On The Bachelor: Good Guys Are In, Bad Boys Are Out

The Bachelor is experiencing a ratings renaissance. A few short seasons ago, it looked like The Bachelor/Bachelorette series wasn't going to get another rose from ABC. Then the producers decided to get real with the reality show. According to TVWeek, the show's creator and executive producer, Mike Fleiss said, "Rather than force the format (onto the contestants,) we've made the show more real and less predictable."

In line with keeping it real, the producers chose Jason Mesnick, the most sincere and authentic bachelor yet. Picture Tom Hanks' character in "Sleepless in Seattle" -- Jason lives in Seattle so it makes the comparison even easier -- loving, funny, fabulous father, looking for a woman who will complete the picture.

How different is this from prior bachelors and contestants? It no longer looks like some buff player let loose in a Girls Gone Wild video. The new "bachelor" is buff and into hot tubs, but he's also into commitment, and female viewers are finding this hotter!

Jason has become one of the most popular "bachelors" ever. And some of it may be in the timing. We've been living in a cultural climate where bad boys get the spoils -- corporate and political bad boys made off with the money, power and/or the hookers. But now Bernard Madoff, Eliot Spitzer, Raffaello Follieri (Anne Hathaway's ex), and Rod Blagojevich, got caught, signaling that the grand, cultural ponzi scheme is over. The bad boys are exposed for what they are -- bad.

Ask any woman a year ago what she was looking for in a man and the answer you were most likely to get was, "I'm attracted to the bad boys," "I need someone with edge to keep me on my toes." Now ask them. The emerging popular answer is, "I'm hot for guys who can commit."

Somehow the bad boys managed to start a scurrilous rumor that caught fire -- the idea that they were the interesting ones; the one's with all the game -- and the nice guys, well they were just boring and predicable.

As more and more women are turning away from the relationship wreckage of post-bad boy flings, they are finding this rumor is as vacuous as the bad boys themselves.

In terms of being predicable, bad boys are easier to forecast than tornados in Kansas. They will lie; they will cheat; they will use you; they will screw you over. How is this exciting? It's not. And that's what The Bachelor's producers found out. They needed a decent, authentic man with complex emotions and a penchant for real commitment to generate spontaneity and renewed interest in the show.

Comments

[gbenga30]

That show is the faker that Pamela Anderson's boobs. How comes there has never been a black bachelor, or even an interracial couple? The black men and women always get screened out before the end, to ensure they get some corny Ken and Barbie couple which ABC can sell to Middle America.

[PatA]

The Bachelor is such a shallow story and only got worse when he went to bed with all three girls in three nights. I also have to question the depth of a woman who allows herself to go along with the hype of the "invitation" of "let's get down and dirty and see if we have a future together".

[josephine12]

This article sounds like it came right from ABC's producers. The whole season has been a huge effort to re-create Jason as the Tom Hanks "Sleepless in Seattle" character.

But it fell apart when the "nice guy" was making out hot and heavy with three girls in three days.

Let's wait for the ending before we decide on who's a nice guy and who isn't.

[Caroline Presno - Huffpost Blogger]

No matter how the ending turns out, viewers are attracted to the type of guy they are seeing portrayed on screen--co­mmitment-o­riented, empathic, fun-loving. The good guy still wins in the end!

[auntiecairo]

Apparently you don't read Reality Steve who posted a story that apparently Jason has been dating Molly and apparently proposes to Melissa then dumps her on national TV on the after show -- guess bad boys are sometimes hidden in nice boy packages. .