This year, I tuned into The Bachelor for the first time when ABC announced that after 24 seasons of selecting white men, Matt James would be the first Black Bachelor. The announcement came weeks after George Floyd’s death and appeared to be an attempt for the show to rectify its racist past. For Black women who tuned in to Matt James and his eyes-wide-open approach to kissing, there was a hope that we would watch a Black love story unfold on primetime television. But that quickly unraveled. Monday nights in Bachelor Nation weren’t enough, so I added Lifetime’s Married at First Sight to my growing rotation of reality TV favorites. This season, experts pulled off five pandemic-style weddings in Atlanta where strangers meet their partners at the altar. Except, there was something that didn’t sit right with me as I tuned in weekly to watch either show: Black women felt like an afterthought, and at times, just as fodder for a storyline. It’s not enough to include Black women to gain points for “representation,” the real power is treating their stories with as much care as anyone else’s.
Matt James’ season wasn’t only historic because he was the first Black suitor, but it was the first time that 25 of the contestants identified as BIPOC, and at least 10 of those hopefuls were Black women. Before he even met the contestants, James had a heart to heart with host Chris Harrison about the pressures of “picking a certain type of woman.”
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“That’s something that kept me up at night,” he said on the premiere, grappling with his biracial identity. “I don’t want to piss off Black people, I don’t want to piss off white people, but I’m both of those. You know what I mean? It’s like, how do I please everybody?” The truth is, he didn’t seem to want to please everybody. A few Black women, like Chelsea Vaughn, even made multiple mentions of how excited she would be to make history with him, and was met with a dead stare each time. While other contestants gawked at the thought of just being with him, Kristin Hopkins was the only one to ask him how he was mentally handling the pressure. Yes, it’s a small question, but one that goes a long way after the heaviness of last summer’s social reckoning. By episode 5, James eliminated more than half of the Black women, many of whom received little time or none with James. Since the show wrapped, James has even admitted that he only spoke about race with women of color on the show, which became evident after winner Rachael Kirkconnell faced backlash for attending an antebellum-themed party.
But Michelle, a late addition to the show, did make it to the finals and the two had chemistry from the start. She and James had a lot in common, including being biracial, and James never expressed any doubt about their relationship—until the finale. “The fact that now I’m sitting here and I’m in love with you, I cannot imagine having anyone else as my teammate at this point,” she says before gifting him matching Mr. and Mrs. James jerseys. “It’s you that I want and it’s hard to picture leaving here without you.” It’s a sweet moment until James replies, “I don’t think I can get there with you.” It would be safe to say that the audience experienced some level of secondhand embarrassment from watching Michelle commit to forever for a man who didn’t see it for her.
To make matters worse, on After the Final Rose, we learn that following the breakup Matt refused Michelle’s request for closure before she left the show. ‘There’s no justification for why I didn’t have that conversation, and if I would have known that this is how you were feeling in that moment I would’ve fought to have that conversation,” James said on the aftershow. It’s an interesting revelation given Harrison’s call for people to extend “a little grace, a little understanding, [and] a little compassion,” toward Kirkconnell. Why was grace and understanding only afforded to one woman here?
When it comes to grace, Married at First Sight’s Paige Banks is probably the most graceful of them all—even when she shouldn’t be. Paige and Chris were matched together as two God-fearing Black professionals, but Paige’s journey on the show was anything but a fairytale. On their wedding day, Chris revealed that he was engaged three months earlier, a nugget of information that would raise a red flag to any newlywed. But Paige is committed to making it work. The next day, Chris dropped another bomb: He’s not attracted to her, despite sleeping with her after their big day. The biggest what-the-hell moment happens on their honeymoon when Paige learns that Chris’s ex-fiancée is seven weeks pregnant. Still, Paige considered their union to be ordained by God and stuck by her husband until he decided that he wanted a divorce. While the other couples are hearing “I love you” for the first time and learning the little details about each other, Paige spent most of her time on the show alone. When the two agree to have a “reset,” Paige’s requirement is simple: If Chris insists on living apart, she expects to communicate, whether by phone or text, daily. Chris, on the other hand, thought that was too much. Chris robbed Paige of the full experience of being “married at first sight.” It makes you wonder how Chris could have even qualified to be a candidate, given all of his baggage, and why the standard is set so low for Paige.
My decision to watch The Bachelor and Married at First Sight was because of a desire to see Black women win at relationships, and that felt promising considering both shows featured them prominently. Instead, they received the short end of the stick and that promise grew thinner as the seasons progressed. Both shows had the opportunity to validate the feelings of Black women onscreen and instead played on their hopes of finding a partner. In the end, The Bachelor’s negligence didn’t just hurt the Black women they tried hard to ignore, but hurt James too. On After the Rose, he shared that explaining to Kirkconnell why her actions were wrong was an eye-opening experience for him, and it’s enough to make you wish there was an alternate ending for all parties involved. For years, the media has made it seem like Black women were hard to love, and during a season that was supposed to undo those wrongs, The Bachelor and Married at First Sight did nothing to shatter that perception.
Kristin Corry is a Senior Staff Writer for VICE.
