‘The Bachelor’ Finally Went Black — But Doesn’t Know How to Deal With Race
18 years after its premiere, the reality show finally has a Black man at its center. What happens next is anyone’s guess.
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This week, after resisting it for nearly 18 years, I finally watched The Bachelor. And the first four words out of my mouth were “Wait, that’s a dildo!”
On the screen, a White woman waved a lightsaber-style vibrator (censored, of course, given that this is an ABC production) towards a Black man, his face frozen in a nervous smile. And thus began my foray into the bizarro world of the Bachelorverse. Yes, I’m here on CP time — but it’s because they finally gave the CP time.
After approximately 7 million seasons, reality competition The Bachelor has finally cast a Black man, Matt James, as its lead. Which is why a rookie like me had to tune in to see how they would stick the landing in these here racial gymnastics. And no matter what I’d expected, I couldn’t have asked for a more surreal introduction to what is truly a wild-ass show. The first episode of the new season — aka The Bachelor: Noir, aka The B(l)ac(k)helor — was chock full of…
