If there’s one thing the internet has taught me, it’s that men are not okay. They are lonely, have trouble making friends and apparently some don’t like it when their wives get a raise. Let’s not get started on the Andrew Tate acolytes. But on Wednesday at 8pm I will travel to a magical place called The Golden Bachelorettewhere the men are caring, emotionally intelligent and have fun hobbies such as surfing, dancing and cooking. Is this real life?
Naturally, that’s not it. Just like the rest of The Bachelor franchise and all reality TV, ABC’s senior dating show is a carefully produced fantasy that reflects our deepest beliefs about humanity. We know that older men can be just as crafty as their floppy-eared counterparts, so how come the guys at Joan Vassos’ inauguration Golden bachelorette The season was so dreamy and well-rounded while many of the boys were on the regular track Bachelor party things are going well, aren’t they? As a seasoned reality TV watcher, I’d say we have a carefully constructed redemption arc on our hands – not for one man in particular, but for humanity.
We’ve probably all heard the conventional wisdom that girls mature faster than boys – a story that comes up all too often when someone wants to excuse a man’s bad behavior. “Boys will be boys” is an expression – or excuse – that is used all too often. When I look at the young men looking for love The Bachelorettemany seem to play that role. They’re a bit immature, they pick fights and, to borrow a phrase from a contestant on Jenn Tran’s season, they’re bad at “keeping the main thing the main thing.” Every season someone pulls a crazy stunt and elicits from me exactly the reaction I suspect producers want: why are men like that?
Obviously #NotAllMen Are like this – on The Bachelorette or in real life. Just look at franchise star Joey Graziadei, who became our best Bachelor in years after Charity Lawson’s season and might now win Dancing with the stars. Or Jonathon Johnson, who brought us all to tears when Tran sent him packing. On the whole, the men carried on The Bachelorette are in a completely different league than those who showed up The Golden Bachelorette. Age (hopefully) makes us all wiser, but it also seems like there’s something deeper going on here.
From the moment ABC announced Gerry Turner as its first Golden Bachelor in July 2023, fans could see the story starting to take shape. He was portrayed as more mature, sensitive and serious than the usual youngsters – a narrative that fell apart after The Hollywood Reporter fact-checked several aspects of his backstory.
The fantasy shattered even further when Turner and his latest rose recipient, Theresa Nist, announced their separation in April 2024, just three months after their televised “Golden Wedding.” As shocking as the THR exposé was, the divorce was somewhat predictable. Turner and Nist live halfway across the country from each other, and both expressed how important it was for them to remain geographically close to their respective families. Would we have trusted a younger couple to figure this out, or would everyone have seen divorce on the horizon a little earlier?
Vassos’ season has similarly portrayed its men as more soulful, although one of them has been given less screen time due to a restraining order. It’s not just that all her suitors were nice and got along (although that is refreshing). It’s the deep camaraderie they shared from the moment they set foot in the mansion and started throwing cannonballs into the pool. These participants have opened up to each other about the loss of their wives. They have bought each other sleeping pills and after the rose ceremony they run outside to hug their eliminated friends. Not once in the history of The bachelor have we seen a group of men genuinely invested in each other’s happiness? The testosterone fueled competition that usually drives The bachelorette has disappeared, and in its place has been genuine empathy. I wish we could see that The bachelorette, at.
And why not us? As fun as it can be to play the old “men are from Mars, women are from Venus” hits and joke about how stupid “men these days” can be, there are still many princes hanging among the frogs. Don’t any of them want to find love on TV until they reach 70?
To some extent, casting a reality show depends on the luck of the draw; the producers cast a wide net for their candidate pool and decide who will create the best stories. But if this franchise and its many offshoots have taught its loyal fandom anything, it’s that we can tell many types of stories, even with the same people.
While The bachelorette seems to be cast for drama, thrills and excitement, our first season of The Golden Bachelorette has gone for pure, unadulterated seriousness. No one wants a 61 year old woman being pulled around. I only wish leading women in their twenties could receive the same courtesy.
