The Bachelor/Bachelorette and Effects on Body Image
The Bachelor and The Bachelorette are reality television shows about finding a wife/husband. In The Bachelor, 30 women are selected to compete against each other and win the heart of the chosen man. In counter, The Bachelorette involves 30 selected men competing against each other to win the heart of the chosen woman. Within the first few minutes of the first episode, you get to meet the contestants. One handsome, in-shape man after another files in with a witty snippet about themself, and vice versa for the women. The pattern is almost immediate. Picture-perfect people who portray, almost exactly, the mainstream ideal of what the media “says” is the perfect woman or man.
In our society today, adolescents are being exposed to this idea of a perfect body at a younger and younger age. This creates a negative mindset for these individuals as they grow up and go through changes. This ideal conceives an understanding that if you don’t have this specific type of body, whether you’re a man or woman, society will view you differently. Enter body dissatisfaction and social comparisons. These two things are extremely unhealthy, as they can lead to eating disorders, depression, and others that could possibly lead to something even more drastic, such as ending a life.
The Bachelor and The Bachelorette are known for drawing in viewers because of the scandalous and raunchy aspects of it, as well as the good-looking individuals that appear within the shows. Would the amount of viewers plummet if the creator of the two shows, Mike Fleiss, were to break the norms and have the main contestant be someone who doesn’t exactly fit the standard our society has in place for a “perfect” body? Would they be chased after as much as the contestants that are “perfect”? I’m not sure if we will ever find out the answers to these questions, but they are important to ask.
The newest season of The Bachelorette aired October 13th, and is said to be the most dramatic season yet. The bachelorette that was chosen was Clare Crawley, a 39 year old who is now on her fifth time being on one of the franchise’s shows. She is the oldest bachelorette that has appeared on the show, which switches things up a little bit, yet Fleiss still managed to find a woman that would be classified as physically attractive. Thin, pretty face, gorgeous hair, making all the men fall to their knees.
These two shows pose body dissatisfaction and social comparison issues. Since 30 men are chasing after one woman who has the “perfect” body and face, and 30 women are chasing after one man who has the “perfect” body and face, viewers of this show might think that people will only chase after you if you look a certain way. Even the individuals that are doing the “chasing” are attractive. The Bachelor and The Bachelorette have body image risks associated with it that can harm the viewers of the show. They also present unrealistic ideas of what love should look like, but that is a whole other story.
