad and Bachelor in Paradise, which is the current iteration of that former contestant social experiment.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: The show follows a suitor or a sutress. I don't know if that's a word. And as they, as they sort of try to find love. And generally there are, you know, 20 contestants or so. And each week they go on different dates, individual dates.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I can't imagine him having a one-on-one date. It's just hard because I can, I can see that, you know, you could fall in love with any of them. But it's worth it. It's going to be worth it. But it's going to be hard. Yeah.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: Group dates. That's a huge group of people going. Lauren H. Olivia. Jamie. Rachel. You get a rose if they're into you. And if not, you go home. And it continues this way until the very last episode in which the bachelor or bachelorette chooses one person. And then that person, they can decide to get engaged on screen. Yes. Oh, my God. I love you so much. Like engaged for real? Engaged for real.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Seems dangerous, Brandy. It seems really dangerous, and obviously the show does not have a good track record. I have a ring here in my pocket, and I'm not going to use it. And that isn't the controversy we're here to talk to you about, I don't think.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: There's actually much more controversy going on. The show's been on, as you said, for nearly 20 years, but this season has been different. What made it different?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So the current Bachelor, Matt James, is actually the franchise's first Black male Bachelor in its almost 20-year history.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: And it's also a season that is the most diverse in terms of the cast members on the show. And this historic season has been mired by various controversies surrounding castmates in terms of their past behavior related to issues concerning race.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And this has led to Chris Harrison, who has been the host of The Bachelor for its 20 years on air, has led to him stepping away from the program for its live final episode.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: Tell me, where do The Bachelor's issues with race begin?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So I think race has always been a sticking point for the show, even though it didn't acknowledge it.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: I think that there's an assumption about the show when it first airs that the atmosphere that it creates in terms of the actual sort of story of trying to find love and it being a competition program dedicated towards romance and dating has been a largely white space.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so in 2012, there was a class action lawsuit filed against the Bachelor franchise and the network and producers by two black males who were critiquing the show's casting policies.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: These two football players both went to casting calls in the Nashville area and they auditioned but were subsequently not cast. This is about purposeful discrimination. How do you explain zero for 23 in the 23 seasons of this show? How do you explain no Hispanic, no Asian American, no African American lead roles on this show?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They can't explain it. And so that lawsuit gets dismissed six months after it filed citing ABC First Amendment to creatively express itself freely through programming content which includes casting decisions
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: You know I looking for someone who ready for what I ready for At this point in my life 31 I ready to find a husband someone who's ready to start a family.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In 2017, we get the announcement of Rachel Lindsay, who becomes the first Black bachelorette.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: And I feel very honored to be the person to represent an African-American woman in this position. And it's a lot on my shoulders, but I feel like I'm ready to take it on. And I mean, the perfect word is honor.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So Rachel finds love. She finds love at the end, but her season is also not without complications.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: And I think what happens with The Bachelor franchise is that you get contestants who have done things in the past or said things in the past that could be considered racist, and that is exposed.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The only people that I've seen Lee pick fights with have been not the people that he's used to seeing on a daily basis from a cultural perspective.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: You know exactly what I mean when I say that. The longer Lee sticks around, the more everyone will become aware of his intolerance.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The sort of most famous example from Rachel's season is the conflict between a cast member named Lee.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: I didn't sign up for this to come here to make friends.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Who is a white, fairly conservative cast member and a black male named Kenny.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: The more I talk to Rachel, like, the more my respect for her grows. And so these two have various arguments throughout the show.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So you have an unrealistic, violent aspect about you. Oh, look at you trying to twist around. No, I'm being honest. You're a dime store psychologist, and everybody sees through it.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: The simple fact that I had to respond to the word aggressive. If I was aggressively, everyone would know. Buddy, I have no doubt in my mind. So here we go. That you're a stack of bleeding muscle right now. He's trying to provoke you.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It results in Rachel actually coming on camera in reality television, what is called the confessional mode, where she talks directly to the camera. And she explicitly talks about her struggles navigating the environment of The Bachelor as it relates to race and really trying to think about her identity and how she's being represented on screen with this kind of burden of being the first Black woman to sort of appear in this titular role.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: I get pressured from so many different ways being in this position and I don't I did not want to get into all of this tonight and I already know what people are going to say about me and judge me for the decisions that I'm making I'm going to be the one who has to deal with that and nobody else and that's a lot
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: She ultimately will talk about her season as being edited such that at the end, you know, she almost sort of comes across as an angry Black woman. And so I think that's another kind of issue with the show in terms of the way various storylines are edited to make people appear in certain ways.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: Because at the end of the day, you have the power to do whatever it is you want. You can make an audience fall in love or hate somebody. I've seen it. It's happened to me.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Okay, so that's just some of the background. Let's talk about the foreground, the current controversy surrounding the latest season of The Bachelor featuring Matt James, the show's first black bachelor.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: So the controversy comes behind the scenes and off screen. Bachelor contestant Rachel Kirkenell took to Instagram on Thursday to address allegations of racism leveled against her.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: After the season premiere, a TikTok user accused Kirk Connell of bullying her in the past for dating black men. Last week, another user accused her of liking racist photos. And pics have surfaced of Kirk Connell at an Old South Plantation-themed party while in college in 2018.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: Kirk Connell ends up getting highly critiqued on social media platforms because of her inclusion in this kind of plantation cosplay space.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Okay, so right out of the gate, you've got this first black bachelor and one of the contestants vying for his rose has maybe enjoyed dressing up as a slave owner in the past. Not the best optics.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: What happens to white Rachel? So on screen, Rachel is fine. Rachel is on the show. She has developed a very deep relationship with Matt. I really am already like completely falling in love with you. And I want to walk out of here with you. And I want to start my life with you. And I hope that'll happen.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This controversy off screen with Rachel Kirkconnell, a white female cast member, leads to the reemergence of Rachel Lindsay on the scene to talk about issues concerning race on the show with Chris Harrison in an interview that she does for Extra TV.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: Okay, so we got a lot of Rachels here. So there's this Rachel on the current season of The Bachelor who fans of the show discover has glorified basically slavery in her past. And this brings Rachel Lindsay, the first black Bachelorette, back into Bachelor Nation to interview the host of the show on Extra, which is a TV show about entertainment. Is that right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yes, that's exactly right. What are your thoughts about Rachel Kirkennell and the allegations attached to her?
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: OK, how does this interview go? So the interview doesn't go well. When you hold that under the lens. It's not a good look. Well, it's not a good. Well, Rachel, is it a good look in 2018 or is it not a good look in 2021?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's not a good look ever because she's celebrating the old South. If I went to that party, what would I represent at that party?
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: I don't disagree with you. You're 100% right in 2021. That was not the case in 2018. Again, I'm not defending Rachel. I just know that, I don't know, 50 million people did that in 2018.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Harrison does not want to indict Kirk Connell for her previous actions. But he uses the language and I think manipulates the language of wokeness in order to defend any kind of, you know, backlash against Rachel Kirkconnell. And who is Rachel Lindsay? And who is Chris Harrison? And who is whatever woke police person out there? When, who are you? And that's, that's, I've heard this a lot of like, I think she should. I think he should. Who the hell are you? Who are you that you demand this?
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: How does that go for him? It does not go well for him. He gets a lot of criticism online and calls for him to be fired, calls for his own canceling, right? because he ultimately is seen as not actually listening to anything that the first Black Bachelorette is saying in terms of trying to create change on the show and holding the show accountable to, you know, its presumed commitments to diversity and inclusion.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so ultimately, Chris Harrison decides to step away from the program and think, I suppose, is what he's doing. What is he doing? Thinking. But he steps away from the program and particularly he steps away from the live special that airs after the final rose is given out
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: Will Bachelor Nation survive without its host, Chris Harrison? Stay tuned after the message on Today Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thank you.
--:-- [Sound of a podcast break]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for this show comes from Adio. They say it's extremely powerful, adapts to your unique data structures and scales with any business model. According to Adio, Adio takes less than a minute to set up, and within seconds you will have your email and calendars synced. You'll see all your relationships in a fully-fledged platform, they say, all enriched with that actionable data.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: And they say you can build AI-powered automations and use its research agent to tackle some of your most complex processes to seize so that you can focus on what matters, building your company.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can join industry leaders such as Flatfile, Replicate, Modal, and so much more. You can go to addio.com slash todayexplained to get 15% off your first year. That's A-T-T-I-O dot com slash todayexplained.
--:-- [Sound of a podcast break]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for this show comes from Macy's. It's almost fall, and that means it's time to cycle your wardrobe to the cold setting. Because while everyone loves a breezy summer outfit, let's be real, layering is even more fun. That's why Macy's Fall Fashion Guide has everything you need to piece together the perfect look for you.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: It's your one-stop shop for fall's latest trends and must-haves, curated by their experts. Add a statement shoe to your collection, like the calf-hair loafers from Steve Madden. or tap into your romantic side with flowy dresses from CC and sheer pieces from INC.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can even throw in some textural layers for contrast, like a faux fur bomber jacket from Karl Lagerfeld Paris. Whether your old favorite sweater or coat is on its last threads or you're just craving a new vibe to switch things up, Macy's has got you covered this season.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: Find the perfect layering pieces for you by exploring the Macy's Fall Fashion Style Guide. Shop in-store or online at Macy's.com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Okay, so Brandy, you gave us a lot of background on The Bachelor from the early days to the first Black Bachelorette to the first Black Bachelor to the greatest controversy in the show's history, which leads to the show's beloved host stepping away from the show after this season. Is that right? stepping away from the, at the very least, the last final episode. And his future is still up for grabs.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: I plan to be back, and I want to be back. What does it all mean? I mean, why does this host need to step away? Is it because he misunderstood something pretty significant about what people want from this show right now?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think that Chris Harrison's status on the show has changed over time. So initially, he was just the host. Throughout the week, of course, you'll find out who goes on the dates when you get the date cards. I have your first one right here. It all begins right here, boys.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: And at certain points throughout the, you know, 20 years, he has also been a kind of therapist for the Bachelor or Bachelorette, as well as the other contestants on the show. While you were saying goodbye to Desiree, she kept repeating, you know, You're making the biggest mistake. You're making a mistake. How'd that make you feel? What were you thinking?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It crushed me. Ultimately, he wields a lot of power in the franchise and has become this sort of important figurehead for the show. And so I think his stepping away is, I was surprised that he stepped away, but I think it's necessary in order to re-evaluate the show's commitments and also it's a way for the show to begin to reckon with questions of privilege, especially as it concerns issues around race.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: How big a deal is it that The Bachelor's host, Chris Harrison, steps away from the show? Is this like when Alex Trebek died or something?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Chris Harrison makes the show in so many ways in terms of the way in which audiences end up perceiving of particular situations and moments. He's also, as many reality television hosts are, is a familiar face. And so for this familiar face to not be there for a really pivotal culmination of a season, particularly a historic season like Matt James as the first Black Bachelor, is really notable.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: Let's talk about ratings because that's what networks like ABC, who owns this show really care about, obviously. I mean, how have the ratings been for this latest season? How have the ratings been for these almost 20 years of shows?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The show is highly popular, particularly amongst its target audience, which is a female audience. And in general, that has in the past been understood as a largely white female audience, ages, you know, 18 to 34.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: Chris Harrison being away, I don't think that's going to take away from the intrigue around the live finale. Because now that there's this controversy, I think it's very clear that this live finale episode after the final Rose special will get high ratings.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What comes after that remains to be seen in terms of how the show can recalibrate itself. But I think certainly the core audience is still there. I will say that there are audience members who are very vocal about the potential of Chris Harrison not being there and very much within this climate of cancel culture are calling to sort of boycott the show if Chris Harrison is canceled from the program.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: So I think that the show and the network are balancing competing interests, And I like to think of it as the interest of this growing, diverse, multicultural audience and the commitment of the audience that, you know, has been there for 20 years and is probably more homogenous and slightly more conservative.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Is there a risk here that if you get rid of the host and you make it much more diverse, that all of a sudden the audience of the show will sort of disappear and they'll just have to cancel the entire show?
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: I think that's always a risk. I do not think it will happen.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Fundamentally, entertainment, the television industry, and these reality programs are all really coming at an inflection point, right? They're all having to reckon with this. We've seen other issues emerge from Survivor and Big Brother, right?
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: So I think Bachelor is a really interesting example because the show is presumably about romance and ideas around relationships that I think can make people uncomfortable when we start talking about race and issues of desire.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so I don't think that the alienation of a particular subset of the audience will be the ultimate demise of the program. If anything, we will, you know come to understand dating differently right If the show presents a more accurate heterogeneous understanding of this process
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: It feels a little bit like what's going on in The Bachelor right now is just what's going on in America right now. I mean, thinking about how much I'm seeing Fox News talking about Dr. Seuss books being canceled. And Mr. Potato Head, you can't make it up. Or Representative Jim Jordan calling for a congressional hearing this week on cancel culture or the fact that CPAC this year was called like the uncanceling of America.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It just feels like what's going on in our culture right now, of course, is being reflected in The Bachelor. Yes. And what's happening in Bachelor Nation, nation, the U.S., right, is another kind of culture war.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: And certainly there are claims to be had about, and I hate to use the term canceling, but that's the language that Chris Harrison used. And he also used the language of wokeness. And I think these terms have been wielded in bad faith a lot of times.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so I'm really interested in the ways in which the production practices can actually shift, right? How we can think about people behind the scenes and casting directors and various other producers that are really kind of creating the show, developing it, how we can facilitate a more honest and transparent conversation around those privileges.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: And what needs to change? I mean, if you could recreate The Bachelor in advance of its 20th season next year, what would you do differently?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's such a loaded question. Because, to be clear, with Matt's season, the Bachelor franchise made a big show of saying that they had hired diversity consultants. And they were really trying to sort of be inclusive and sort of give voice to various identities on screen. And I think they succeeded in some of that goal.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: But I think what's trickier is to reevaluate the actual storytelling logics of the show, right? How the show presents journeys to find love and to really think about and do deep work on how those narratives are primarily geared towards whiteness, right?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: For example, the show is very invested in making people vulnerable. You kind of like set the bar for people because you're being vulnerable with me. If you were vulnerable, then you generally get a rose if you're in a conversation with the Bachelor or Bachelorette and you reveal something about yourself.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: But I think we have to think about what is it. It is a very different task for white contestants to be vulnerable, perhaps, and black and other contestants of color.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: For example, there is one season with a Black woman contestant named Jubilee. She's clearly, within the show, very mysterious and kind of aloof.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: And The Bachelor at the time, who was a white male bachelor, keeps sort of talking about how, you know, she's not expressing herself fully. At the end of our conversation the other night, you had mentioned to me that you hadn't been back to Haiti because of the fear of bringing back those memories or what that will mean.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I want to hear like a little bit more about what that means to you and why that kind of still holds you back. And it takes her recounting her story, right? This sort of very traumatic story.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: I think like the, you know, like my fear of not being lovable and rejection, all that stuff kind of comes from my past. And it's because my whole family died, except for me.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And, um... And it's just, you know, and I deal with, like, a lot of guilt. That allows him to sort of, you know, give her a rose, right? She has passed the test.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: So it's those kinds of questions at the sort of thematic and storytelling level that I think need to be addressed. And those are really hard to address because it's something that is ingrained in our society in terms of how we understand desire, how we understand how one moves about in the world.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so I think that requires a little bit more massaging. It requires more attentive editors in the room to really kind of think about what new stories they could tell from these contestants that they get.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: Is that too tall an order for reality TV? Absolutely. I'm glad you asked. Yeah, it's a really tall order.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Ultimately, reality television is a commercial genre, right? Like all television, but reality television in particular relies on conflict and controversy amongst participants. So you need a money shot, right? You need these moments where the authentic emerges.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: And so I think there's always going to be manipulation in that arena in order to obtain a certain goal for attention and for ratings.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So are they going to do that deep analytical, ethical work? Probably not. But I do think that the terrain around them is shifting. So, again, and I go back to, you know, summer of 2020 being a real inflection point for a lot of people about, you know, the way in which we discuss race in this country and, you know, issues around structural racism and violences, both actual material violence, police brutality, as well as symbolic violence, which is to say violence around representation. and violence around images.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: And so I think that we are in a kind of point where we can't turn back. And so there may be small steps that can be taken to sort of account for this current climate. it. With Chris Harrison removing himself from the final live episode, I think that's progress. I think that's a step in a good direction.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think that's a step in a good direction. And I think that it allows for the show to reflect and pause and come back in a different way, or at the very least, an honest way.
--:-- Brandy Monk-Payton: Thank you. Thank you.
--:-- [Sound of a podcast outro]
