We’ve all
seen The Bachelor or at least heard about it, if not you’re lying or you live
under a rock, but I’ll tell you anyway. Basically, a large group of girls are
rounded up and live together while one lucky man gets to date all of them. At
the same time. (Yeah, I I know.) Each week he eliminates the ones he’s just not
that into, eventually, there will be one left, and they end up happily ever
after. It’s reality TV so what can you expect, it’s awkward, the girls are at
best annoying, but there are worse shows out there. I watch it and when they
brought it to New Zealand I was excited, it’s romance, and everybody loves the
idea of romance, especially when its so close to home and in a context you can
relate to, places you’ve been to or that you know and so on. There’s just one
problem, it’s rigged. If you’re not white (and most likely blonde) you’re pretty
much not going to get very far.
It really
isn’t only the the New Zealand Bachelor that does this, the western media has
knack for putting a white man and a white woman together and have you rooting
for them to be together. Everyone else becomes unimportant and isn’t even an
option. While the New Zealand Bachelor is still on its second season it has
shown both times an obvious display of this format, where the white (mostly
blonde) girls succeed and the girls of other ethnicity or that look different
are quickly gone. Surprisingly, sometimes they leave by choice, both in New
Zealand and other countries, usually those who leave by choice aren’t white.
(Maybe they realise they’re there just to fill some kind of “racial quota” and
that they’ll never really get anything out of the experience except being a
token brown girl in a cast of white girls?)
On the
current New Zealand season, that’s only airing for its fourth week, it has
managed to weed out all but one contestant who is not white. This girl is
called Naz (she has a longer named but they shortened it because nobody could
pronounce it – yeah, she’s just that foreign.) Naz is the “mean girl” character
on the show at the moment, she causes drama and so on. The only reason that Naz
has stayed on so long is because she provides this quality that they need on a
reality TV show. There are some brunettes left but the majority are, of course,
blonde. Arguments that the blonde white girl is “representative of New Zealand
women” usually float around, but if you’re picking a sample size of women in
New Zealand, it would not look like that. Or perhaps the women who want to be
on the TV show and that are “searching for love” are typically white, blonde
women? Doubtful.
I believe
that the whole show is flawed on a racial level, not only in the on screen play
out but it just cannot succeed in our white dominated society. Firstly, the man
himself is usually white, and his “type” is going to lean that way just because
he was grown up to love being white and all things white. So realistically,
just as he slowly eliminates the not-so-pretty girls from the show he will also
eliminate of the girls of colour. Secondly, the whole point of putting a
“racially diverse” bunch of girls in house in the first place it to present an
image of colour-blindness. By this I mean that all the girls have an equal
opportunity at being chosen because the bachelor himself and the show have no
racial prejudices and this extends to the world and so on. Again, this just isn’t
true, when you see the white bachelor with the blonde white girl your
normalised attitude is that they’re going to work together (from years of media
and social construction telling you that this is the ideal and what is ‘right’).
Thirdly, while of course we all know inter-racial relationships are just like
any others, for television, to reach a wide audience who have continuously seen
a repeated format of the golden white couple, it’s hard to deviate from this.
Therefore, you will not be rooting for the brown girl, you’ll be rooting for
the white girl (but don’t worry it’s not your fault!)
related article: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07393180600570733
related article: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07393180600570733
Yes, I so agree with this! It really annoys me how neither the bachelor or the other girls bother to pronounce Naz's name properly, and the fact that they don't even bother with her full name Nazanin. (It's not that difficult!)
ReplyDeleteAnd I definitely agree with the white girls being favoured. I remember watching season 1, and calling that Matilda would win because "She looks like the type of white girl he'd like..." Sounds racial-profiley on my part, but it ended up being true..
I totally agree with this, especially the point about the show attempting to be progressive by casting women of colour doesn't mean that it's an equal competition, because the white girls do not face the racial prejudices and obstacles that the women of colour would.
ReplyDeleteIt would also be so interesting to be able to see all the winners of the American version of The Bachelor (as well as the bachelors themselves) - I wonder how many women of colour have won in comparison to how many white women, or if any have won at all?
This is such a great analysis of a very typical type of mind-numbing TV. I totally agree that the intention to give ethnic diversity through the women is something that Is done with good intentions, however by having a otherwise uncommon pool woman the “other” is made painfully obvious. As for Naz I am unsure whether it is editing or just her personality which makes her seem like a mean person. But I do believe that she is kept around due to the fact that she has a sharp tongue. She is chosen because of her ethnic background and lack of tacked, as the last season’s devils advocate was one of those blonde beauties it may be the later. I would like to say that the show that is underpinned by misogynist and racist views would not discriminate to the point where they make the non Pakeha the villain, Media Works has done a lot for ratings though.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with this! It's ironic that the main one who isn't from New Zealand (minus a few girls that left early on the show) is the one that is left out and pushed aside by the other girls! Of course her behaviour isn't the typical friendly behaviour girls mostly respond to, but I honestly don't think that was the only thing that stopped the girls from giving her a chance. Last season, there was Chrystal who was the mean girl on the show. The rest of the girls didn't love her, but they definitely didn't single her out like they did with Naz on the show this year! Especially with the ganging up that happened on the 'Women Tell All' episode! The lack of ethnic diversity is so shocking considering New Zealand is built on the diversity of it's population.
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