BACK ISSUE
That Time The Clownery Came Back To Bite
Reality TV Dating Shows are a subgenre of “reality” that seem to get weirder by the year. Josh and Tracy have watched their fair share of trash reality TV but could never get into nor get the appeal of the most popular reality dating hell show franchise of all: The Bachelor and the Bachelorette. Why do shows like this exist and what keeps people coming back for 25 seasons straight? We’ll hear from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver writer and Vulture Magazine’s Bachelor recap columnist Ali Barthwell, who breaks it all down for us, and maybe convinces our hosts to join the Bachelor Nation.
[Classical music starts playing]
Speaker 1: From the creators of Nick Cannon's "All That He Wants is Another Baby," and Paris Hilton's "Where's my Husband?" Comes "We Found Love in a Hopeless Place." A new dating show about two podcast hosts.
Tracy: My name is Tracy. My nemesis is hot sauce, I think that kangaroos are evil, and I am afraid of the beauty of my own perfection.
Josh: My name is Josh. I'm allergic to cats, I just woke up from a coma, and I lit my house on fire when I was ten.
Speaker 1: Who try to find out if they're cut out for the heteronormative romantic structures that have been forced on them by society. In a postmodern, post-pandemic, Post Malone kind of world.
Josh: I just (sighs) I don't know if you're here for the right reasons.
Tracy: Okay, so your name is what now? Bob? I'm never gonna remember that, so I'm just gonna call you Narcissist, because I gotta feeling that that's where this plotline is gonna go, honestly.
Speaker 1: Find out this season, if they'll find love, be hopeless, or just get mono.
Josh: I have two photos in my hand: the model who does not-
Speaker 1: Psst, Josh, wrong show.
Josh: Oh, my bad. You are the weakest link.
Speaker 1: You're gonna get us sued!
Josh: Uh, something about a rose?
Speaker 1: Oh, Jesus. Check out season one of "We Found Love in a Hopeless Place." Coming soon to Cable Minus. And no, you can't borrow my log-in.
[CLIP] Voice: Beyonce? You look like Luther Vandross.
[CLIP] Voice: Ho, but make it fashion.
[CLIP] Voice: But you ain't heard that from me.
[CLIP] Voice: Fierce
[CLIP] Voice: Call ‘em
[CLIP] Voice: You see, when you do clownery--
[CLIP] Voice: ‘Cuz we won’t stop.
[CLIP] Voice: Can’t get no sleep ‘cuz of y’all--
[CLIP] Voice: the clown comes back to bite.
[CLIP] Voice: Y’all not gonna get no sleep cause of me.
[CLIP] Voice: It's Britney, bitch.
[CLIP] Voice: [Voices overlapping] We were rooting for you, Tiffany. We were all rooting for you… [overlapping voices crescendo]
Tracy: Who said that?
[Intro music starts]
Josh: Welcome to "Back Issue."
Tracy: A weekly podcast that revisits formative things, people, and moments that we miss and that changed us.
Josh: This week, we're gonna talk about reality dating shows that made us truly doubt the existence of love.
[CLIP] Voice: The fuck she think this is? (laughs) Make a friend? I'm here to get my man.
[CLIP] Voice: I'll just go ahead and say it, curvy girls make my junk twitch.
[CLIP] Voice: If these guys don't clean their teeth, it probably means they have smelly balls. Next.
Tracy: Each week, we'll go back into the past and revisit unforgettable moments we all think we remember.
Josh: And learn what they can teach us about where we are now.
Tracy: I'm Tracy Clayton, and I am here for the love of Ray J.
Josh: I'm Josh Gwynn, and I wanna know what love is. And I want you to show me.
Tracy: For a fee do.
Josh: (laughs) Hi, Trace.
Tracy: Hi, Osh Josh Gosh.
Josh: Oh, lord Jesus.
Tracy: (laughs)
Josh: You just took me back to a very specific place. (laughs)
Tracy: Is it when you were ten and you tried to set your house on fire? (laughs)
Josh: (laughs) We don't talk about that. (laughs)
Tracy: (laughs) Oh.
Josh: We're gonna talk about dating shows today.
Tracy: Not just dating shows, the messiest of the messiest of the messiest dating shows.
Josh: When we say messy, right, we're talking messy in the classic way, like crying, snot bubbles.
Tracy: Yeah.
Josh: That sort of way. But also in the way that they send messages to us, like it's really messy.
Tracy: Messy messinges, ha. I see it, I see what you did there.
Josh: Laughs.
Tracy: But they are. There's just no better word. They're super messy, they're super heteronormative, they're super white.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative)-
Tracy: They're super oriented around the whole traditional western family structures and whiteness I just want to say again. (laughs)
Josh: They're super white, and they're super focused on marriage and monogamy.
Tracy: Yeah.
Josh: And I, what I find interesting, is that they really haven't changed a lot.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative)-
Josh: It's really interesting to watch this genre try to compute with the tempo of the world. It feels as though maybe we're evolving past this one man, one woman sort of relationship model, so what would a reality show look like then?
Tracy: Right. And they often fail at that. These shows are gamified in such a way that it’s really, really difficult to break free of that structure, right?
Josh: Right.
Tracy: So today, let's go through some of these dating show structures, and see if they're good for how we think about love.
Josh: (laughs) Sounds good.
Tracy: (laughs)
Josh: Let's also talk to Ali Barthwell.
Tracy: Ooh!
Josh: She's an Emmy nominated TV writer on "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver."
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: But she's also a cultural critic at Vulture, where her job is literally making sense of the Bachelor, which I think is THE example when people think of this genre of show.
Tracy: Perfect.
Josh: Maybe she can help me care about the Bachelor, because I have never seen it for the girl.
Tracy: Yeah, I have questions. I do.
[Music ends]
Josh: But before we talk to Ali, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's start with a question.
Tracy: Okay.
Josh: If you were on a dating show, what is your deal breaker that would have you saying "next."
[CLIP] Voice: Sorry, I'm gonna have to next you, you're just not tall enough.
Tracy: Oh, one is definitely love bombing and like, "I've only known you for three minutes but I think I'm falling for you." Like no, this is the tactic of abusers and manipulators, and I see you, fam, it's not gonna work.
Josh: I hate when you first meet someone and then all of the sudden they're talking about forever plans.
Tracy: See, they trying to do that before you realize, "oh, wow, you're like a real psychopath."
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: So definitely that. Um, a bad sense of humor. Men think that they're funny, and y'all.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Bless your hearts, bless your hearts.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: No conservatives, no Trumpers, no racists, or any of the other -ists.
Josh: Easily.
Tracy: Obviously. If you look like you might have a confederate flag belt buckle, or a pair of socks in your house even, it's not gonna work. Because if you have that, then you probably got some blackface pictures floating around out there and I'm not about to be looking stupid because my husband, Scott, is out here dressed like (laughs)
Josh: ( laughs)
Tracy: Flava Flav in high school. Not gonna do it. No comedians, no rappers, no spoken word poets.
Josh: Aw, Ohagi.
Tracy: Who? Wait, that name is familiar.
Josh: From Moesha. (laughs)
Tracy: Oh, no. (laughs)
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: What about you? You have any other deal breakers?
Josh: I don't like it when people talk about their exes on the first date.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: Can I have a second before things get real? This is supposed to be the fun part. I don't like it when people talk bad to servers.
Tracy: Oh no, that's an instant no.
Josh: I also hate pop music snobs.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- "I liked them when they were underground."
Josh: "I liked this band first." Like we don't need any elitism.
Tracy: Right.
Josh: Hateration or Holleration in our dancer.
Tracy: We do not. Oh also, deal breaker, a weird penis.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: I'm gonna be checking sorry. I wanna see it first. This is, this is my life, okay? (laughs) I feel like it's fair.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: I think there should be the way that they send headshots. Like it should be another headshot, you know what I'm saying?
Josh: Yikes. (laughs)
Tracy: (laughs)
[Music fades into another track playing under dialogue]
Josh: Sometimes I wonder like how much our searches for love, even what our deal breakers are, how much those things are informed by these dating shows that we watch all throughout our youth.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative)-
Josh: So how about for this episode, we look back at formative and truly dark sided programming from the 2000s. (laughs)
Tracy: (clears throat) Flavor Flav.
Josh: Yeah boy.
[CLIP] Voice: I know y'all heard of that show called the Bachelor. Flavor Flav is the Blackchelor.
Tracy: So I feel like the easiest way to explore these shows is to separate them into categories and like break down the different messages that those categories send.
Josh: Okay, so category one, fake love. [Plucky music starts playing] When you think about fake love, it's like all those dating shows where you're like, "wink, wink, this ain't real," and the producers are like, "wink, wink, girl shh." And you're like, "but, girl, I know" and the producers are like, "just go with it. Someone is out here hooking up with Flavor Flav for real on TV." And you're like, "okay, but I think this is fiction" and they're like "girl, shh."
Tracy: (laughs)
Josh: That's what this category is. (laughs)
Tracy: That is a perfect descriptor. Even though, I think a lot of them... Or at least somebody slept with Flavor Flav.
Josh: I mean, that one is hard for me to believe. It's a lot easier for me to believe what the other shows that fit into this category like Ray J and Bret Michaels on VH1. The biggest thing that sticks out to me about these shows is less about the individual moments that happen on them.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative)-
Josh: There are definitely a lot of moments we could talk about, especially with Flavor of Love.
Tracy: Ugh.
Josh: What's more impressive to me is that they all exist in the same world in how they relate to each other.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: And I wanted to explain the greater context for you.
Tracy: Okay.
Josh: Remember how like during the pandemic, during the damn-demic as you call it.
Tracy: Royalties please.
Josh: (laughs) I broke down and finally watched all the Marvel movies.
Tracy: There's like a hundred of them.
Josh: I had never seen any of them.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: Besides Black Panther, Wakanda forever. But I broke down and watched all of them. So I think that it's actually like a really good way to think about the way that all of these VH1 shows exist with each other.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Okay.
Josh: So, all of these fake love shows that exist in VH1 are technically a part of the Surreal Life cinematic universe. Do you remember the Surreal Life?
[CLIP] Voice: Six celebrities, one house. Including Tammy Faye the televangelist queen and Ron Jeremy, the adult film king.
Voice: I own an organ that was in Frank Sinatra’s house.
Voice: I own an organ that was in over 90 movies.
Voice: Someone had to get these crazy kids together.
Tracy: Yes. Also, can we pause for Surreal Life Cinematic Universe, because (laughs)
Josh: (laughs) I saw this clip on Tik Tok from someone named WTF [inaudible]
[CLIP] Voice: It was just supposed to be a bunch of washed up celebrities living in a house together completing challenges for money and then turned into all of this. 25 spin-offs resulted directly from the Surreal Life.
Tracy: Of course there was Flavor Flav in New York, everybody remembers them, but it's some deep cuts in there.
Josh: Right.
Tracy: Can you hook me up with the family tree for the Surreal Life Cinematic Universe? Because I feel like that's the only way I'm gonna understand how it's possible for there to be 25 spin-offs.
Josh: I thought you'd never ask.
[Intense music starts playing]
Josh: In the beginning, there was one. It was called the Surreal Life. It ran from 2003 to 2006. The premise, simple. A group of celebrities live in a house and compete against each other in challenges. The show would revolve around these challenges, also around their interpersonal conflicts and romances. From one, came many. My Fair Brady for the dude who played Peter Brady on the Brady Bunch and Adrianne Curry, who had one of the pictures that Tyra Banks was holding.
Tracy: Right.
Josh: America's Next Top Model.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: And then, you got Strange Love with Flavor Flav and Brigitte Nielsen. The weirdest couple I've ever seen in my entire life.
Tracy: That was such a good show. (laughs)
Josh: That gave us Flavor of Love, which has given us so much despite only lasting three seasons, which is how we got to I Love New York, New York Goes to Hollywood, and New York Goes to Work. Which then gave us Real Chance of Love, featuring the brothers New York, gave them their own show.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Real and Chance, RIP to Chance.
Josh: RIP. And then they do a spin-off called Real and Chance: Legend Hunters in which they hunt for mystical creatures like mega shark, bigfoot, and hogzilla, which I don't know what the hell that is.
Tracy: It's a big ass hog.
Josh: I mean, I guess that makes sense. And then, another dude New York dated got a dating show that involved living with a bunch of women and his parents at the same time in one house called Frank the Entertainer in a Basement Affair.
Josh: And, of course, we have several seasons of Rock of Love with Bret Michaels and his bandana.
Tracy: (laughs)
Josh: Including one in a tour bus. Then two of the women he dated had their own reality shows called Daisy of Love and Megan Wants a Millionaire. And then all the people from these shows competed in something called I Love Money. But last, and certainly not least, we get Charm School.
[CLIP] Voice: You see, when you do clownery, the clown comes back to bite.
[Music fades]
Josh: That's so many shows, Trace.
Tracy: I have heard you name them all and I'm still like, "really?"
Josh: Right? If we're thinking of all of these fake love shows as the Surreal Life Cinematic Universe.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: Then that means that the Thanos, the big bad, is Miss Tiffany Pollard.
Tracy: Right.
Josh: One of the best villains of TV history.
Tracy: Agreed, agreed, okay.
Josh: And stay with me, in this awful, awful metaphor.
Tracy: I'm here.
Josh: (laughs) You know how in the Marvel movies, each of the infinity stones represents an essence of something, that if you control them all, you control all of existence? I think the same could be said about Tiffany Pollard quotes.
Tracy: What? So what are some examples of the infinity stones?
Josh: Power.
[CLIP] Tiffany Pollard: I was bored, so I ruined lunch purposely, and I had fun doing it.
Josh: Time.
[CLIP] Tiffany Pollard: Good morning, good morning. (laughs) Not you. You can choke.
Josh: Mind.
[CLIP] Tiffany Pollard: Do I look like I give a ...? Because I don't.
Josh: Reality.
[CLIP] Tiffany Pollard: Save Beyonce. You know what you ... you know who you really look like? You fucking look like Luther Vandross.
Josh: Soul.
[CLIP] Tiffany Pollard: She's a cute girl. You know, cute, next to gorgeous. Gorgeous is gonna, you know, devour cute.
Josh: And space.
[CLIP] Tiffany Pollard: Bye pumpkin. Bye pumpkin.
Tracy: I will allow this.
Josh: (laughs) There's also a newer show who gets at the same sort of idea of fake love for me.
Tracy: What's that?
Josh: F boy Island on HBO Max.
[CLIP] Voice: There are 24 men. 12 of them are nice guys. The other 12, self proclaimed f boys. It's up to these three ladies and you at home to figure out who the f is who.
Josh: Have you seen it?
Tracy: Yes, and I'm so mad at you for it.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: Because I was only gonna watch a couple episodes, of course I ended up watching the whole thing, and I literally had a stress dream about the mother fuckers in that show. Okay, so here is my biggest problem with the show. Can I just get this off of my chest?
Josh: Please.
Tracy: So, the way that the show works is whenever somebody is eliminated then you find out if they are a, "nice guy," or a, "f boy," right?
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: Until a certain episode in the season, and I was so confused because they were like, okay now everybody's gonna reveal the status that they came to this island with.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: Whether you're an f boy or whether you're a nice guy. And it's like in the middle of the season, and I'm like, I don't understand why this is happening now because then the show was over.
Josh: Right.
Tracy: Because I would assume that once these women find out that these men are calling themselves fuck boys, not just to you and your face but to the face of millions and is okay with this, clearly no woman is gonna pick any of these men. Clearly these women are gonna be like, okay all the f boys go home.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: And I hate that that did not happen. They're still considering them, they're still considering choosing them and giving them a chance to win this $100,000 or whatever.
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: And I'm just like, have we forgotten what mother Maya said, when someone shows you who they are, believe them.
Josh: Believe them.
Tracy: They're telling you who they are.
Josh: Right.
Tracy: And here they are, telling you like, I'm a piece of shit. What do you--what's left to consider? And I feel like that's one of those really dangerous and toxic messages that get sent to us.
Josh: Right.
Tracy: You deserve somebody who doesn't start off treating you like trash. You know what I mean? Like that should be the lowest bar that you can clear. Is he nice? Is he kind?
Josh: That's what the show is doing. It's getting to like, the lowest, most primal, kinda most disgusting aspects of like, who we are when we're dating-
Tracy: Yeah.
Josh: --and being like, “it's entertainment”. That's not as interesting to me anymore. Like, I'm not as interested-
Tracy: Yeah.
Josh: --in seeing trauma play out in reality television.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, no. This made me very, very angry and I think I would like to move on from the fake love category, because now I got an attitude, you know. So--
Josh: Okay.
Tracy: Let's welcome some, some happiness and some endorphins back into the conversation with our next category (kiss sound) fun love. [Plucky music starts playing] This category refers to shows that completely lean into the gamification of it all, right?
Josh: Hmm.
Tracy: Like it's, it is a game. We're talking about The Dating Game, Singled Out that used to come on the MTV, The Newlywed Game. If you don't remember The Newlywed Game, there's a high chance that you at least remember this clip.
[CLIP] Voice 1: Girls tell me where specifically is the weirdest that you personally, girls, have ever gotten the urge to make whoopee?
Voice 2: In the [inaudible]. (laughs)
Voice 3: No, no, no. No [crosstalk].
Josh: Way to misunderstand the assignment. (laughs)
Tracy: She was just being transparent and honest, okay?
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: She was told, that's how you win this game. (laughs) So The Newlywed Game and Singled Out, like these are all examples of us just leaning into game versions of what love could be, right? Because I mean, like, dating often feels like a big ass game anyway.
Josh: I feel like that's what the apps are.
Tracy: Exactly.
Josh: Right.
Tracy: Like it really is like-- the way that it's designed to like, light up your reward centers or whatever in your brain. It's like, oh my gosh, I won. I'm going to the next level.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: But the next level is terrible, because you meet in person and then the dick looks weird and it's just--
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: --it's downhill from there. Anyway.
Josh: What a callback.
[Game show music ends]
Josh: Yeah, I probably put shows like Next and like Parental Control and like Date My Mom in these categories, too.
Tracy: All the ridiculous MTV ones.
Josh: Right, because it's not necessarily that you're following the narrative structure of two people falling in love--
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: --or a love story at all. You're following more so, the anxiety around one specific aspect of dating--
Tracy: Yeah.
Josh: --that they've turned into a game, right? With Next, it's like the first impression
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: You never wanna make a bad im-first impression, and so they made an entire show, a game around what the first impression is. Like, you know what I mean?
Tracy: Right, right.
[CLIP] Voice 1:Hi.
Voice 2:Hi. Next. Like my Tia Consuela always tells me, if you don't wanna ... chuck 'em. [foreign language].
Josh: With Parental Control, it's like the tension that people experience with their parents over their romantic partners.
[CLIP] Voice: This is Kirk. He's dating Sarah. They've been together for three months and Kirk says she's the hottest thing money can buy. But his parents wanna return her for a refund, so they're setting Kirk up on two blind dates with girls they've each hand picked just for him.
Josh: It's like less about following story of these two or more people like, falling in love-
Tracy: Right.
Josh: --and more about super amping up the stakes of this one specific aspect.
Tracy: Yeah. Who wins a date versus who finds love forever and has to get married on the last episode.
Josh: Exactly.
Tracy: The point of this show is not whether or not they date again, you know. The point is the entertainment of the show. The point is to cringe when somebody says something dumb or goes in for a kiss and gets rejected.
Josh: Right.
Tracy: Okay so let's move on to our next category, which is fuck love.
Josh: (laughs)
[Music starts playing]
Tracy: So, these are the shows that take the traditional heteronormative tropes of dating shows and kinda fuck around with them a little bit.
Josh: Right. And sometimes it works, but sometimes it don't.
[CLIP] Voice: This sweet, innocent, Midwestern girl named Jackie is about to meet 14 men. She thinks she's going to find true love, but not all of the guys are here for romance. Some of them are gay.
Tracy: Oh, my gosh. I need to go take a shower after watching that.
Josh: So that's a clip of Playing it Straight, a 2004 Fox reality dating show in which a woman has to separate the straights from the gays in hope of procuring some money. I'm disgusted. I'm disgusted.
Tracy: What is the message that we're sending here? Like, if a gay man is able to deceive this woman as, you know that's what they wanna do. If they can do it, then they'll take all the money and ha ha ha. Like, what's the message?
Josh: I think the message is very clear. It starts, from the very beginning you see this warning screen that's like, the gay people in this show might be deceiving you, or something like that. It's this framing of queer people as tricksters--
Tracy: Exactly. That's what I was trying to say.
Josh: It’s very of the time. I think of the 90s and early 2000s as times where we were really obsessed with gay panic as a culture.
Tracy: Yes.
Josh: First of all, the bi erasure in this. (laughs)
Tracy: Right. When she was like, "I don't think a gay man would kiss me."
Josh: Exactly.
Tracy: Girl, what?
Josh: Like it's just so basic. It's like a studio executive literally was like, you know what I heard exists lately? Gay people.
Tracy: They're trending. I saw it on the internet.
Josh: Let's make a show about 'em. Not for them.
Tracy: They gotta be props for our straight men and our straight girl.
Josh: It's such a good example of how you can include gays ...
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: --but like, you have to also consider the gaze, like z-e.
Tracy: Right.
Josh: Like, you know what I mean? Who is this entertainment for, ' cause it's definitely not for queer people.
Tracy: Oh, it's for the straight white dudes who created it and the straight white women who have to fit the mold that straight white men have put out for them.
Josh: Right. Another example of this is this show that was on Bravo in 2003, called Boy Meets Boy.
[CLIP] Voice: One exceptional gay man. 15 extraordinary suitors, all vying for his affection. What neither the gay suitors nor the leading man know, is that some of the suitors are straight men pretending to be gay, competing to win a cash prize.
Josh: Of course, if you win and you're straight you win money for deceiving someone.
Tracy: Good job, good job.
Josh: So it's like the opposite side of the same sort of token.
Tracy: Yeah. It's just all gross and it's so dehumanizing.
Josh: Yeah. But I don't know, I do think there have been examples of this sort of genre of show where I was kind of into it.
Tracy: I feel like that's impossible.
Josh: (laughs)
Tracy: Where could you have possibly found something like that?
Josh: There's this show called Are You the One. And this is what the structure typically is. There’s ten straight men and ten straight women and they’re put in a house because that’s what you do on reality television.
Tracy: Right
Josh: And before they arrive, all of them have been expertly matched with one other person. How? We don’t really know - is it by matchmakers, is it by an algorithm, by the producers just fucking with us? At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter, but the point is that every contestant knows that someone in the house that is their “perfect match.” They have ten weeks to figure out who that perfect match is, and if they all get it right together, they leave with love, and split a million dollars. If even one match is wrong, they leave with nothing. That’s how it usually goes down. But in 2018, they did a season where everyone in the house was either bisexual or pansexual.
Tracy: Ooh. See, that's already so much more interesting
Josh: You still had this monogamous sort of framework, where you have like a one true match, but like, anyone was fair game, as opposed to only half of the house being fair game, and it made it so much more interesting.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
[CLIP] Voice 1: 16 singles are making dating show history. Because for the first time ever …
Voice 2: Everyone in this house is attracted to all gender identities.
Voice 3: It doesn't matter how you identify.
Voice 4: I would identify as bisexual, pretty right down the middle.
Voice 5: What you feel.
Voice 6: I am very proud of being bisexual. I think of it as a superpower.
Voice 7: Or who you love.
Voice 8: This is my way of coming out to everybody.
Voice 9: Because the one could be anyone.
Tracy: So, a thing that it sounds like this show did well.
Josh: At least tried to do.
Tracy: Yeah, yeah. By humanizing and exploring and including different type of gender identities, first of all you let other people know that that's a thing, because we don't get that from the shit that we watch every day that tells us--
Josh: Right.
Tracy: --how we're supposed to like, live our lives, and how to model our relationships. And then, once you do that, people can start to think about and consider, hmm, maybe this awful relationship that I'm in because I'm told that I need to be in it, is not the only way that I have to live. Maybe there are other options out there. You know?
Josh: The other shows are all like, this is what relationships look like and this one feels more like, what can relationships look like?
Tracy: Mm.
Josh: What are the possibilities?
Tracy: Right.
Josh: Like, as opposed to working within the same sort of tired ass structures that we've seen.
Tracy: Right.
Josh: Over and over again, you know?
Tracy: People are too complicated and too complex to tell them that they have to be this one thing. That's why everybody is fucking depressed.
Josh: (laughs) You're just like, opening up space for different types of people, different types of bodies, to exist in this framework of love or whatever.
Tracy: Mm.
Josh: But also, it allows you to see what the structure could look like.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: Which brings me to my next category, right? The final category, find love. [kiss sound] The shows that are at least pretending to really be about finding a partner. (laughs)
Tracy: Do they exist?
Josh: They do. And I actually kinda like some of them.
Tracy: Huh.
Josh: I think that they're making really good attempts. Like, I'm a really big fan of this show called Dating Around on Netflix.
Tracy: Which one is that again?
Josh: Okay, so. There's this review of Dating Around on Vulture, by Kathryn VanArendonk, and the title of the review is, Netflix's Dating Around is a Sneakily Great Reality Show.
Tracy: Hm.
Josh: And she says, "There are no dramatic elimination ceremonies, there's no talking head interviews where the cast dishes about their feelings, as prompted by unseen producers. There's no host, there's no voiceovers. No one gets into a helicopter or bungees off the side of a bridge-"
Tracy: (laughs)
Josh: "--or stares down her direct competition across the table." It's just someone going on a several first dates, and then deciding whether they wanna see one of those people again.
Tracy: How refreshing, I do remember this show.
Josh: It's so refreshing!
Tracy: Also, they do be on helicopters a lot on all them other shows. Sit yo ass down, on the ground.
Josh: What I love is that this show really gives us a chance to sit in different sub-cultures. In one episode there's an old man and his wife had died. And he's dating all of these super age-appropriate women, and I was like, "wait is this the first time that I've older people date on television?".
Tracy: I don't think I've ever seen older people date on television. Well there was Mother Winslow on Family Matters.
Josh: And there's the Golden Girls, but these are like real people.
Tracy: Right right.
Josh: In this genre we're so obsessed with youth.
Tracy: Yes.
Josh: Their bodies look like Greek gods. And like, this felt like real refreshing because it felt real real.
[CLIP] Voice 1: Yeah.
Voice 2: You were really late tonight you know?
Voice 1: Uh excuse me, I am never late. This is late for me to have dinner you know? I eat like 6-6.30. I'm kinda boring some times. Cause I like to take my teeth out by 8 o'clock. You know how it is.
Tracy: I'm gonna watch this show, I really am.
Josh: It's so much slower and intimate.
Tracy: And it feels more realistic.
Josh: That's what I love about the show, it feels like there's actual real people. And a cool thing about this show is that it takes the game out of the experience. Like we were talking about the gamification earlier, this is the anti-gamification. This is like, more the experience of dating, you're like "are they gonna kiss at the end?", “where's this conversation going to lead?”
Tracy: And also like “what would I do if I was in this situation”?
Josh: Exactly. But there's some attempts in this sort of group that I just don't get and I will never get, like The Bachelor. I don't get it.
Tracy: Whenever you have a dating show with all of these beautiful beautiful white folks, right. White women to choose from basically.
Josh: Right! It always looks like a freakin’ Old Navy campaign.
Tracy: And then you have to put in some brown and black people because you know that you have to, or otherwise people are gonna protest, and you're gonna lose sponsorship or whatever. That creates a dynamic that is so uncomfortable because it's just like, "OK, we all know why you're here. You're here because you have to be. And let's just pretend to be into each other in this really awkward way". And the feeling that somebody has to pretend to like somebody that looks like, doesn't make me feel good. You know what I mean?
Josh: Yeah, yeah.
Tracy: So there's that and also it's just fucking boring. Like how many times can you watch a man date however many women and then pick the prettiest one?
Josh: So then explain this to me, how has this show been on the air for one thousand three hundred and twenty seven seasons--
Tracy: I don't get it--
Josh: (Laughs) And everyone's consuming it? I don't understand that.
Tracy: I do not get it. I even tried to watch the season where they had the first Black girl bachelorette.
Josh: Rachel?
Tracy: Yeah. It was uncomfortable for me. Because I was just like, "Girl you wouldn't be here if the world weren't burning down right now", you know what I mean? I can't divorce that thought from my brain while I'm watching this shit. Like I just, I can't turn off that part of me that's a Black girl I guess.
Josh: Me either.
Tracy: To enjoy it you know?
Josh: So maybe we should talk to someone who can explain it to us. Because I feel like something's amiss, something's really weird and ironic about the fact that we watch a bunch of these reality shows about dating. But the main one, the behemoth in the genre, neither of us really fuck with.
Tracy: Yeah, it's confuserating. I don't get it.
Josh: Let's figure it out, after the break.
AD BREAK
[Music starts]
Josh: So we’re back. Tracy and I really don’t understand the Bachelor franchise. So we brought in an expert: Ali Barthwell. She’s an Emmy-nominated writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and she spends her free time recapping the Bachelor and its many spin-offs for Vulture. Can you break down what makes a great reality dating show?
Ali Barthwell: Ooh, a great reality dating show. You want it to feel like a rom com, but then you wanna have a big victory at the end. So you want those little small bumbling story moments, like the cute awkwardness. But then at the end you wanna feel that we've seen two people have their love story told, and like communicated to us.
Josh: So Trace and I sat down with Ali and talked how the Bachelor has such a grip on our cultural understanding of love, other shows that might be doing a better job at exploring our relationships to romance and even come up with a show idea of our own. DONT STEAL IT.
Ali Barthwell: For a lot of people and for myself, we wanna see two people fall in love or something like it? You know two people support each other and lean on each other and grow together and succeed. And so, I think to cast a little shade, I think The Bachelor has gotten worse at being able to tell a good love story.
Tracy: Mmm (affirmative).
Ali Barthwell: Because they rely on the drama and the awkwardness and the rom-com mishaps at the beginning of the season. But I think the moments that stick with you are seeing those stories of success and feeling like we did witness people going through something special.
Josh: Okay, I wanna zero in on The Bachelor. I've never in my life been able to get into The Bachelor. And I don't know what it is about it, and I know that it has 25 seasons, and I don't get it. Like...
Ali Barthwell: I mean...
Josh: Can you explain?
Ali Barthwell: Part of the reason is that ain't been no Black people on it.
Tracy: Hello.
Josh: Right.
Ali Barthwell: So it's very hard to watch a white man who has the personality of a pair of khakis (laughs) kiss 30 white women who have the personality of a Lulu's dress on sale. And you're like excited about it.
Josh: But then what keeps you coming back?
Ali Barthwell: I mean I think it's a really interesting cross-section of a lot of different things that are happening at the same time. So it's really interesting to watch as like a performance of gender stuff. What the men are supposed to do, what the women are supposed to do. How these men are sort of viewing themselves or categorizing themselves, the women are viewing and categorizing themselves. Recently it's been more interesting to watch in terms of race and like what the show has been deliberately trying to do and inadvertently trying to do with conversations around race. But I ultimately think The Bachelor really is trying to sell you on, "you're watching your friend that you really like. Your girlfriend is dating all these guys. So why don't you just sit around and gossip about it". In the last few seasons that I've been watching, the gossip and discourse around the show has sort of eclipsed the actual love stories that are happening?
Josh: Mmm (affirmative).
Tracy: Mmm (affirmative).
Ali Barthwell: And I think dating and romance is something that as people we learn by watching. We learn by watching, we learn by sharing with other people. Dating isn't one of those things you're like, "I have no opinion about this, but I'm gonna start doing it". Like you talk to people, you learn, you watch romantic movies and, and we pick up all those things. And The Bachelor is, distilling all of those things down into a package that we can sit and watch, and recognize ourselves, judge other people, and sort of learn and dissect what romance, what dating is.
Josh: What are the top Bachelor moments that I should go watch as someone who's not a Bachelor fan?
Ali Barthwell: Okay, well first I will say, you should watch a season of The Bachelorette, because the season of The Bachelorette are better than The Bachelor, cause women are better than men. So they're actually like interesting and fun. And then, I would also say some great villains that I've seen, since I've started watching The Bachelor. There was Luke P from Hannah Brown's season. He was a sort of a very religious evangelical chicken hawk of a man. (Laughs) That really, that really wanted to control Hannah. And she was someone who was very religious also. But you saw her sort of waking up to, "this type of person isn't gonna be good for me", and the kind of life that I wanna live.
[CLIP] Hannah B: I have had sex.
Luke P: Say what?
Hannah B: Yeah. And I, Jesus still loves me. From, from obviously how you feel me [inaudible] in a windmill, probably, you probably wanna leave.
Hannah B: I didn't just go to the fantasy suite. I [inaudible]. And guess what, we did it a second time.
Ali Barthwell: I had sex and Jesus still loves me.
Tracy: Put it on a t-shirt.
Josh: Sounds like a country song.
Ali Barthwell: Yes
Tracy: Right? (Laughs)
Ali Barthwell: Their fight was amazing. On Rachel Lindsay's season, who was the first black bachelorette. Um, there were 2 things that I can think from that season that were pretty wild. One, they cast someone who had been posting pro-Trump racist shit on his Facebook. And he was contacted on Facebook to be hired on the show, so they knew who he was.
Tracy: Ohh, messy messy.
Josh: Oh! I actually have a clip of Rachel talking about this incident on Watch What Happens Live.
[CLIP] Rachel: I did have a racist contestant on my season. Which is one of the things that I'm fighting for with Matt James as the first black Bachelor, for them to do a better job of vetting contestants. You need a person of color in decision room making decisions so that doesn't happen to them.
Josh: They were like, "I wanna put this black girl in a situation where she has to date a Trump supporter?".
Tracy: We need attention.
Ali Barthwell: This is an audio medium, but my face is saying "Yes, yes it does". (Laughs)
Everyone: (Laughs)
Ali Barthwell: On the international seasons of The Bachelor, I believe it was in, I wanna say Vietnam. There was a moment where two women that were on The Bachelor, so they were both contestants, one of them turned to the other and said, "You know what we have. I want you to leave this show with me.", and they left together as a couple.
Josh: Wow.
Ali Barthwell: And everyone was like, "This is so good!". And why hasn't this happened for us, we want this.
Everyone: (Laughs)
Tracy: Right, right.
Josh: Lord I see you have done for others.
Tracy: What you've done for others.
Everyone: (Laughs)
Tracy: Why not me? So, like he said earlier, when we were trying to figure out like, what is it that we are missing with The Bachelor. Cause I also, I tried to watch it in the beginning seasons and I was like "Okay I get it". And then I was just like this season is like the last season which is like the last season which is like the last season. So once they added um Rachel the Black Bachelorette, I was like “okay, let me tune in and see what it's like.” And I had to stop, because I was just like "this is too familiar to what I've gone through in my life." How do you reckon with presentation of race and racial politics in The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.
Ali Barthwell: Yeah, I mean, I think there's just acknowledgement of The Bachelor does a bad job at this.
Everyone: Mmm (affirmative).
Ali Barthwell: Whoever is running that show are white people creating a show for a white audience. And so, as you watch it sort of understanding that a lot of the choices that they make, make sense. And looking at even who they have picked to be the first black Bachelor and bachelorette, it was these people that were sort of unimpeachable, that came with no baggage, came with no scandal. Rachel was a lawyer, she was very popular on her season, and it's since been revealed that she was brought onto Nick Viall's season with the intention that she would go far and they could make her the first black Bachelorette.
Josh & Tracy: Mmm (affirmative).
Ali Barthwell: So the show is sort of, they want you to follow a character as they go through. And you see them on The Bachelor, The Bachelorette you see them not find love. But then you see them get their chance at love by being the lead the next season, or season down the road. But if you look at how the show treats the contestants of color, how they edit the contestants of color, the types of narratives that they put forward, it becomes very clear that this is a show for a white audience.
Tracy: Mmm (affirmative).
Josh: Are there other reality dating shows that you think are doing a better job at addressing these sorts of issues?
Ali Barthwell: I think that what The Bachelor does that is the issue, is it believes it's capable of addressing these conversations.
Josh: Mmm (affirmative).
Ali Barthwell: And they think that they have some sort of responsibility, especially now, it's shifted in the last few years, to show people talking about race, opening about this. But then they have to sort of answer to this white gaze that they've cultivated. And Flavor of Love, didn't give a fuck.
Josh: At all.
Tracy: Sure did not.
Ali Barthwell: Flavor of Love was not like, "tell me about your experiences", as part of the diaspora. That was not what he was doing.
Josh: Could you imagine?
Ali Barthwell: He was like, "I wanna see titties, end of discussion".
Tracy: Exactly.
Josh: (Laughs)
Ali Barthwell: And I think The Bachelor, they wanna be prestige TV--
Josh: Umhmm
Ali Barthwell: --but they don't have the tools and the understanding or the people around to facilitate the conversations that would need to happen, to be prestige TV.
Josh: They don't have the range. They don't have it. Do you think that reality dating shows are inherently problematic?
Ali Barthwell: Shows where everyone can kind of date whoever's there feel a little better and deal with some of those icky things.
Josh: Like Are You the One?
Ali Barthwell: Yeah, like Are You The One? I think is so interesting, and the season they did where it was everyone's was queer.
Josh: That's my favorite one!
Ali Barthwell: I was like, "This is so interesting," and they were having conversations that were really pushing things forward. Wasn't it Bas- Basit their name?
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Ali Barthwell: Where they were saying, "I'm non-binary," and the person they were interested in would not refer to them with they/them pronouns.
Josh: Yeah.
Ali Barthwell: So they had, like, a conversation about, "You think you're giving me this compliment by calling me masculine, but really I don't want to exist in that space." It creates an opportunity for these kinds of conversations. No one has more power than anyone. No one has--
Josh: Mm.
Ali Barthwell: --the ability to send someone home or shut someone down in the same way that happens on a show where there's a lead and then everybody else.
Josh: Mm.
Tracy: Do you feel like these shows can negatively impact real-world relationships, just like the way that we see love and, like, the type of things that we should look for and what we deserve?
Ali Barthwell: Absolutely. I mean, like, the idea that love conquers all is nuts. Like-
Tracy: Listen!
Josh: (Laughing)
Tracy: Do you know how many times-
Josh: Preach!
Tracy: --I've been in love and my credit still sucks? Like, it's supposed to conquer everything.
Ali Barthwell: Yes!
Josh: (Laughing)
Tracy: What are your hopes for the future of reality TV dating shows?
Ali Barthwell: I would hope that the people that make the shows become aware that they serve more than just a white conservative audience.
Josh: Mm.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Ali Barthwell: And I think the way that young people date. I say this is like, "Um, uh, I'm 32, but the young people."
Josh: (Laughing)
Ali Barthwell: They date very differently than a traditional romcom, you know?
[Music starts playing under dialogue]
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: Yeah.
Ali Barthwell: So there's room even there to explore what it means to look for one person and, like, create a monogamous relationship. So I hope that they're able to sort of acknowledge that their audience is diverse racially, it's diverse in terms of sexuality, it's diverse in terms of how people want to couple. I hope the genre becomes self-aware and gets a sense of humor, because the more The Bachelor in particular insists that this is to find marriage and kids and true love and the white picket fence, the more it has fucked up.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: Mm.
Ali Barthwell: And if it is just a show where hot Instagram influencers and aspiring country stars--
Josh: (Laughing)
Ali Barthwell: --can meet in a tropical locale--
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Ali Barthwell: --like, the better (laughing).
Tracy: (Laughing)
Ali Barthwell: And, you know, uh, maybe some of that pressure has to come from society that we don't view marriage as the end--
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: Yeah.
Ali Barthwell: --the interesting part of someone's life. So, you know, I would love to see a show of like a bunch of hot 60-year-old black and brown people-
Tracy: (Laughing)
Ali Barthwell: --like, datin' in a house.
Josh: Yeah, me too.
Tracy: Can you ima-... Can you imagine the drama, the romance?
Ali Barthwell: Oh my gosh.
Josh: Oh, I need it.
Tracy: Cat Daddy Island, comin' to a TV-
Ali Barthwell: Yes.
Tracy: --station near you.
Josh: (Laughing)
Ali Barthwell: Yes!
Josh: Brought to you by Kangol.
Tracy: (Laughing)
Ali Barthwell: (Laughing)
Josh: (Laughing)
Tracy: Sponsored by Michael Jordan Cologne.
Ali Barthwell: And instead of roses, they just give out bowls of butter pecan ice cream.
Josh: Yes! (Laughing)
Tracy: (Laughing)
Josh: Oh!
Tracy: Everybody's nickname is Miss Lady. It don't matter.
Josh: (Laughing)
Ali Barthwell: (Laughing)
Josh: No one steal this idea. Me and Tracy are making this show with Ali. It's-
Tracy: Yes!
Ali Barthwell: Executive producers.
Josh: Exactly.
Tracy: I think it's a great idea. Like, for realsies.
Ali Barthwell: Comin' to BET+.
Josh: (Laughing)
Tracy: (Laughing) BET+. Subscribe now.
Ali Barthwell: Subscribe now.
Tracy: Oh my gosh.
Josh: Thank you so much.
Tracy: Yes, this has been such a great conversation. Where can people find you in your work?
Ali Barthwell: You can find me on Twitter @wtflanksteak. I'm also a writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, so Sundays on HBO, and I write Vulture's Bachelor, currently right now, Bachelor in Paradise recap, so you can check those out on vulture.com.
Tracy: Yes, yes.
Ali Barthwell: Thanks so much for havin' me. It was great talkin' to you both.
Tracy: Thank you. This was great.
Josh: So much fun.
[Learn something from this bounce remix]
Josh: So, Trace?
Tracy: Uh-huhr (affirmative).
Josh: To quote our patron saint Tyra Banks, who, in retrospect, I actually can't believe she never had a dating show.
Tracy: What a miss!
Josh: (Laughing)
Tracy: That should have happened.
Josh: Every episode, it would be, like, her dating herself.
Tracy: Yeah, I think so (laughing).
Josh: Like, in different wigs (laughing).
Tracy: Yeah (laughing).
Josh: Did we?
[CLIP] Tyra: Learn somethin' from this!
Tracy: I definitely do think that we learned something from this.
Josh: Like what?
Tracy: So, I learned that if you watch dating shows with, like, any expectation at all (laughing) period--
Josh: Uh-huh (affirmative).
Tracy: --then you're just settin' yourself up to be disappointed, like, at most.
Josh: Right.
Tracy: And, at best, there'll be an episode where it's like, "Huh, that was less terrible than all of the other stuff." Like--
Josh: Yeah.
Tracy: --nothin' about these shows are realistic, and I think that when we watch and consume so many of them, we forget that, and so we--
Josh: Mm.
Tracy: --feel like we should, or we actually try to model our real lives after the bullshit that we see on TV, and that's not great. Like, this is not how you date. Like, wha- whether it's-
Josh: Right.
Tracy: --one person datin' 30 people in clear view of everybody, which. Do you know how quick I would go to jail if I am one of 30 people tryin' to date one person and I gotta watch you kiss somebody else? I'm slapping everybody.
Josh: (Laughing) It's like the stuff that makes for a good, healthy relationship--
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: --by definition makes for boring television.
Tracy: Exactly.
Josh: And the stuff that makes for great watchin' television is toxic (laughing).
Tracy: Right. (Laughs)
Josh: By definition.
Tracy: And now we all depressed and sad and lonely and in therapy, talkin' about, "I don't understand why I just can't find love and be happy."
Josh: Right.
Tracy: I also feel like since reality shows are so goofy, like, people sort of like, " Eh, it's just a TV show." But, like, no, this stuff impacts our happiness, because it impacts the--
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: --decisions that we make in our lives. Like which mate do we choose? What does it mean that this date aggressively grabbed my wrist last night? Was he being abusive, or was he being-
Josh: Mm.
Tracy: --just like really, really passionate, you know? Like--
Josh: Mm.
Tracy: F Boy Island would have us thinkin' that, "Oh, he just really cares about you. It's just..." You know what I mean? So we see this stuff--
Josh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy: --and we make our decisions based on that, and then our happiness and our mental health suffer because of it.
Josh: Right.
Tracy: They have us accepting shitty situations or rejecting good situations because of what we see on TV.
Josh: Because of how they frame them.
Tracy: Exactly. It's near impossible to shield yourself from all of these toxic messages when they probably have already starting doing damage before you even know that they're toxic. You know what I mean?
Josh: Right. What I was thinking about when we were goin' through all these shows, what does queering this structure look like? What does the inclusion--
Tracy: Mm.
Josh: --of queer people and different romantic structures look like in this form? And, is that something that we want? Do we want to be involved in this, because (laughing)--
Tracy: (Laughing)
Josh: --this looks like a shit show, like, honestly. And I think that, like, where I'm landing is that it can be a really helpful structure, because it's really accessible.
Tracy: Yeah.
Josh: When it's good, it's good. Like Dating Around, which I mentioned before. It's a matter of intention-
Tracy: Yes.
Josh: --and a matter of, like, what the creators of these shows are trying to do.
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: Are they trying to educate people? Are they trying to show the different ways that you can be in the world? Are they literally just trying to show you the lowest common denominator of--
Tracy: Right.
Josh: --what a toxic relationship could be.
Tracy: Right.
Josh: And if they're doing the former, then more power to them, and I--
Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Josh: I'm on board.
Tracy: Back Issue is a production of Pineapple Street Studios.
Josh: This show's created and hosted by Tracy Clayton.
Tracy: And, also, in addition, Josh Gwynn as well.
Josh: That's me.
Tracy: That's you. Our senior producer is also Josh Gwynn because he just be showin' off.
Josh: (Laughing)
Tracy: And our lead producer is Emmanuel Hapsis.
Josh: Our managing producer is John Asante.
Tracy: Our senior editor is Leila Day.
Josh: Our associate producers are Alexis Moore, Xandra Ellin, and Briana Garrett. Our intern is Arlene Arevalo. Our executive producers are Jenna Weiss-Berman and Max Linsky, and our engineers are Raj Makhija and Davy Sumner
Tracy: This show also features music by the amazing Don Will. You can hit him up on the socials @donwill. And you can also follow me on the socials @brokeymcpoverty.
Josh: You can follow me @regardingjosh on all the socials you can subscribe to, the podcast wherever free podcasts are sold. You can follow the podcast socials @backissuepodcast on Instagram.
Tracy: Do it.
Josh: Leave us a review.
Tracy: Do that, too.
Josh: Keep it Q.
Tracy: All that. Always.
Josh: Nothin' negative.
Tracy: Nope, never.
Josh: (Laughing) Five stars. See you next week. Oh! And watch the Cat Daddy show we’re making with Ali (Laughing)
Tracy: --coming to Cable Minus--
Josh: Cable Minus. (Laughing)
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