The Bachelor Franchise Takes Voyeurism to New Level this Season

Few, if any, regular viewers of reality television are under any mistaken belief that what we receive when we tune into our favorite show is in any way “reality.”  But still, even after over a decade of popularity, the genre thrives because, despite knowledge of how such shows operate, season after season, reality television successfully sells the promise of delivering viewers a fleeting glimpse at “the real” hidden beneath the expertly edited, perfectly packaged dramatic narrative.  We watch because these shows allow us to play the role of the “Peeping Tom” without (much) guilt, witnessing the bad behavior of celebrities, the behind-the-scenes action of up-and-coming stars trying to make it in the world, or the most personal moment of everyday individuals on the quest for love:  awkward first dates, poorly timed first kisses, emotional breakups, and more.  One of the most successful reality television franchises, ABC’s The Bachelor/Bachelorette, provides all of the latter against exotic backdrops, allowing viewers to live vicariously through the (often staged) onscreen romantic moments of the contestants as they have dates that include helicopter rides over volcanoes, make out sessions beneath waterfalls, picnics over the Hollywood sign, playful mountain top snowball fights, candlelight dinners in ancient castles, and private firework displays.  It’s a successful formula:  wish fulfillment + voyeurism = viewer appeal.  This year, however, The Bachelorette took its personal brand of voyeurism to a new level and I imagine I was not alone in finding myself uncomfortable at many points throughout this season as the show capitalized on events ranging from personal tragedy and racial conflict to private medical procedures and family celebration. 

The opening episode of this past season included a somber dedication to a contestant, Eric Hill, who had died just weeks after exiting the show.  Ever ready to dangle even the most inappropriate carrot to get viewers to tune in, the program was careful to not reveal how or when the contestant died so that viewers were forced to watch all scenes with this young man – some of his last moments alive – awaiting the episode when he would be voted off and his death would be more fully explained.   Eric, a contestant depicted as an adventurous world explorer, was a potential frontrunner in the early episodes.  His last moments on the show unfortunately played into the program’s ability to further sensationalize his death.  The bachelorette, Andi Dorfman, kicked Eric off the show (before a rose ceremony) after a conversation where he accused her of putting up emotional walls and a façade; he suggested that she was acting instead of being real.  In an overreaction – he obviously touched a nerve (the lady doth protest too much methinks) – Andi asked Eric to leave and his time on the program was over.  The episode ended abruptly, omitting the rose ceremony where other contestants were voted off, in order to include a talkback session between Andi and the host, Chris Harrison, where they discussed learning about Eric’s death and how it impacted the show.  Both stressed how this incident made them realize how “real” the program really is in that it deals with real people who could face tragedy at any point.  And maybe as those of us watching at home agreed. Maybe we had finally gotten that glimpse into the real that we hunger for in reality television shows, no matter how sad that fleeting moment of real was.  But the show didn’t end with this tête-à-tête. 

The show more flagrantly capitalized on Eric’s death episodes later during Home Town Week when Harrison – on air – announced to Andi and the remaining four contestants that Eric had died in a paragliding accident.   Per usual, with cameras rolling, the producers captured the tear streaked faces of the cast and their whispered exchanges – this time of mourning.  And while I’m sure there was some reality captured in this sad scene – particularly as Andi cried in regret over the last angry words she said to Eric – the show undid this sense of reality and its ability to claim it wasn’t trying to sensationalize this young man’s death in the last few minutes of the episode.  In these moments the camera crew, producers, and other staff came onto the set and were seen embracing the cast and one another.  In and of itself this is a perfectly fine gesture.  It’s probably what should have been done.  But quite obviously the cameras were left rolling for an exploitive purpose so that these emotional exchanges could be played out in front of viewers weeks later.  Reality undone.  Tragedy exploited.

The Bachelorette hyped up another horrific moment that occurred in the season:  a racial slur that was (allegedly) made by a contestant.  While racial conflict is not unheard of on reality television and the show would not be the first to sensationalize it (as viewers of MTV’s Real World would remember), the inclusion was surprising for a franchise often criticized for its lack of racial diversity and cultural sensitivity.  The incident came to the forefront when fan favorite, Marquel Martin, learned from a housemate that a contestant had allegedly referred to him and another African American contestant, Ron Worrell, as “blackies” during the season opener.  The situation was further heightened because the contestant in question, Andrew Poole, had already been portrayed as one of the season’s villains due to other accusations (e.g. that he had obtained and bragged about getting a woman’s phone number while the season was underway). 

For a show that has historically (and problematically) ignored race, it did a decent job of addressing this issue on some levels.  Although, to be clear, most of the credit should go to Martin who, in all situations (reflecting about the incident in personal interviews, discussing it with housemates, and confronting Poole on the show both during the competition and during the “Men Tell All” episode months later), calmly (but passionately) spoke out against ignorance and racism.  However, the show quite obviously was trying to revive and heighten this conflict during last Monday’s “Men Tell All” episode.  After the men discussed this event again – reaffirming accusations and denials – Harrison announced that they had footage of the moment where Poole had supposedly made the remark during the first rose ceremony and after a prolonged pause and some precursory shots of the wide-eyed audience, the clip was shown.  Although the audio was unavailable, the video footage did clearly show Poole making an unidentifiable comment during the scene.   Regardless of the exploitive nature of the show, many were actually hoping that this incident, or more accurately the popularity of Martin, would lead to the franchise’s first bachelor of color.   (The franchise tried to position itself as slightly more diverse after having selected Juan Pablo, American-born Venezuelan former soccer star, as the last bachelor).  But, alas, that did not happen.  The “Men Tell All” episode revealed that Martin instead was placed on the most recent formulation of the franchise’s more raunchy spinoff, The Bachelor Pad – The Bachelor in Paradise.   And moments later the hopes that even more diversity among white leading men might be possible was shattered when another fan favorite, Chris Soules, a farmer from Iowa, was also announced to have been placed on the spin-off.  For as much as the television show is grounded in voyeurism, it looks like we won’t be seeing anything new in terms of casting choices for a while.

The final voyeuristic moment The Bachelorette gave viewers this season involved bringing back a former bachelorette couple, Ashley Herbert and JP Rosenbaum.  Within seconds of the couple walking to the stage it was evident that they were expecting a child.  After chatting with the couple for a few moments, Harrison promised “a Bachelor first” and announced that Ashley would be having a live ultrasound to determine the sex of the baby.  And, indeed, this occurred as an awed crowd, full of smiles and tears, watched on as the two discovered they were having a boy. 

For some reason this staged event unsettled me.  As a feminist media scholar who is all for normalizing female experiences that are considered taboo, I would normally applaud a reality television show that unabashedly discussed gynecological issues or, say, showcased a woman openly breastfeeding.  But in a decade which has increasingly seen the dissolution of rights concerning women’s bodies, privacy, and reproductive rights, this projection of Ashley and JP’s fetus seemed invasive.  As Bachelor wedding events – the public broadcasting of the nuptials of those contestants who actually make it to the alter – have become increasingly prevalent, I’ve often joked to fellow fans that the stars of the program must sign blood oaths that all parts of their lives are fair game forevermore and that it seems like the equivalent of signing over the rights to a first born child.  Now that joke seems to hit too close to home.  As a woman who has had the joyous experience of discovering my firstborn’s sex through a private ultrasound, I find it hard to imagine that learning that news alongside of millions of viewers (and a live studio audience) is as intimate.  But, then again, gender reveal parties are all the rage right now so maybe I’m alone in my desire to have such moments be a family affair. 

Maybe this moment on the show disturbed me because, like the show in general, it seemed so normative.  JP and Ashley seemed like gender caricatures of expecting parents with JP complaining that Ashley was buying too many baby clothes and trumping his name selections.   Just as the program clearly endorses heteronormativity, it also seems to endorse parenthood, suggesting that having a baby should be the natural outcome for all married couples.  I suppose maybe I just had higher hopes for this season.  After all, this was the season of the bachelorette who left The Bachelor on her own terms after a disastrous fantasy suite date.  The season focused on the woman who gained fame for calling the bachelor a chauvinistic, narcissistic jerk – providing one of the first open critiques of a bachelor in the show’s history.  But, then again, this was also the season that starred a successful prosecutor who left her job as an attorney to find love on a reality show because her life wasn’t complete without it.  It was the season that found the star happily calling her suitors real men every time the aggressively pulled her aside and planted rough kisses on her.  So, am I really surprised? 

This season of The Bachelorette definitely allowed viewers to see things they had never before:  the death of a contestant, real conversations about race, and a live medical procedure, but all of this voyeurism left me feeling dirty. (And that’s saying a lot since I don’t necessarily often end a season of the show feeling morally clean!)  If this is the price I have to pay for getting a glimpse at some “real” in the midst of all  the spectacle, I think I may pass next time around.

Analyzing the Civil War Origin Story of Modern Day American Vampire Narratives: How Character Backstories in Twilight, True Blood, and The Vampire Diaries Prompt Social Critique

Scholars have a tendency to stumble into academic territory that they did not intend to enter.  Or, well, I do at least.  A few years ago I decided to write a feminist critique of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series.    It resulted in two publications.  You write two pieces on vampires and suddenly you’re marked as someone well versed in feminist readings of the monstrous.  I didn’t want to pigeon-holed in this way so I swore I was done writing on vampires… and then I saw a 

call for a collection on The Vampire Diaries.

I have a soft spot for the L.J. Smith’s Vampire Diaries.  I read the trilogy when I was in junior high and adored the books.  I was thrilled when I heard they were adapting them for television and, surprisingly, I like the television series more than I did the books they stemmed from.  (Although I do feel a bit silly for following a CW show so faithfully – it feels a bit like shopping in the junior section of a department store.)  So, I decided to flesh out an idea I had had rolling about in my mind for a few years on these recent vampire adaptations.  Unsurprisingly, it has my usual post-9/11 focus.  (Hey, if it works for zombies, why not for vampires too?)

Vampire narratives from Dracula to present have been analyzed (and allegorized) in terms of race and cultural conflict, allowing the fictional figures within such texts to often represent much more than mere mythical creatures.  For example, scholars have read Bram Stoker’s text as reflecting the fears that spawned the eugenics movement during the early 20^th century – fears of blood contamination and interracial marriage.    Scholarly analyses of vampire texts at the close of the 20^th century have read such narratives as alluding to other cultural concerns, such as terrorism – fears of “the other” who can hide among us and attack without provocation.   In Our Vampires, Ourselves, Nina Auerbach argues that every age embraces its own particular kind of vampire – a cultural archetype that plays out the societal concerns from which it derives (145).   In the American post-9/11 cultural climate, it is interesting to see how the various vampire fictions represent the current cultural concerns of the 21^st century.  More interesting is the way some of the most popular vampire texts are remediating a past historical event – the Civil War – to bring attention to the cultural divides presently plaguing the United States.

Being that vampire texts throughout the centuries have attended to racial tensions and cultural rifts, the evocation of the Civil War is, in many ways, not surprising.  What is surprising is the specific ways that vampire cross-over texts are integrating this historical event into their narratives.  In my most recent essay I analyze three vampire series that have crossed mediated divides, revamping narrative content from print collections to fit the serialized small screen and the Hollywood big screen:  HBO’s True Blood (2008-present), CW’s The Vampire Diaries (2009-present), and the film adaptations of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012).   Below I’ll provide a brief summary of the arguments I make in greater detail in the larger work.

HBO’s hit drama derived from Charlaine Harris’s popular novel series, The Southern Vampire Mysteries (2001-present). One of the main vampire figures in this series (both in the print and televised versions) is Bill Compton, a vampire whose human life as a soldier and family man ended during the Civil War.  Although the primary focus of the series is often the romantic relationship between Bill and Sookie Stackhouse, the social commentary surrounding this melodramatic focus is often more interesting.  The first season of True Blood actively draws upon Bill’s historical past, one that prompts main characters to criticize the racial inequity of 19^th century.  This attention to race is one anticipated from the series’ onset.  In fact, the very first moments within the program’s opening credits house controversial scenes from the racially divided American south of the 1960s (e.g. an image of a child in Ku Klux Klan attire).  Although this focus on race relations often slips into the backdrop as the series progresses, Bill Compton exists to remind viewers of the divided state of the country both in the 1800s and at present; moreover, the juxtaposition of these time periods suggest that society has not progressed all that far.  True Blood also uses its narrative to critique other issues that divide the United States in the 21^st century.  The show focuses heavily on non-normative sexuality, allowing the discrimination the vampire characters experience on the show to parallel discrimination experienced by homosexuals in present-day America. As the series was released in 2008 during the height of the outrage over Proposition 8, the California Marriage Protection Act, it was primed to be a text that transferred societal debates over the role of the family and the sanctity of marriage into the fictional confines of the vampire infused world in a way that critiqued the current political landscape.

Released a year after True Blood, The Vampire Diaries also draws upon the Civil War to highlight contemporary concerns, although more subtly.  The CW’s teen drama brought renewed attention to L.J. Smith’s 1991 trilogy of the same name.  Likely inspired by the success of Meyer’s Twilight series, Smith took advantage of the resurgent popularity of vampire narratives, expanding her print series after almost two decades and accepting a television deal that would take her original storyline in a vastly different direction.  Smith’s original series focused on a love triangle between two vampire brothers and their human love interest, Elena Gilbert.  This remains the tie that binds the two versions together at present.  Although much could be contrasted between the television series and the original trilogy, for the purposes of this essay the most interesting change relates to the backstory of the two brothers.  Smith’s novel series portrayed the two male characters, Damon and Stefan Salvatore, as brothers born during the Italian Renaissance.  The CW series alters their pasts, recasting them as young men who met their demise on American soil during the Civil War era.  The television series devotes much more of its narrative contents to the past than did its textual predecessor and it also transforms one of its main characters into an African American descendant of slaves to draw attention to the setting’s cultural hierarchy.  The racial segregation of the vampires and witches is quite explicit and, I argue, problematic.

Unlike the previous two examples, the adapted Twilight films remain closer to their ancestor texts, focusing primarily on the romantic relationship between a human, Bella Swan, and a vampire, Edward Cullen.  The Civil War connection within this series is the origin story of Jasper Cullen who was a major in the confederate army when he was turned.  While this plot element is rather minor, this series is perhaps the most obvious of the three in the way that it expresses nostalgia for the past through the characterization of the main male characters.   All of the series use this historic event as a way to anchor their stories in an American past that is sometimes romanticized.  The Civil War time period shares with this contemporary one a societal resurgence of patriotism – patriotism that comes in a form so strong that it can divide a nation.  In fact, some critics have drawn parallels between the contemporary Tea Party movement and the Civil War Confederacy.  The protagonist vampires from these series associated with the Civil War epoch are also interesting to analyze in that they do not exist as vampires traditionally do.  They are not depicted as an “other” to be feared (which might be expected from post-9/11 texts).  They exist instead as heroic characters who work alongside their human partners to thwart evil in various forms – evil that threatens to terrorize their communities.  But to be clear, these narratives still do depict dark, dangerous others in a way that calls out for a post-9/11 reading.  In these texts all of the good vampires are American and (at least initially) all of the bad vampires come from abroad.  Some examples of the evil non-American vampires from these series include Aro Volturi in Twilight, Russell Edginton in True Blood, and Niklaus Mikaelson [Klaus] in The Vampire Diaries.  This is not an entirely new phenomenon but it is certainly one that has been amplified in the post-9/11 moment.

The characterization of the main male characters in these series is also noteworthy.  Especially in the case of Bill Compton, Stefan Salvatore, and Edward Cullen, these characters represent traditional American values; they are polite, old-fashioned, and chivalrous.  Their depictions, therefore, are much different than those of vampires in past narratives and may be a product of the conservative rhetoric concerning family values that dominated the early and mid-2000s, or shifting conceptualizations of masculinity.  For example, in the Twilight series, Edward’s refusal to have sexual intercourse with Bella until marriage is read as aligning with the abstinence-only education movement popular during this time period.

With this piece I set out to explore the fascination that present vampire narratives have with the Civil War time period and the “traditional” values associated with that bygone era.  Ultimately I suggest that this historical backdrop functions to redirect viewers’ attention to the cultural divides that trouble the country at present in regard to issues including politics, religion, race, gender, and sexuality.  However, this tie to the Civil War also reflects the nostalgia for the past and the current trend of heightened patriotism/nationalism being expressed by subsections of the American public.  As such, these television and film vampire tales continue to function as their ancestor texts have:  they embody the cultural concerns and fears of the time period in which they are created and offer up fascinating critiques in the guise of fiction.