How Wrong is The Bachelor? Let Me Count the Ways.

You guys, I just can't stand it. 

I haven't recapped this horrid show in a couple of seasons because #pregnant and #newbaby, but I just can't sit idly by and let what's happened over the last few days go uncommented on. 

WHAT IN THE HOT HELL. 

I've decided to give each person in this horror show a pass/fail grade, just like your freshman biology class. And, much like the AP Bio teacher who once gave me an "8" on a test, I will be merciless. AND IT WILL BE GREAT.  

Ready? OKAY! 

ARIE'S MOM: Pass. 

Whatever, this lady's nice enough. She told Arie to pick Becca, which was good advice, but she also puts ice cubes in her white wine which I really can't deal with. I guess she passes but just because...I don't know. Because I have meaner things to say about other people.

ARIE'S DAD: Fail.

This probably isn't fair, but this guy gives me the crippity-crippity-CREEPS. I don't know if it's the slightly European accent that keeps surfacing at weird moments, if it's the hair...I just feel like at some point, he's had someone tied up in his basement and has harvested their organs for sport. He also totally buys into the "you can be in love with two people at one time" thing which is upsetting and (like ol' Ice Cubes up there) WRONG. 

Arie's dad did give us one of my favorite moments in the show, though, when he broke the cardinal rule of not mentioning Thing 1 to Thing 2. He pretty much talked about Lauren during his entire conversation with Becca. "So yeah, I think he likes you both pretty much the same. Lauren seems awesome." "Whoever Arie chooses, we'll be cool. But that Lauren girl...is it true her hair was spun into gold by tiny little witches?" "Do you think her liver and kidneys are in good shape? Asking for a friend."

You can practically see Becca's soul melting in this scene.

Brutal. 

NEIL LANE: Fail. 

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Dear Neil, you are a clown who makes the same ring over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

At least Arie broke from tradition and chose an oval stone instead of a princess cut with a halo and baguettes on either side. 

Neil, a question. How has the fact that you've built your career on furnishing empty proposals not tarnished your brand in any way? I don't understand it. People should be fleeing from Neil Lane engagement rings because of the massive amount of bad karma associated with them. I mean how many couples are still together after like 57 seasons of this show? 4?! Right. No, sweetie. 

THE GREEK CHORUS OF EX-GIRLFRIENDS: Pass.

YES!! This was so beyond excellent. These girls were here to roast Arie on the spit like a big ol' pig. From top left to bottom right, we have Too Good For This Show, Dead Rat, Baby B, Who?, and Not Hoxie - all these ladies had a bone to pick and they good and well picked it. 

I can even forgive the visible bra situation.

We got a lot of delicious morsels out of this. In fact, without Too Good For This Show, we never would've known that Arie's entire story about how he's "taking a risk" by breaking off the engagement to try things with Lauren was a total fiction. He knew in plenty of advance that he had Lauren in his pocket: 

DRAG HIM!! 

LAUREN: Fail. 

Yecccccch, amiright? 

Look, as Carrie Bradshaw once said, there are the simple girls, and there are the Katie girls. And our girl Lauren is a simple girl. This is not a comment on her mental capacity (Happy International Women's Day!) This is me saying, "You have chosen to have the depth of a single sheet of Kleenex in order to make this weird relationship work with Touchy McGag over there." 

It's just so BAAAAAAAAAASICCCCCCCCCCCCC. I feel like Lauren watched this season in leggings with socks pulled up over them in a chunky cable knit sweater while cradling a hot beverage of some sort and gently weeping into her eyelash extensions. 

Was that mean? 

MAYBE IT WAS BUT I CAN'T FEEL ANYMORE BECAUSE THIS SHOW RUINED ME. 

None of us can figure out why Arie chose Lauren over the infinitely more interesting, more solid, and more charming Becca. Every talking head of Arie's in the finale basically said, "Yeah - I mean, Lauren and I have this indescribable connection and I love making her feel safe, and Becca...well, she's just so confident, she's a rock, and I can talk to her about anything...so yeah. I'd say it's pretty even."

... 

But the worst offense was her accepting Arie back with open arms when he clearly left another woman to be with her. It's just gross. And since she never watched the finale, she'll never know just how gross it was. 

One time Jordan hit me in the head with a sock he'd been wearing all day. It was kind of wet and disgusting. Lauren is basically the equivalent of a wet sock. 

Come on, girl. You're better than this. 

Or, you know, maybe not. 

BECCA: Pass. Obviously. 

We needn't linger long on this one because it's just so clear that she's the best and everyone else is the worst and that's just that. Although I am disappointed that she allowed ABC to continue the manipulation by agreeing to star as The Bachelorette, she pretty much gets carte blanche to do whatever she wants. If she wants to set a guy's head on fire just for kicks, she can do it. 

Go get 'em, girl. 

Which brings us to our final contestant here on Pass/Fail. 

ARIE. Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail. 

Let's just run it down, shall we? 

• Your laugh is terrible. That's personal and below the belt, but that weird forced hearty chuckle thing has got to go. Someone should tell you that. 

• You have a 24601 tattoo on your arm because you "identified with the main character" in Les Mis. Sorry, do you mean the hero who carried his daughter's dying love interest on his back through a sewer? The guy who stole a loaf of bread to feed his sister's family and rotted for decades in jail? The guy who raised a dying prostitute's child as his own? THAT GUY?? THAT guy would not bring a girl on national TV to dump her, you stupid giraffe. 

• You reached out to Wet Sock behind your fiance's back. 

• You then lied to said fiance about the extent of your communication with Wet Sock. 

• The you told the production BEFORE YOU TOLD BECCA that you were breaking the engagement, which meant they got to tag along for the worst moment of this poor girls life. 

• You refused to leave even though she asked you to like A THOUSAND TIMES, creating further reason for the cameras to be in the house while she frantically tried to find a place where she could be alone (including in the actual toilet room, which somehow still didn't work). 

• You fabricated the storyline that dumping Becca for Sockie was some kind of chance you were taking in order to make yourself look good. 
• On ATFR, you used excuses like "You were working," to justify your decision to wait to dump Becca on camera. 
• You then PROPOSED TO WET SOCK IN FRONT OF EVERYONE, to (soul-satisfyingly) tepid applause. 

• You're the worst worst worst worst worst. Don't even. It's terrible, you're terrible, we all agree, go hide in a hole until we've decided what to do with you. 
• Which brings us to: 

CHRIS HARRISON: Pass. 

Harrison you slippery son of a bitch, you've done it again. You've managed to exploit, humiliate, and degrade people into season-high ratings for what was otherwise a sleeper of a season. Your show needs a massive overhaul, and yet you go to bed every night on piles. of. money. 

I hate you, but I respect you. You've got us all wrapped around your slimy little fingers and I rue the day I started watching this trash pile. I RUE IT, YA HEAR ME?! 

Yeah, I know. You don't care. 

Figures. 

That, ladies and germs, is it. We've completed another season of mind-numbingly dumb TV. Maybe we'll tune in next season, where we'll get to see the real winner of this dumpster fire: 

Into it. 

'Til then.

Will You Accept This Podcast? Episode 6!

We nerded out SO. HARD. THIS TIME. 

Listen, normally we gloss over the details for the sake of general stupidity and patter. NOT TODAY, CHILDREN. We did a deep-dive of these hometowns (including a scale that we rated each hometown by) and dug into the long and short of it. It's just one of those weeks. 

 I need your opinions. I need your feedback. Who do you think is going to win this show?! Do you agree with our opinions?? Please affirm my opinions. I need it. I want it. 

Episode six is live. Click the image below to listen.

Will You Accept This Podcast, Episode 5!

We're BAAAAAAaaaaack! 

After a few weeks off (one because the show wasn't one, one because we just took a break), we're back with our shortest podcast yet! 

Action packed with our discussions about how "Friends" is overrated, the name for female foxes, Jordan's family's odd and charming Tooth Fairy tradition, and, of course, The Bachelorette. And MC's opinions on what men who are balding should do, which Jordan takes real issue with. So maybe she shouldn't have said it. But she did. Tune in!

Will You Accept This Podcast? E4

The podcast where I trick my husband into getting drunk and talking about The Bachelorette. This week, we cover Lee and his evil ways, Jordan's childhood pet peeves, a cringe-worthy story about Mary Catherine rapping, and the correct spelling of "bordeaux."

Click here to listen!

We Need To Talk About Lee.

So, mine and Jordan's podcast will be up tomorrow covering the rest of the episode, but I wanted to stop and talk about Lee, the Nashvillian (and maybe Nash-villain?) singer/songwriter on this season of The Bachelorette. 

I want to kick it off by saying that here at DHDG, it's a priority to welcome readers of all ilks by making the content not only accessible across political, gender, and racial lines, but also respectful across those same lines of difference. It's for that reason that I'm writing this post at all, but it's also for that reason that I'm going to try to be as gracious as possible. Because that's my ideology. Hope you can dig. 

If you're a person who doesn't watch The Bachelorette,  let me begin by congratulating you. 

Now then. 

Lee, a 30 year old White guy from Nashville, has been flying below the radar for most of this season's four episodes. The last couple of episodes, though, he's stepped to center stage by being one of a few guys to pull a classic Bachelor Franchise move: throwing another contestant under the bus to woman whose heart everyone is trying to win. 

The problem with this is that the people he's targeting are all African American guys, and the language that he's using is steeped in racial injustice. It seems like Lee has some racial biases going on that he may not even be aware of, and I think this is a great opportunity for the White readers of my blog (and for me) to take a step back and look into how Lee's making mistakes we ourselves might make. It's also possible that Lee knows exactly what he's doing, but as I don't know him personally, I'm not going to make that call. Let's look at the evidence. 

ROLL THE TAPE. 

Problem #1: Unconsciously (or consciously, I don't have any way of knowing) targeting people of color

Last week's witch hunt started when Eric, an African American guy who hasn't had a one-on-one, got a little insecure and a little drunk. I'm gonna Reader's Digest/paraphrase it for you because I frankly am too tired to screenshot any more of this show:

Eric (talking to Anthony, who'd just come back from a one-on-one): How was your date? I'm worried this whole experience isn't genuine and I feel vulnerable putting myself out there. 
Iggy: (another contestant who sits down out of nowhere) Okay, so what's your point? 
Eric: My point is that I want some clarity from Rachel because I feel really unsure. I don't want to give my all if she's not really in this whole-heartedly. 
Iggy: Then why are you even having this conversation? 
Eric: ...what? I was talking to these guys and then you came and sat down. 
Iggy: You brought up this whole thing so I gave my opinion. 
Eric: ...nobody asked for your opinion though, because I was talking to just Anthony by myself. 
Iggy: Oh and people care about your opinion? 
Eric: I AM DRUNK AND RAISING MY VOICE BECAUSE THIS IS STUPID AND YOU ARE MAKING IRRATIONAL POINTS! 
Iggy: I'm sober but I'm acting like you've done something terrible to me and now I'm antagonizing you! 

Meanwhile, Josiah (left) and Lee (right) hear this happening and come downstairs to check it out. They don't involve themselves beyond eavesdropping, but they do overhear it. 

As a result of Eric raising his voice, Lee (along with another contestant) go on to tell Rachel's friends that Eric Wasn't Here For The Right Reasons. The friends report back to Rachel. 

Rachel confronts Eric about it, they resolve it, and all is well. But Eric, confused, wants to talk to Lee about why Lee went after him. Eric calmly brooches the subject, and Lee tries to pacify him while not actually owning the fact that he's hurt/upset Eric. After a moment, Lee diverts the argument by jabbing at Eric (who is completely calm) about his disagreement with Iggy:

Major thing of note for me here: apart from race, Lee is slick. He doesn't want to ever own a mistake or appear as though he's in the wrong. This is made clear when Eric is still very involved in the conversation, trying to get to the bottom of it, and Lee responds with, "If you don't want to talk about anymore, that's okay." That sort of manipulative tactic in a debate is designed to frustrate the other person, who clearly does want to keep talking about it. 

Takeaway: Though Eric did raise his voice in frustration, he was neither aggressive nor out of control. Lee's repetition that Eric was "screaming" at Iggy when Iggy was trying to admonish Eric for "not letting him making a point" and "interrupting," is re-writing history. Iggy inserted himself into a conversation he wasn't originally involved in, which is why Eric was so frustrated. Lee's actions look simply manipulative here - they don't look manipulative AND racist until the next day, when he does exactly the same thing to Kenny: 

Kenny, upset that Lee took advantage of their friendship in order to get more time with Rachel, pulls Lee aside to talk. Things get heated as Lee, once again, maintains his cool and refuses to acknowledge that there's a problem:

Again, Lee is avoiding the subject and playing dumb to watch Kenny get more and more upset. If this interaction wasn't enough, he says as much in a conversation with someone later in the evening: 

Look, Lee is a gross TV villain. He's probably being put up to this by producers and what we're seeing is obviously an edited version of all these conversations. We could chalk everything up to that, except that then, this conversation happens between Lee and Rachel. 

Problem #2: Racially inappropriate language. 

DINGDINGDINGDING we have a microaggression! 

Almost 100% of this retelling is straight-up fiction. Kenny did not scream, "F-ck you," he did not give Lee the finger (he did say, "Read between the lines,"), and Lee was not silent in this interaction (in fact, he agitated Kenny from the beginning by gruffly saying, "GET TO IT," as Kenny was gathering his thoughts). 

Here's where we really need to pay attention, though. 

Lee paints himself as a victim here. "I just didn't talk at all." "I love the guy, but that confused me." "There was a side of him that was very aggressive toward me." 

Everyone's major problem with Lee's sliminess should be that he's straight up lying, but if we dig down deeper, Lee is using a hundreds-of-years-old trope to cast himself as the victim of aggressive African American behavior. We can CLEARLY SEE that what he's saying did not take place, and yet, in his telling, Kenny "screamed at him" for no reason as he silently sat there and took it.

You may be thinking, "Mary Catherine, you're reading WAY too much into this -- this is a reality show. Chill." 

But hear me out. 

Lee is doing something called gaslighting, which essentially means that you give someone lots of reasons to form an opinion about you, then, when they actually form that opinion, you treat them like they're nuts. They get more and more upset, and you play it cooler and cooler, essentially watching your victim, who you totally manipulated, self-destruct from frustration over your duplicitous behavior. It's a terrible tactic always, but it's even worse when the person striking the match is White, and the person being manipulated is Black. 

Imagine living in a world where the stereotype "Angry Black Man," and "Angry Black Woman," exists. Would you feel a little more pressure to keep your reactions between the lines? Would you feel that you couldn't freely respond to things without people around you thinking, "Here we go. Here comes the Mad Black Woman." I certainly would. 

So for Lee, who we already know has some racial biases and is prone to generalization, to start using the word "aggressive" about a Black man's response to his shady behavior, is not just cringe-worthy, it's actually problematic. And as White folks, we can't sit idly by and let another example of Black people being portrayed unfairly slide. 

Now look: it may well be true that if Lee had had this same interaction with a White person, he'd have described it in the same way to Rachel. My bets are that it would be pretty close, because I don't think Lee is a person of strong moral substance. But y'all - the difference is that White people in this country aren't stereotyped as being "aggressive." So if he did use that word, it wouldn't be a problem. But for him to describe a Black man that way? Problem. 

Quick story (may have told this before, so stay with me):  

When I was in Teach For America, I went to a conference where we listened to several high school senior girls, all of whom were Black, talk about their plans for the future. There was a Q&A at the end of the seminar, and I stood up. 

"First, I just want to say that y'all are my heroes. I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do or be when I was 18, so the fact that you guys have 5-year plans is so impressive. You are beautifully articulate in the way you describe what you want for yourselves, and it's a quality that most adults don't even have." 

If you're a person of color reading that, you already see the problem. 

Using the word "articulate" to describe a person of color (specifically a Black person) is a no-no. It assumes that we expect Black people not to be well-spoken, to be less capable of expressing themselves, to be "ghetto." I had no idea at the time, and so I was floored when several of my African American colleagues told me that I'd offended them. At first, I was really indignant, because that's not how I meant it at all. 

But sometimes, it's about the impact of our words rather than the intention behind them. I didn't intend to be offensive, but I had been. And now I know better. It costs me nothing not to use that word when describing my former students, even if I mean it sincerely that they ARE articulate and well-spoken. There's no reason to even go there, because I am inadvertently offending my friends and contributing to a stereotype that I don't want to feed. 

The impact of Lee's words is greater than whether or not he meant for it to be racially offensive. And though I don't know him and can't judge him, it doesn't appear to me that the intention was that great, either. 

Lots of people are up in arms about ABC's decision to cast Lee, whose Twitter feed is a minefield of racist and xenophobic material. And lots of people are upset that the show is using this storyline, steeped in racial undertones, as a plot line for this season. 

My own personal hope is that the contestants, especially White contestants (thank you DEAN!!), will start sniffing out Lee's racist behavior on the show, and that we as a country get to watch while that happens. I think this could be a really important moment, and I hope that the White viewers can learn something about how the subtleties of our actions and words sometimes have implications we're unaware of. 

And if we needed another reason for Lee to go home, anybody who gives Queen Rachel this busted ass wood carving has got. To. GO. 

...bye. 

Bachelor in Paradise...Yikes.

Well. THAT'S not good. 

I'm going to include all the stories I (shamefully) read yesterday about what happened with everyone's favorite guilty pleasure spinoff, Bachelor in Paradise. The story definitely evolved over the course of the day from being about a producer suing Warner Brothers to a contestant suing WB. DeMario and Corinne's names were also both originally used, then the articles started redacting the Corinne's name because it now looks like Corinne is suing the production company as well. 

So. Read up and draw your own conclusions. For whatever it's worth, I think we can all conclude that even if this situation turns out to be innocent, Rachel was right to give DeMario the boot. This guy can't stay out of the scandalous spotlight. 

First this came out: http://perezhilton.com/2017-06-11-bachelor-in-paradise-corinne-olympios-demario-jackson-production-halted-filming-cancelled-reality-tv-drama#.WT30vOJOmEc

Then there's a TMZ article about it that I'm not going to link because it's gross and describes a lot of things that I don't want to know, so Google it if you're interested. 

And then this rounded out the day: http://people.com/tv/bachelor-in-paradise-demario-jackson-sexual-encounter/?utm_campaign=peoplemag&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&xid=socialflow_facebook_peoplemag

What's gross to me is that producers have a protocol in place to step in if things get too drunk/out of control. WHY DO WE WATCH THIS SHOW, PEOPLE?? We are all trashboxes. I'm gonna go read my Bible.