Why is everyone The Bachelor and The Bachelorette white? It’s a question that needs to be both asked and answered.
Over at Femonomics, Coca Colo raises the issue:
The Bachelor and The Bachelorette are two of the whitest shows on television. Not only is the star always white, but so is the host, and so, by nature of our society’s continued discomfort with interracial dating, are almost all of the suitors. The all-white star phenomenon then becomes a self-perpetuating cycle, because the newest star is usually picked from one of the nearly rejected contestants, who are all themselves white…
Now, simply choosing a black (or Hispanic, or Middle Eastern, or Asian, or South Asian, or mixed race) star would certainly not remedy the problem. In fact, it would likely only highlight it, since naturally ABC would never reverse the formula and stock this cast with all people the same race as the star (that would make The Bachelor a “niche” show, they would say). Nonetheless, at least we would have taken a small, token step toward inclusiveness. I know The Bachelor is ridiculous, that the formula of trying to find love in a couple months with 25 strangers is nonsense, and that we have bigger representation problems than television. You can tell me all that, and yet it still enrages me how white this show is. So ABC, you’re on notice.
I get Femonomics’ exasperation on this -– as a race and pop culture blog, one of Racialicious’ biggest problems actually is poor representations of people of colour on TV. But the Bachelor/Bachelorette’s myriad problems aside (like the heteronormativity and the bizarre power dynamics), the consequences of a bachelorette/bachelor of color could equally be heartily positive, or completely negative. Indulge me in some baseless what-if-ing – coloring the Bachelorette/Bachelor: what could go right (or wrong)?
Let’s imagine a bachelorette/bachelor of color. It would be just lovely to see people of color pursuing love in their own way and taking charge of their sexuality, especially when you consider that people of color are usually portrayed as asexual (Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop 1), comically hypersexual (Donna on Parks and Recreation or Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles), sexual vessels for someone else’s fantasy (any number of East Asian women playing bit roles in white vehicles), or the perpetual wingperson (any number of black women playing sassy black best friend roles in white vehicles). It could be our (sexy) time to shine!