Representatives of the American Broadcasting Channel (ABC) announced in June of 2020 that the upcoming season of The Bachelor would be centered around Matt James – the show’s first African-American bachelor.
A week before ABC announced James’s contract with the show, a petition was posted on Change.org, demanding that The Bachelor include more minority groups – especially people of color. The petition also stated that ABC should put more effort into screening contestants to ensure that they had not exhibited racist behavior in the past. This is in direct response to Hannah Brown – the season 15 lead of The Bachelorette – who posted a video of herself using a racial slur on social media. Within the week, the petition had over 85,000 signatures.
Before James signed on with ABC, Rachel Lindsay had been the only African-American lead contestant when she appeared on The Bachelorette in 2017. The lack of diversity among the contestants and bachelors/bachelorettes has been a point of controversy among viewers and contestants alike. Lindsay has publicly spoken out about being the first African-American bachelorette on social media since the announcement of her joining the show.
The show had cast only Caucasian men until 2014 when Juan Pablo Galavis agreed to be the bachelor for season 17. Galavis became the first bachelor of color, as he is of Venezuelan descent.
In 2012, two African-American men auditioned for the role of the bachelor, but ABC quickly turned them both down. The men claimed that their denial stemmed from racial discrimination, but it was never proven to be the cause. Legal action was not taken due to a lack of evidence.
“We have a responsibility to make sure the love stories we’re seeing onscreen are representative of the world we live in,” ABC Entertainment President Karey Burke said during a press conference. While Burke did not respond to why they decided to wait until now to cast an African-American bachelor, she promised viewers that ABC will try to be more inclusive in the future.
With James’s season of The Bachelor, viewers are worried that the show’s producers will purposefully use his race to incite conflict. This happened with Lindsay’s season of The Bachelorette when ABC cast a man who had posted racist things about African-Americans on social media. Viewers found it suspicious that he was cast during the season with the first African-American bachelorette.
Another possible reason why it took so long to have an African-American bachelor is that producers were afraid to conquer the topic of interracial relationships. There are many Americans who would protest James choosing a white contestant to marry, and viewers suspect that perhaps television officials are unsure how to handle that possibility. Viewers of color posted on social media that the producers would not know how to broach the topic of James possibly choosing an African-American woman, either. “Authentic relationships between two black people in love is extremely difficult to find,” one viewer commented on Twitter. In previous posts, she had expressed her concern that the producers would not be as supportive of the bachelor’s decision as they are when the lead is Caucasian.
The Bachelor starring Matt James premiered at the beginning of January, and new episodes are released every Monday evening.
Photo by Emma Crouch
