“The Bachelor” Really Is Kinda Racist
Think about it: how many non-white people do you remember being on the series, ever? Exactly.
The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that a class-action lawsuit will be filed against ABC and “The Bachelor” due to its staggering lack of color throughout the show’s 23 seasons:
A group of Nashville residents led by football players Nathaniel Claybrooks and Christopher Johnson said Tuesday they will file a class-action lawsuit against the ABC dating competition series The Bachelor and The Bachelorette for racial discrimination. The potential plaintiffs point out that over 10 years of the show and 23 seasons, the programs have not featured a single person of color as the featured Bachelor or Bachelorette.
The lawsuit got me to thinking…
Yet the problem lies not only with the selected men to star on “The Bachelor,” but also in the contestants. The following cast photos depict the contestants as a largely white group, with a smattering of color here and there (that has seemed to disappear over the show’s tenture):
…But that’s not all! The problem is consistent among the casting of the show’s female counterpart, “The Bachelorette,” as well as their wacky hook-up show (consisting of rejects from all seasons) “Bachelor Pad”.
DIVERSITY COUNT TOTAL: 14 out of HUNDREDS of contestants. (This isn’t even taking into account those who applied and went through the interview process.)
THR also notes that “Bachelor” producer Mike Fleiss said the following when asked if the show would ever consider a Bachelor or Bachelorette of color:
I think Ashley is 1/16th Cherokee Indian, but I cannot confirm. But that is my suspicion! We really tried, but sometimes we feel guilty of tokenism. Oh, we have to wedge African-American chicks in there! We always want to cast for ethnic diversity, it’s just that for whatever reason, they don’t come forward. I wish they would.
Really? Not enough people of color are applying? I don’t know if that’s true. I mean, a quick search on YouTube led me to this attractive gentleman’s campaign to become the next Bachelor:
So if people like Lamar Hurd pop up upon a simple google search, maybe the people at ABC simply aren’t looking hard enough for contestants of color. Now that a nationally-publicized class action lawsuit is being brought upon the show, we can only hope that the casting directors will start trying harder. Well, or that ABC cancels the show completely in lieu of a Bachelor-style dating show starring slow lorises, sloths, cats, and corgis. How cute would that be?
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- kelseym8 thinks "The Bachelor" Really Is Kinda Racist is Fail
- jonathana8 thinks "The Bachelor" Really Is Kinda Racist is Fail
- toughlove2 "The Bachelor" Really Is Kinda Racist and thinks it’s Fail
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Disillusioned Youth a year agoIn the pictures ome people have so much fake tan on I can’t tell their ethnicity from the tiny picture…
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- Kiran thinks "The Bachelor" Really Is Kinda Racist is LOL & Fail
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Stephanie Hogan a year ago
Call me crazy, but don’t Asian/Latino contestants also contribute to the diversity count? When did they change the word “diverse” to just mean “spot the black dude”? I say this article on racism IS racist.
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- pax84111 thinks "The Bachelor" Really Is Kinda Racist is OMG, WTF & Fail
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- Venus180 thinks "The Bachelor" Really Is Kinda Racist is Fail & WTF
- veronical2 thinks "The Bachelor" Really Is Kinda Racist is WTF
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Giovanni Lido a year agoWhat counts as “diversity”? (And is it only physical?) Is there an east Indian in Bachelor Season 15? Do Asians not count (throughout)? The point is made (though not its importance), but for exactness, how about a few recounts? Bachelor Season 1: Diversity Count: 3 (not 1)
Bachelor Season 2: Diversity Count 4 (not 2)
Bachelor Season 10: Diversity Count Debatable -
- hwh97 thinks "The Bachelor" Really Is Kinda Racist is Fail & WTF
- tnl2012 thinks "The Bachelor" Really Is Kinda Racist is Fail
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AdventureNeckbeard a year agoWho gives a fuck, reality shows like this are redundant. Well… majority of them all are.
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007RTR a year agoIts all simple publicity…for example Who do you think watches BET more…whites or blacks?? It’s spill is toward the black community so common sense tells you that if you watch BET that you will see more blacks than whites. Maybe I should sue BET for their “lack of diversity”. Lol…RIDICULOUS!!
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- liebe.erika thinks "The Bachelor" Really Is Kinda Racist is Fail, LOL & OMG
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- mariob2 thinks "The Bachelor" Really Is Kinda Racist is OMG
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- meowmeowmeow thinks "The Bachelor" Really Is Kinda Racist is Fail
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Moshi_Moshi a year agoWho cares, this show sucks. Bring back the more superior dating shows like Flavor of Love and Rock of Love.
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- marissas4 thinks "The Bachelor" Really Is Kinda Racist is Fail
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- llamalover thinks "The Bachelor" Really Is Kinda Racist is Fail
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angrykitty a year agoDid they reuse the same people every season? Most of them look so similar… how incredibly dull.
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- StephFunny2 thinks "The Bachelor" Really Is Kinda Racist is Fail
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- dawits thinks "The Bachelor" Really Is Kinda Racist is Fail
- reddit.com readers just made "The Bachelor" Really Is Kinda Racist hotter
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nonatitania a year agoThis was like a racial game of “Where’s Waldo”. The season 9 picture was particularly hard, I thought I found the minority girl a couple times but it turned out to be a over-tanned white girl.
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