Reality TV is Solvable

average viewership reaching over ten million in some seasons. I love both The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. I've watched for many seasons and at times I'd love to hate both shows as well. Recently, I felt like the shows have fallen out of step with reality. I mean, you have almost entirely white player pools. There was a year where both leads and all of their players were all white. Twenty years later, we finally get a black bachelor. We still have never seen a black woman when the ring

which is getting the final rows. There's still so much that needs to happen. The past few seasons of the show have tried to address its blind spots with regards to race. Out of a combined forty four seasons, there have been two black Bachelorettes and one black Bachelor so far. But beyond the lack of inclusivity, watching the show is

difficult at times because it's premise feels dishonest. Everything you see on that screen is a choice made by producers, everything from what's actually happening on the screen, especially to what they're not showing you. That's Chad Coulchin and Lizzie Peace, who you heard earlier, are co hosts of Game of Roses,

a podcast about the Bachelor and Bachelor Rette franchises. I enjoy listening because Chad and Lizzie talk about the show in a very different way, not as a reality show that chronicles to search for love, as the franchise purports itself to be, but rather as a game with a prize.

And we meticulously recorded every play that has ever been made by any player in the history of the game, which gave us an in depth understanding of not only the evolution of the game, but all of these different statistical categories that allow us to apply metrics to strategy for players coming into the game who want to try to win the ring, the crown, get Top four, get

their million Instagram followers, or whatever their goals may be. Today, we're talking to Lizzie and Chad not only about the problems on this one reality show, but about how we could take a more honest approach in producing and viewing reality television. The belief that reality TV is real is a solvable problem. Pretend that I've never watched this show in my life, and just give me the most basic

description of The Bachelor you can. The Bachelor is a ten round game of attrition where around thirty women try to compete to date one man. And the way that we sort of break down the show on our podcast as well as the book that we have coming out, is treating it like a game, as the end goal being either to win the ring, to win the crown, or around top four placement, because then you are guaranteed a spot in Bachelor in Paradise, subsequent appearances on the show,

and can possibly get a million Instagram followers. It's funny because I've known the show is not real, and most of my arguments against it have to be with what they're pressing forth as the ideal body type, the ideal race, the ideal way to fall in love, and the ideal family standard. Those are the practices that I argue with the most. But what I'm hearing from you is that it's there's more theater in this show than a regular

watcher would would even realize. Is that absolutely, it's pro wrestling at this point, almost the kind of it is real. I mean, every once in a while there is a relationship that comes out of this show. There is potentially even a family that does happen. It is rare, but that's also part of the game. It's not real, yeah, but the viewing audience, I think largely still believes it is.

So one segment of your podcast is there's a running theme of the number of days and Lizzie, you do you cover this portion the number of days without an Asian Bachelor? Why is that important to note? Well, it started out as the Days Without a Black Bachelor, the DWAB as we call it, and we were tracking this almost since the very beginning of our podcast until the casting of Matt James, and so the day that his premier aired, the DWAB finally went to zero, there was

finally zero days without a black Bachelor. For us, especially having watched you know, the history of the whole series, we have basically seen how racist the casting practices are. I mean, you have almost entirely white player pools. There was a year where both leads and all of their players were all white. Years later we finally get a black bachelor. We still have never seen a black woman win the ring, which is getting the final rows. There's

still so much that needs to happen. And during Matt James this season, even though they had the most diverse player pool of all time, they were getting a proportionately lower amount of screen time than the white players during that season. Now we have days without an Asian Bachelor because there hasn't been an Asian lead, There's been very low Asian representation in terms of the players as well.

It's important for us to keep holding them accountable, to make sure that you know, it's not a show upholding white supremacy essentially. And I think it's important to note too that it's not just about who's getting cast or who the leads are. Those are all subjective choices, obviously, but so are the stories being told and who makes it into the final four. The leads don't actually choose who gets the first impression Rose, who gets to go on the dates, who gets the group date Roses. That's

all done by producers. When we think about things like the reckonings that kind of begin to happen in society, and it seemed like, and especially into different types of industry, There's one in the cooking industry, there's one of course in Hollywood, and just everywhere. It just seemed like there are ripple effects of people waking up to the realities of racism. So when we talk about race and this

show specifically, we talk about these being subjective choices. Do you think a show like The Bachelor can be reimagined to position itself as a reality show that is about love in the current era for us, we think that they need to embrace social media rather than run away from it, as they seem to be doing with the Bachelor Paradise storyline this year. I think they need to catch up to where society is. They've been very slow moving.

You know, they've been making it up in terms of race, but they've only featured one openly LGBTQ plus player during a main game season. That was Jamie King on Nick Baile's Season twenty one versus. You know, it's like one in five young people identify as LGBTQ plus at this point, So it's like, if you want to make more money and keep going and not be seen as this relic, we think that the game has to move forward and start representing. You know what love stories in our country

actually look like. They don't embrace a lot of marginalization, so they don't necessarily disability size. They'd certainly have a certain archetype that they got there. Do you think that any of those things are things they get addressed if it moves from network television to a streaming platform, do they have an incentive to even try to address those issues? Do you think they even see them as issues? Well, they are experimenting right now. They had a bisexual bachelorette

in Bachelor Australia some of the offshoot shows. They are trying things out and seeing what the reactions are, and I think we'll probably definitely see a bisexual lead at some point. Do you think you'll ever see a plus size lead or plus size contestant. We've had a couple plus size contestants and they tried to pitch Bob Guinea, the Bachelor of season four, as a kind of non traditional looking bachelor. He was like a little bigger than

as soon as he shows up as the bachelor. He was a tall white dude, but like he wasn't you know, like a jack bodybuilder type dude. And then as soon as he shows up in the first thing they show is him jogging and like getting in quotes in shape to be the Bachelor. So even that was kind of like overturned. And to answer your question, like do they

see these as problems? I don't know, whatever kind of antiquated views they want to promote, whatever kind of psychological torture they want to impart upon any of these players. It's like, well, it's good TV. Well that what does that mean though we're destroying the fabric of America? Is that like for good TV? That's where we're at now? So talking more about that, do you think it's actually

destroying the fabric of America? Because I'm I'm prone to hyperbole, and I say yes, but talk about how yeah, it absolutely is, because there's I mean, we just came out of the Trump era and this notion that we can just promote open lies through media, and there's going to be a certain segment of the population who either does

outright believe it or behaves as though they do. We'll get us into situations like we're at now, where nobody trusts anything in the news, nobody trusts science, nobody trusts anything because everybody thinks everything is a lie. I think reality TV is I mean, it's not where it started, but it's like throwing gasoline on the fire. It's always about driving people into emotional breakdowns so that we can

watch that as entertainment. And I know that a lot of people think Bachelor is just kind of like a frivolous, guilty pleasure, but to me, it really is the most accurate reflection of our current society, especially one in which we just had a reality TV show host as President of the United States. I like the ways in which that you guys are critical of the show by you know, bringing it into reality and talking about the elements of

it that aren't real. I think that's important, and I think you guys definitely have encouraged a different way to watch The Bachelor, but you guys also have some ideas of how the show can be improved or a better version of a dating show. Do you guys want to talk me through what some of those are. We would like to see a more inclusive, more honest reality show basically that's more clear about what people are going on reality dating shows for, and just a more honest approach

to reality television. I think for the past twenty years and all reality TV, there has been this line drawn between the producers and the audience, and the producers saying they can't see behind the curtain. The thing we're making is this lie and they're eating it up, and that's how we're making our money. But audiences are like so much more savvy now. We all basically are making reality TV shows in our instagrams and our TikTok's twenty four

hours a day. We understand how things are produced now. I think all reality shows should step out of the shadows and be much more transparent about the production elements of it, and even maybe have that be a component of the show itself. Every once in a while, especially in Bachelor, you'll see a producer kind of like sneak out of the shadows to have a conversation with somebody

or whatever. But I think you can have all that stuff, Like right up front, what do you think we lose by mining our own lives for content in this way? Mindfulness being in the present moment. I think we have different opinions on this. For me, I'm ready for the chip in my head. I want to live in the metaverse now. I think everything should be content at all times. We are moving very quickly towards a society in which everything has recorded twenty four hours a day, and the

job will really be curation. It will be who can find the best, most interesting things if you look at like, do you know Tank Sinatra, that meme artist? Yes, I've afforded a lot of Tank Sinatra memes to my friends. I follow him on Instagram. He also does Influencers in the Wild that is literally just videos of people making content that we watch and laugh at. So now content is watching people making content, and eventually it's going to be people sleeping, people just like sitting on their couch.

People will start getting famous for those things once we're recording everything all the time, and I'm down for it. There's a hotel in Japan that you can stay out for free, but they just record you the whole time. Is that good. What can listeners do if they want to see the quality of their reality television improved with shows like The Bachelor or anything else that they love watching. Have a higher level of scrutiny for everything you're watching.

Always be asking yourself when you see anything on any screen, why am I seeing this? Who wants me to see this? And why do they want me to see it? Like they're presenting it. Everything you see on that screen is a choice made by producers, everything from what's actually happening on the screen, especially to what they're not showing you. There's so much media being generated, and now with deep fakes,

anything you want can be generated. Anyone can say anything. Yeah, and especially I would say, no one is as evil or as good as they probably appear given the edit. They need these types of basic archetypes in every season. Villains Fools we have We have broken down into twelve archetypes in our book. But keep those in mind and do not send threats or any hate towards people that you don't know all the internet. How do you think that results in improving the reality television? Like? What do

you think will come of that? I mean, ideally you don't see players suffer from mental illness the way that you were seeing a lot right now. And this has been going on since season one. Linnise Adams, the first black woman to appear on the show, who actually got the first kiss in season one, went through like horrible mental illness and started self medicating after she got a huge racist backlash against her appearance, like all of these white supremacists put videos of her on websites and stuff.

It's hard to prepare for the mental toll that having yourself scrutinized, seeing yourself edited in all sorts of ways, saying things that you never said, affects the players. What do you guys see for the future of Game of Roses? What do you guys see for the future of The Bachelor in five to ten years, you guys still going to be doing this? Do you guys think you'll get tired of it? What will it look like? And do

you think it will be improved? What do you expect that it looks like as you guys continue on, We're really hoping our book comes out, How to Win the Bachelor, and I think it will change the way people watch

the show. That's one of our goals and it adds like a what we think is a fun element to treat it as a sport, and we think that more and more people will and we'll get you know, we did some statistical work on this, but we're hoping, you know, others pick up where we left off and do even more statistics and make it into, you know, something akin to the stats that baseball has, for instance, you know, where you're tracking everything. I don't know if we'll still

be doing this in five years. We are trying to do our own version of a dating game that is like, at least in our opinion, a little more progressive, a little more inclusive. And so we'll see, you know, hopefully we can get that sold and on the air. Appreciate you guys both for participating. Thanks for having us. This was fun. Yeah, this has been a blast. This was so awesome. Lizzie Pacing Chad Coulching are the hosts of the podcast Game of Roses. We have linked to their

new book, How to Win the Bachelor in our show notes. Also, if you're watching the twenty twenty two season of The Bachelor, ABC, I will say that listening to their podcast makes the show just better, So definitely seek that out wherever you listen. Solvable is produced by Jocelyn Frank, Research by David Job, Booking by Lisa Dunn, editing help from Kashall Williams. Our managing producer is Sasha Matthias, and our Executive producer is mil LaBelle. I'm Ronald Young Junior. Thanks for listening.