This is a collection of reactions to The Bachelor including responses from an online survey from Middlebury students, and outside audiences who watch The Bachelor.
Survey Results from Students at Middlebury
The following survey was used to get insight into what The Bachelor viewers think of the show:
The results are found below.
The majority of the Midd kids who took the survey have at least seen 1-2 seasons of the show with 30.6%. The division between watching 3-4 and less than 1 seasons is about the same with 25% and 22.2%, respectively. Few have seen more than 5 seasons of the show.
Most Midd kids believe that one can not find “true love” on the show with 69.4%, while 19.4% said yes and 11.1% answered other.
The answer choices for this question included: The competition (rooting for contestants), Drama/ cat fights, The elaborate dates, The fantasy of finding true love, My friends watch it, and Other. The competition (rooting for contestants) was the most popular answer with 63.9%, although following closely behind was Drama/ cat fights with 61.1%. The other popular answer was My friends watch it with 47.2%. The elaborate dates and The fantasy of finding true love were least popular, while some opted for the Other option.
The answer choices for this question included: The competitive aspect, Drama/ cat fights, Portrayal of women, Lack of Diversity, Unrealistic notions of love, and Other. The top choice was Lack of Diversity with 77.1% with Portrayal of Women and Unrealistic Notions of Love tied for second most popular choice with 68.6%. The competitive aspect and Drama/ cat fights were the least popular choices with 20% and 8.6%, respectively. Some Midd kids even chose to answer Other.
The answer choices for this question included: Fame/ publicity, Genuinely find love, They were submitted by a friend, For the sake of the experience and Other. Most Midd kids chose that women go on the show for fame/publicity with the answer choice having 88.9% of the vote. The second most popular answer choice was For the sake of the experience with 58.3%. The least popular answer choices were to Genuinely find love and They were submitted by a friend with 16.7% and 13.9%, respectively. Some Midd kids chose to answer Other.
The Wordcloud above is a collection of responses to the question: How would you describe the contestants on the show? This question was a bit different from the others because it allowed the Midd kid to answer in their own words. The responses for this this question varied, but most Midd kids seem to think that the contestants on the show are fame seeking rich young women desperately seeking love that fit into this white woman racial description. However, some outlier responses included calling the women “brave” and “courageous.”
The purpose of this survey was not only to get real responses from people on this campus that watch the show, but also to test how these women are received by their audiences. As we can see from the results of the survey, most Midd kids believe that one can not find “true love” in this show, and that the women who go on this show mostly go for the fame/publicity. Although most Midd kids’ favorite part of the show is the competition between the contestants (rooting for a contestant), their least favorite aspect is the lack of diversity on the show. Most Midd kids also agree that the show portrays women very stereotypically and that the show is based on unrealistic notions of love. How can you “fall in love” with someone over just 8 weeks? Especially when there are 20+ women involved in the process! However, while there are several aspects of the show Midd kids do not like, most agreed that their favorite part was rooting for their favorite contestant meaning they do find the show somewhat entertaining at times.
Snapchat “Watch Party”
This past January, Snapchat and ABC teamed up to make a Snapchat “Watch Party,” where 3-5 The Bachelor “experts'” reactions were filmed as they watched the run of the show live on TV. These “experts” consisted of people who have followed several seasons of The Bachelor/ Bachelorette, so throughout the watch parties there are references to past seasons and the show even has special guests from past seasons appear on the show.
The minute to two minute long snap story usually appears on Snapchat the day after the show is aired on TV. If you didn’t get the chance to watch the show the day before or you just love spoilers, this story would be the perfect recap of what happened during the previous night’s airing. The Snapchat audience watched along the selected cast for the Watch party as they hung out, ate snacks, cracked jokes, and hilariously reacted to the wild/romantic story lines the show offered this season. Snapchat’s version of an episode recap offers an “expert’s” analysis of the show that Bachelor nation can, in a way, rely on for validation to their reactions.
Additionally, what is particularly interesting about this form of new media is the image ABC and Snapchat chose to be the featured image of the snap story. A featured image is one that appears as a preview of the story when looking at all the stories available on Snapchat. The images above are a few examples of very common featured images for these recaps.
The images chosen to be the featured image directly relates to this what discuss in our gender stereotypes page. The way in which the female contestants are presented in this show is as dramatic, fiesty, emotional and there were plenty of cat fights on the show. It is precisely these type of drama, entertainment filled images/ stories that are used as the featured images for the Snapchat watch party stories. For example, in the first featured image you see above, the title is “Conflict Over Cocktails” referring to the on going feud between two contestants in the most recent The Bachelor season. Corrine was presented as this attention seeking, eccentric, sexually driven contestant who did not respect the other girls’ alone times with Nick. This is what initially started the feud between Corrine and Taylor, and after that, it was Taylor vs. Corrine. The videos below are examples of how their feud was portrayed throughout the season:
Their ongoing conflict became something that really entertained the audience and even was used as a cliff hanger until the next episode a few times. This dramatic, cat fight driven image is not only one that drove the show, but also one that Snapchat displayed since they used it as a feature image for their story. Corrine’s character was particularly one that was the epitome of what the show wanted females to embody, and because of this she was the center of Bachelor talk for a while until she was eliminated. The problem with this is that it plays heavily into gender stereotypes- a theme that we specifically look into on a different page.