Year after year, season after season, viewers have watched a very *particular* looking woman step out of a limousine, with the hopes of finding true love on The Bachelor.
She is conventionally pretty. She is thin. And she is completely unrelatable to me, a plus-sized woman who used to consider herself a fan of the show.
I’ve since turned off the screen because I’m sick of the narrative being shoved down my throat that only conventionally beautiful women who weigh less than, say, 130 pounds, are worthy of love.
If producers want to bring me (and countless women) back into the fandom, show me a contestant who whips a MegaBabe out of her purse on night one to deal with her chub rub! Show me a woman whose run and jump causes her man to stagger. Or at the very minimum, can we get a little jiggle on the screen?
Reality television was my first love.
From the Kardashians to the Real Housewives, if there are a bunch of chaotic humans brawling it out on television, you can bet I’ve tuned in fastidiously. And while these franchises are not beacons of progressive ideals and body positivity, we’ve seen people of more races, sizes, and sexual identities grace our screens through the years.
The Bachelor franchise seems stuck in 2005. That year, I was 12 years old, and it was probably the last time the number on my scale would not have precluded me from being cast on the show. (A note on the word “fat:” I am using it as a neutral descriptive term and not an insult. Continue reading “A new campaign is pushing for body diversity in the Bachelor franchise”