Stay gold, Gerry boy
On the season premiere of The Golden Bachelor
Anyone who knows me personally knows that I’m a television fanatic. So, at the beginning of each month, instead of sending out my regular Monday newsletter, I’ll send a TV Tuesday missive. I watch a wide range of television—HBO dramas, half-hour comedies, nature documentaries, sci-fi series, and (as you’ll see this week), reality television. My promise to you is that I’ll always include the title of whatever show I’m discussing in the email preheader—that way, if it’s not a show you feel like reading about, you can pass on it!
Aside from the usual Ephemera and Post-Script sections, TV Tuesday issues will be divided in two parts: first, my real-time thoughts, written as I watch the episode in question; second, a reflection after I’ve digested the content. Sound alright? Then let’s get into it.
I’ve never watched a single episode of The Bachelor or its many variations. (My personal reality TV preference is the UK edition of Love Island.) But something about the advertising for The Golden Bachelor drew me in.
I’m deeply curious to see what a traditionally messy genre looks like when the cast is an older generation—a generation that loves to scorn millennials and Gen Z for dating apps and nontraditional relationship structures. Will they fall prey to the drama and scandal inherent in the genre? Or is there actually something to their ideas of romance?
Let’s find out. This week? We’re watching the season premiere of The Golden Bachelor.
Real-Time Thoughts.
Okay, it’s really endearing to watch Gerry button his shirt up all the way and put in his hearing aids! Zoe says, “He’s a cute little guy.” Is today really the first day of the rest of his life? I’m already rooting for him. And the family photos of Gerry and Toni? So sweet.
I don’t think the audience is entitled to the details of his wife’s death. To start with that? Heartbreaking—and sort of voyeuristic. I don’t know how to balance our culture of exposure with the artifice of television as a medium.
Seeing him talk to random young women cracked up me and Zoe. Gerry is hilarious, honestly. “I’m going to be the first Bachelor on social security.” Did he just come up with that, or did someone write that line for him?
Edith’s golden dress… the confetti… what a star. Maybe she’ll bring the drama?
(Don’t worry—I’m not going to go over every woman who walks out. Just some of them.)
Ellen’s best friend having cancer as part of the motivation to be on the show—I guess there’s going to be a certain level of morbidity inherent in seventy-year-olds dating. Not to mention Ellen’s job being “pickleball co-captain.”
SANDRA’S ZEN PRACTICE: deep breaths plus swearing. SO fucking funny. I suspect she’ll be my favorite.
Leslie’s granny costume, on the other hand… And did she actually date Prince? Is she actually the muse for “Sexy Dancer”? She’ll definitely bring the drama.
Zoe was thrilled to meet April, the Floridian chicken farmer (and chicken-dancer). Not all of the women are humored, though. “This little, tiny blonde thing…” So rude—and so proud of herself for being a snob.
The other women spying on Faith the motorcyclist cracked me up. So did her claim that she’s proof that “you can live fast and not die young.”
Since so many of the women are talking about how beautiful the other women are… could a lesbian couple or two emerge? (Probably not, I know, but it would be so awesome.)
Gerry is giving his toast to all the women now—Zoe says he sounds like Kermit the Frog.
Image Description: Kermit the Frog, sipping tea. Marina’s daughter calling Gerry “dope,” and his daughter telling him he has rizz—the young people are making their presence known.
Faith pulling a Ken and playing guitar for Gerry… yikes.
Image Description: Ryan Gosling as Ken in Barbie, playing the guitar for Margot Robbie’s Barbie. I appreciate the small montage of all the women complimenting each other. And immediately following it up with the “first impression rose” scaring them all? Too good. Because so many of them love the Bachelor franchise, they’re seasoned pros. And the immediate panic from the women who didn’t get to talk to him yet? Hilarious. Zoe realized there’s some “Karen” potential in the show by virtue of the older demographic.
Faith, with her motorcycle and guitar combo, gets the rose? The other women are not happy. But, despite her Kenergy—or maybe because of it—she’s growing on me.
It’s so funny that everyone is so tired. Why didn’t they move up the filming so that the old folks can go to bed early?
Zoe says Gerry has gone to sleep with nightmares knowing that he has to send women home. And, to be fair, only half of these women seem to be playing the game. Maybe I’ve got a bad read on things though—so many of them have actually seen the show, after all. He actually cried when the rose ceremony ended and some of the women had to go home.
The preview of the season ahead is… bleak. Lots of grief, which—like I said before—is inherent in filming a series like this age group. I wonder how that’ll impact the season, since the drama on reality shows like these isn’t typically tied to the anniversaries of spouses’ deaths.
Reflection.
Finding love in a one-man-to-twenty-women situation is full of drama, no matter the age group. The women’s judgment may be couched in “bless her heart” euphemisms, but it’s there in spades. The ever-obnoxious Kathy, with her disdain for chicken-farmer April and her demanding talking head about how Gerry has to give her one of the roses, is guaranteed to be bitchy as the season goes on.
Any Bachelor series insists upon some level of vanity at the start of the season—with so many contestants and so little time, it isn’t possible for Gerry to hand out those first roses based on anything other than looks.
And it was a lot of looks—and looking. It was heartbreaking to hear almost every woman talk about Gerry making them feel special simply by paying attention to them. Being older and single seems to have left many of them feeling invisible. But love and attention aren’t the same, especially not on a night of first impressions. When will that difference become clear to them?
That thinking, coupled with how many of them were emphatic about needing to try their hand at seducing Gerry after seeing him on Good Morning America, has me concerned about the potential for obsession to emerge (though maybe it already has?) It was unsettling.
Further, there was a sense of unreality. Some level of that is inherent in reality television, which is itself a paradox. But the women brought it to a whole new level with their hyperawareness of being on reality TV—and not just any reality TV. They’re on The Golden Bachelor. Lord knows they had a “roll credits” moment in every talking head. The series is meant to focus on dating in an older demographic, but the way these women talk about their own love of the show, calling out moments with the joy of kids playing pretend, it’s clear that the real focus (at least for some of them) is to live out the fantasy of being on the show—a fantasy that almost certain includes the youth of its regular casts.
That being said, their ages will always be a major part of the equation. In part, that’s because they’ll continue to harp on the historic first season and its aforementioned aim. But it’s also because the drama of their lives is inflected with the morbidity of loss and grief. They aren’t remembering messy breakups; they’re remembering the deaths of spouses. The permanence of those losses and the fear of loneliness are intense motivators for building a relationship—motivation much more urgent than the desire to have C-list fame. What will the Bachelor franchise look like when the shadow of death hangs over it?
We’ll see how the season unfolds; maybe I’ll write a follow-up after the season ends—and see if I’m right about any of this?
Fuck that schmuck. Joe Jonas has a history of being awful to AFAB people—Taylor Swift, Demi Lovato, Ashley Greene, and let’s not forget AJ Michalka. His track record makes it clear: Joe is bad at breakups. But the situation with Sophie Turner? Beyond the pale.
If you haven’t heard, Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner are getting divorced. If you have heard, you might’ve found out at the same time as Sophie! She learned that Joe had filed for divorce through the media, not through him. Now, she’s suing him—and not for being a shithead. Well, not just for being a shithead.
While they were still together, Joe and Sophie had agreed to make their forever home the UK and were looking for a house in the English countryside. The plan was to raise their family there. But Joe has been touring in the United States with the same family band he’s been in since his teenage years. Sophie has been filming a time-consuming project, and nighttime concerts mean Joe has more daytime hours than her, so their daughters have been with him on tour—something Sophie agreed to reluctantly. As you can imagine, springing a divorce on a mom in the shadiest way possible makes her want to be with her daughters (and far away from the man in question). But Joe won’t let them go back to the UK with Sophie; he’s hiding their passports and keeping them with him in the US.
Hence, Sophie suing him for wrongful detainment.
Obviously, the situation is moving fast and both sides want to make the other look bad, but I’m confidently on Sophie’s side.
Now, to the Instagram commenters out there who are saying that Joe has a pattern of treating AFAB people poorly because he’s a closeted gay man: has nobody told you about misogyny?!
Fuck that other schmuck, too. Moving away from pop culture and toward politics: the government passed a stopgap spending bill by the skin of its teeth and now has until mid-November to figure out how to actually function, or else we’ll be right back at shutdown mode then. I’ve been seeing a lot of trans activists posing the question, “Are Republicans really willing to shut down the government because of gender-affirming care?” Obviously, the decisions on where the money should go differ by party lines, and of course Republicans don’t want trans people to be able to afford healthcare. But they want so many other things, too, so I’m wary of us trans folks taking the credit for a near-shutdown. It certainly won’t help our case.
Especially because Republicans are willing to shut down the government for even more ridiculous, harmful, and petty reasons! The government almost shut down because Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy doesn’t want to lose his job—which he only got by making it easier to remove the Speaker. Far-right Republicans insisted that they would move to oust him if he cut a bipartisan bill, even just for a stopgap. And Matt Gaetz is probably going to stick to his word, so we’ll see how that pans out. But the point is, Kevin McCarthy went back on an agreement made months ago and almost let the government shut down just because he wants to keep being Speaker.
I have a real-life version of my “Ephemera” section with Zoe, which I call Up Second—it’s where I try to recite from memory all the news I heard while listening to Up First.
As promised: a quilting update! I finished making all my blocks; now I have to arrange them and sew the full quilt top.
Image Description: A stack of quilt blocks made up of four half-square triangles. The visible block is made with a black-and-white checker print and a yellow fabric with white flowers on it. Zoe and I both had the flu last week, which sucked. Since their lungs weren’t functioning too well, I took some of their Marmie morning shifts. So, I’ll leave you with one of those early-morning views, which made things suck a bit less:
Image Description: The morning sky from my backyard. The trees and fence are silhouetted against a blue sky with pinkish clouds. A power line and neighbor’s house are visible as well.
