Despite Casting Black Leads, The Bachelor Franchise Still Has A Race Problem

Now in its 25th season, The Bachelor has not only produced nearly two decades of captivating and chaotic television, but it has also taught audiences that anyone can have a magical romance as long as they’re persistent, gorgeous, and most importantly of all ... white. Since The Bachelor and The Bachelorette started in 2002 and 2003 respectively, only three leads have not been white. In fact, the show didn’t feature a Black lead until 2017, when Rachel Lindsay was chosen as the headlining bachelorette. The second Black bachelorette, Tayshia Adams, graced television screens in late 2020, and was followed by this season’s bachelor, Matt James, who is the first ever Black male lead.

The franchise’s decision to give Rachel, Tayshia, and Matt the reins in their respective seasons feels less like an honest attempt to reckon with the show’s past exclusion of people of color than it does a contrived, belated response to a clear indictment of the franchise’s shortcomings. In fact, even with more inclusive casting, the show’s attempts to meaningfully engage with race often wilt faster than the roses given out at the end of every episode, because essentially, the show is acknowledging its disappointing history with race without actually addressing it.

The first sign of this superficial acknowledgement is evident in their decision to use hackneyed opportunities — namely, mass racial reconciliation and a production nightmare — to rectify its overdue accommodation of diversity. While the franchise typically picks its lead from the most recent season to head up the next cycle, of the Black leads, only Rachel Lindsay’s casting followed that pattern. Tayshia Adams was brought in as a replacement for the original choice for season 16, and Matt James’ casting completely broke the mold, as he is only tangentially related to the franchise through his friendship with former contestant, and fan favorite, Tyler Cameron. His casting was a little suspect for a franchise that hadn’t so much as considered a Black male lead, despite plenty of other compelling former cast members to choose from, but perhaps made more sense given the context of the cultural racial reckoning that was occurring in June 2020, when his casting was announced.

Another sign is that these seasons remain committed to the show’s usual, formulaic structure of chaos, which worked for its white leads, rather than reconsidering or shifting these priorities to benefit Black leads. For example, when Rachel Lindsay was cast as the first Black lead in the show’s history, the production cast a racist cast member, Lee Garrett. The show even went as far as positioning Garrett against Black contestants to imbue drama, all without objectively condemning his racism. So-called “drama” was prioritized in this instance over Lindsay’s safety and wellbeing.

What’s more, in the years since Lindsay’s season, the production has cast more racist contestants — most notably Garret Yrigoyen, the now-divorced winner of Becca Kuffrin’s season of The Bachelorette, who openly mocked Parkland high school students, undocumented immigrants, and trans people. There have also been other instances of blatant racism and sexism on the show, including past contestant James Taylor revealing himself as one of the insurrectionists at the Capitol Building siege earlier this year and Bachelor contestant Victoria Fuller, who participated in a “White Lives Matter” event.

Instead of condemning these contestants, and taking responsibility for irresponsible and damaging casting, the show has placed the emotional burden on Lindsay to speak to the franchise’s giant audience about issues of race — essentially asking her to shoulder the weight of their mistakes and do the work of educating the masses. This takes the form of the show’s host, Chris Harrison, bringing Lindsay out for a single segment condemning things like online racism and harassment, before reverting the episode back to its usual programming.

It’s clear the production has no interest in learning from or rectifying its mistakes, either, as it cast another brutally ignorant white contestant for the current seasons — the one featuring the first Black male lead. Rachael Kirkconnel, the contestant in question, has come under fire for her racism and anti-Blackness as well as affinity for plantations — yet the show is still presenting her as a viable suitor for Matt. Another contestant on the season, Chelsea Vaughn, used her alone time with the lead to discuss her relationship to her hair as a Black woman. Chelsea later revealed that Matt shared his own relationship to his hair as a Black man, but that part was cut to seemingly make room in an episode for other scenes of nonsensical drama and overt meanness. The show doesn’t seem to realize that when it bookends episodes that include racial vulnerability with scenes of drunk women dressing up as squirrels and calling each other “hoes,” it severely undercuts those moments of genuine sincerity.

This denial of racial discourse is made all the more disappointing given that the show has proven that it can handle the weight of certain vulnerable conversations when it wants to. Tayshia’s season is probably one of the most universally beloved seasons in the franchise’s history because cast members’ struggles weren’t completely overshadowed by the drama of competition. One contestant used his time with Tayshia to talk about his struggles with addiction and recovery, another used his time to talk about his struggles with his absentee parents, and a third used his time with Adams to talk about his experience with suicide and eating disorders.

There also have been rare moments of genuine discourse about racism on the show — but they have seemingly happened by accident. Another powerful moment in Tayshia’s season (again: the lead who was cast as a replacement for a white woman) was the eloquent conversation she had with a contestant about police brutality, incarceration, and Black Lives Matter. As moving as the moment was, it’s a conversation that seems like it would have never taken place with a white lead, which was the original plan for the season. The show likely never had the intention to give oxygen to racial discourse, but the Ivan-Tayshia conversation feels like an outlier that broke through because it hit an emotional note the production couldn’t ignore.

It’s worth wondering whether the show is unequipped to handle its issues with race and representation, or if it’s just uninterested. The true problem is that both may be true. Both The Bachelor and The Bachelorette are dating shows first and foremost; the DNA of the franchise is admittedly flawed in terms of its ability to have nuanced conversations. But the show’s persistent commitment to a trite reality show formula has resulted in an irresponsible and damaging treatment of Black leads. It seems impossible to believe that the show cares about or is capable of fixing its broken relationship with race. For a show that has cut its teeth on turning fantasy into reality, the idea of representation and diversity just seems too far-fetched.