Has The Bachelorette finally gone too far?
Politics tamfitronics Watching Tuesday night’s finale of The Bacheloretteone phrase kept ringing in my mind: The cruelty is the point.The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer wrote those words in 2018 to explain the appeal of Donald Trump’s particularly mean-spirited brand of politics. But the same ethos can be applied to The Bachelor franchise. That has always been true to some extent; as the audience, you are signing up to watch a bunch of hot, over-served 20-somethings fight for the right to get engaged to the lead character over the course of just two months.Nothing about it is natural. You might even say none of it is real.But last night’s conclusion to Jenn Tran’s season, in which the show so callously tore its lead character down, should be all the evidence you need that drama this brutal requires...
