The Feminist Bachelor Recap, Episode 1: My Inner Drunk Girl

Let the journey to find love begin.

On Monday night, Bachelor Chris Soules began his season-long swim into a pool of conventionally pretty, ultra-traditional women competing for his hand in marriage. As a feminist, I’m horrified by The Bachelor. I’m also deeply excited to watch every single minute of it.

First of all, I want to address what I think it means to write a feminist take on The Bachelor—if I was doing a truly non-lazy and incisive feminist response to the show, I would talk about larger problems with how gender, race, class and more are portrayed in reality TV, and about media, and like, capitalism. The fact that the show’s politics are incredibly not-progressive to an almost unbelievable degree and that it promotes a totally archaic view of gender norms, and depicts a world that’s virtually absent of people who aren’t straight and white and cis. It is so dumb and bad, you guys. Truly. I’ll touch on all of these ideas here, but I also can’t deny that I’m basically deeply committed to watching every episode of this terrible show, for pretty un-feminist reasons. These are:

Reason 1: In 2008, Erica DiSimone, a Girl Who Went to My High School, was on The Bachelor. And so I watched. And because each season’s Bachelor or Bachelorette is a well-loved rejected suitor from the previous season, I became hooked for SEVEN YEARS.

Reason 2: I can watch it while I eat dinner. Dinnertime is my special time, when I just let my brain turn off, and enjoy gnawing on some grindage. And the best atmospheric compliment to this meal for me is mindless TV. The Bachelor is great for this purpose.

Reason 3: I make fun of it while I watch it. I know, so clever. And no matter how down in the dumps I’m feeling, making fun of all these dumb people makes me feel worlds better about myself.

The Bachelor is always pretty awful, but this season’s premier episode was especially painful. Because it was three. Exhausting. Hours. Long. I made myself a late dinner and sat down to watch. Little did I know that I would be forfeiting showering, sleeping, and all other nighttime rituals.

Our collective future husband

This season’s bachelor, known as Farmer Chris, or sometimes Prince Farming, is a fourth-generation farmer from Arlington, Iowa who was rejected by Powerful Career Woman Bachelorette Andi last season in a particularly poetic scene in which, as tears streamed down her cheeks, she uttered the winning phrase, “I wish I could just sit here and blame it on Iowa.” Farmer Chris needs a woman who’s willing to move to Iowa to live on his farm. We hear a lot during the episode’s intro about how leaving for the show will be the first time Chris misses harvest, the most important time of year for him work-wise. As per yoosh, the women contestants’ jobs—if they talk about them at all—are presented as second in importance to every woman’s ultimate goal of getting married and raising kids on Chris’s corn and pig farm.

Bach Host with the Most Chris Harrison was in fine form for the night, chatting on the “Bachelor red carpet,” lolz, with various former contestants. Highlights included: Chris Harrison talking shit about Juan Pablo with his recent ex Nicki (The Bach franchise remains really invested in its audience turning on Fallen Bachelor Juan Pablo.), during which the phrase “stand by my man” was uttered thrice, Chris talking with engaged couples Lucas and Lacy (wedding planning, Bridezilla, blah, blah, yawn) and Andi and Josh (their love is god. Oh wait, I literally had to come back and edit this sentence because they just broke up), Chris creepily asking Sean and Catherine when they’re having babies, then acting like Sean said something totally crazy and doesn’t know how having babies works when he uses the phrase “pop one out.” Chris Harrison & co. talked up the drama of the night, including female cast members “taking to the alcohol to relieve the tension a little,” at which point Chris Harrison kinda smiled and said, “poor Tara.” Yes, poor little lost lamb Tara, who we’ll meet later when she shows up in short-shorts and cowboy boots, changes into a hot LBD and declares instantly that her “best friends are Jameson, Johnny Walker, and Jack Daniels.” Chris Harrison asks his best bruh Josh on the red carpet, “how do you think [Farmer] Chris is gonna do tonight?” And Josh responds, “he’s gonna kill it, he’s definitely gonna have some drinks in his system and have fun.” Right, cause when dudes drink alcohol to relieve tension it’s a well-informed, rational decision to kick back, but when women do it we’re just misguided, out-of-control dum-dums who made a terrible mistake while trotting unknowingly down the wrong path.

Victoria from Juan Pablo’s season: my inner 22-year-old

Let’s talk for a minute about the Bachelor tradition of girls getting instantly eliminated for getting sloppy drunk. I’ll just put it out there: the drunk girls are *always* my favorites. There was nameless drunk girl on Juan Pablo’s season who got sooooooo wasted and kept yelling “hey girl” at the other contestants, then sobbed in the bathroom and declared that she was going home while wearing only a soaking wet bathing suit. I was like, girl I see you. I *am* you. If getting wasted and crying at a party when you’re in your early 20s is wrong, I don’t wanna be right. Juan Pablo sent her home the next day because he “has a daughter,” and drunk grrrls aren’t fit to be step-mothers. Womp womp. But like, if you’re in a mansion surrounded by 30 beautiful strangers and being plied with free alcohol, who does not get drunk in this situation? My boyfriend Matt says you shouldn’t get wasted on the first night because it’s not smart if you want to make a good impression on the dude of your dreams—I disagree. Let’s be real. You’re not there to find love; you’re there to make friends, to go to Panama City, Panama, and to get drunk. A harsh judgement on first-cocktail party drunkenness feels to me like just another way of policing women’s behavior.

To kick off introducing Farmer Chris’s pool of ladiesssszzz, Chris Harrison summarized the group by rattling off some quick Bachelor-friendly stereotypes, including “two widows and a virgin.” The video montage of the female contestants featured stellar phrases including: “it’s very strange being single in L.A.” (from a bartender), “I love completing someone’s family, but every day I’m reminded of what I’m missing” (from a fertility nurse), “I think love can feel a lot like flying” (from a flight attendant; stated as if she just invented metaphor). In classic Bachelor form, the women’s jobs are mostly non-threatening, stereotypically feminine ones, or jobs that just plain sound fake. There were makeup artists and dance instructors and high school soccer coaches, “wedding cake decorators,” cruise ship singers and waitresses. There was one TV news producer from DC who instantly caricatures herself a “strong competitive woman.” And in an unprecedented radically feminist move, there was a plus-size model. She was shown speaking twice, very briefly, in the entire three hours, uttering first: “I’m a plus-size model,” and later, “I’m a plus-size model, so I have to keep my curves.” She was of course eliminated during the rose ceremony, never to be spoken of again.

The evening’s notable characters included:

Ashley, a sexy freelance journalist who I suspect might be The Virgin cause she mentioned not having sex with her last boyfriend.

A sassy “dance instructor” (while dancing with Chris, she suspiciously says “I’m not lying, I taught dance”) named Kaitlyn who’s really into telling dirty jokes. Most of the other girl’s found this joke incredibly tasteless and awkward: “Q :Why did the walrus go to the Tupperware party? A: Cuz he wanted to find a tight seal.” Wocka wocka wocka.

Britt, a beautiful manic pixie dream waitress from LA with naturally hot pink lips and boho-chic jewelry who’s jam is giving out “free hugs” apparently. She kicks off her first conversation ever in her life with Farmer Chris by telling him she wants him to be able to talk to her, because “that’s what a wife is—a safe haven,” and “it’s what’s important to me.” Cause you know, a woman’s worth is measured by her ability to comfort male strangers that slightly resemble Matthew Mcconaughey. Britt is a lead contender at this point—she’s the only girl Chris kisses, and she gasps afterward in childlike awe.

Whitney, a fertility nurse who weirdly kept making comparisons between her job and farming.

Tracy, a Fourth Grade Teacher, who brought Chris a creepy letter from one of her students that said, “my teacher’s favorite flower is a rose” and “I don’t want her to become a cat lady.” Shudder for the future of America. (Side note: Weirdly [refreshingly?], Farmer Chris doesn’t know the phrase “cat lady.” One point for feminism.)

A kind of crazy-eyed hair stylist named Ashley S. who drunk-walked around in the garden and talks to the camera about how people are like onions (I get it; I wrote a poem about that once in college), then plucks a pomegranate from a bush. Whut.

The main drama of the rose ceremony revolved around Tara, aforementioned drunk girl, who was teetering loudly in her heels, yawning, rubbing her hands together like she was freezing (I got kinda scared she was gonna OD on jack-on-the-rocks), and saying things like “dude, I’m getting delirious,” to the point that Farmer Chris excused himself to go talk to his BFF Chris Harrison about it (I missed their convo because I had to run to the bathroom and then couldn’t get Hulu to rewind; the whole experience was very 90s).

Drunk girls take over America.

This whole montage was accompanied by various frustrated girls saying things about how they kept themselves really together, and they were pissed about the drunk girls. But then. In a triumph for drunk girls everywhere, Farmer Chris did the unthinkable and gave Totally Wasted Tara a rose. And then he gave another drunk girl a rose (she tripped on the carpet) and then another (she also tripped). A small step for three women; one giant leap for womynkind. The other drama of the rose ceremony was that one woman who got kicked off came BACK to talk to Chris. We’ll find out more about this boring development next time.

Coming up this season on The Bachelor: Chris gets a beej in a tent! Somebody dies! Bountiful sobbing! Music so somber that I thought the limo shown driving by an Iowa cornfield was a hearse! Stay tuned for more feminist recapping next week!