Que bien. Only Hispanic Finalist in Bachelor History |
Dare I say it – there is an actual legal issue to discuss and even more shocking, it does concern The Bachelor.
Tomorrow morning, bright and early, a class-action lawsuit is set to be filed in federal court against ABC, production companies Warner Horizon Television, Next Entertainment, NZK Productions and executive producer, Mike Fleiss for racial discrimination. The plaintiffs, who are based in Nashville are led by two football playing African American men being represented by three law firms. One of the plaintiffs’ attorney says that this claim has merit if the class of would be contestants can establish that they were denied an opportunity to compete on the basis of race.
Wow, these people really must have nothing better to do. What are they going to claim their damages are exactly? Lack of ability to strip down naked with multiple women in a hot tub or the inability to hand out roses to women after a 9 hour cocktail party? Seriously? Or the lack of opportunity to be plastered on every tabloid magazine and have your personal life be criticized and dissected while the majority of America makes fun of your every move?
I am sure that everyone who officially auditions for the show has to sign some sort of waiver, so getting past that will be the plaintiffs’ first hurdle. Then you have the fact that there is a very unspoken set of criteria that is used in picking these contestants. I think they have to go through some sort of health screening. After that, they look for universally appealing individuals who are not currently in a relationship.
Chris Harrison was questioned about why there hasn’t been a diverse candidate as a Bachelor / Bachelorette on a conference call I was on with him a couple month’s back. He said that the show would welcome the right minority Bachelor or Bachelorette, but that they do not get many applications from minorities.
The first thing that comes to mind when I hear this is Roberto Martinez. Of Hispanic background, this guy was a “winner” and had Ali Fedotowsky not chosen him in the end, he was a pretty good bet to be the next Bachelor. And now that he is single, I’m wondering if ABC will reach out to him to do it. He’d be great. I’m pretty sure that African American men and women have participated as contestants on the show, even if not the lead. Sure, they rarely get past the first round, but they do make it into the mix.
So what do you think? Do minorities have a legal claim here? And don’t worry, I’m far more interested in remaining a Bachelor blogger than defending them in a class action law suit. This is the last time I’ll use the word “law” in relation to the Bachelor for a long time. I like to separate these two things in my life as much as possible. If you want to see more information about this suit, see the Hollywood Reporter article here.
Oh and as for the women, how can they say there is no diversity? Courtney Robertson is 1/8 Native American after all.
Anonymous says
Yea I've seen people talk about how there is no diversity on the show (meaning no African Americans). Usually the bachelor or bachelorette is someone who wasn't picked, but made it to the end. Since people are not usually inclined to having interracial relationships and this show started with a white guy, not many minorities have made it to the end.
It's all because people are usually inclined to go with their own race instead of dating outside of their race because of the attraction or because of personal preference, idk. I'm in an interracial relationship and yeah we still get stared at sometimes. The fact is the majority of people are not dating outside of their own race, so African Americans would not make it to the end in order to be the next Bachelor/ette.
They could just not give the “loser” redemption and up and pick a new bachelor/ette who is African American out-of-the-blue but then a lot of viewers may be upset that the loser got drug all the way to the end just to get basically nothing. I think there are higher ratings when you have a bachelor/ette that viewers sympathize with (because they lost) rather than just someone out-of-the-blue that no one knows anything about.
Maybe they could create a new spin off of The Bachelor which would be pretty cool that has African Americans. I'm all for more diversity, but you can't change how people are generally not dating outside of their own race. Interracial is definitely more common these days, but it's still not considered a very normal thing. So I think if African Americans were to be involved it would either need to be a separate show or they would need to choose an African American bachelor out of nowhere and mostly African American women for him.