The Bachelor debuted in 2002 on ABC and is one of the earliest contemporary reality TV shows.  The Bachelor continues to be a successful reality TV show to this day and attracts over 14 million viewers. The series revolves around one handsome and eligible bachelor who has a pool of thirty beautiful females to choose from in the span of a few weeks. The goal of the show is for the bachelor to find the love of his life and marry her. The Bachelor is a very white- centered show and “underscores the significant barriers that people of color continue to face in the media and broader marketplace”(Pozner). Recently, two black men, Christopher Johnson and Nathaniel Claybrook filed a lawsuit in Tennessee federal court against the shows' producers claiming that they both auditioned for The Bachelor in Nashville in August 2011 but were denied solely based on the color of their skin. They claimed that the show’s producers didn’t want to cast them because they were scared of losing “the show’s majority-white viewership”. In the end, “the U.S. District Court Judge Aleta Trauger's ruling states that casting decisions by the network and the series' producers are protected by the First Amendment and the case should not continue” (Mark Humphrey). This case forced The Bachelor into the eyes of public scrutiny and caused people to see the show in a different and racist light. The case also pointed out how other popular reality TV shows, including Survivor and Dancing with the Stars have a hard time achieving a racially diverse cast (Williams). After the case was over, the show’s executive producer, Mike Fleiss confessed, “I think Ashley is 1/16th Cherokee Indian, but I cannot confirm. But that is my suspicion! We really tried, but sometimes we feel guilty of tokenism. Oh, we have to wedge African-American chicks in there! We always want to cast for ethnic diversity, it’s just that for whatever reason, they don’t come forward. I wish they would”(Paskin).
    

In the first episode of each season of The Bachelor, every female competitor pulls up in a limo and a beautiful dress in order to make the “perfect” first impression. The bachelor awaits each female’s arrival and greets each one in a private encounter. Through analyzing each season, I discovered that there have been few, if any women of color on the show. In the first season all four women of color in a pool of 30 females, were eliminated by the third week. In the second season, two out of the three colored women voluntarily left during the second week. There was only one woman of color in the third season and she was eliminated during the first week. In the fourth season there were only three women of color and all were gone by the 6th week. The statistics of women of color appearing on The Bachelor continued in a similar pattern, even after the lawsuit was filed. Furthermore, through all sixteen seasons of The Bachelor, all of the bachelors have been white. This evidence suggest that The Bachelor communicates to their viewership that love an only be achieved between two white people. How is that message not racist? According to author, Jennifer Pozner,"These shows have been very intentional in the gender and race stereotypes that they've created"(Pozner). This proves to be true due to the overwhelmingly white contestants presented on The Bachelor.

        Flavor of Love is also a reality TV dating show that follows a similar premise to The Bachelor. Although both shows are similar in their objective, the content and casting is completely different. Flavor of Love’s cast is primarily made up of women of color and the language on the show can be categorized as “ghetto” language. For example, on the first episode of Flavor of Love, Flava flav says “I know many of you have seen the Bachelor, but Flavor is the black-chelor”(episode 1, Flavor of Love). This quote signifies how Flavor of Love is an openly black show and explicitly markets itself as black show to gain a mostly black viewership. 

The Bachelor and Flavor of Love pursue completely opposite audiences. Both shows display the contestants in a way that furthers racial stereotypes. For example, a video of the funniest moments on the Bachelor reveals contestants going crazy while intoxicated. Although this video does reveal humorous and uncontrolled females and males, in comparison to Flavor of Love the contestants are much more civilized and classy than the women debuted on Flavor of Love. The difference between the craziest moments on each show contributes to how different the shows are based on their objective audience. On The Bachelor, the participants are not framed as speaking on behalf of their race. Their whiteness perpetuates their white, middle class identity and therefore they aren’t faced with having to “put on an act” or dramatize their character. Are “the qualities valorized in a participant on a White-centered show—comfort with being under surveillance, appearance of not performing—aligned with discourses of whiteness?” (Dubrofsky and Hardy, 373).  In contrast, Flavor of Love’s participants create a recognizable and overdramatized performing identity and therefore perpetuate the black, ghetto stereotype. Moreover, Flavor of Love is known as the Black equivalent to the Bachelor, which perpetuates cultural appropriation.