The Press Box - 'Bachelorette Party' — "Men Tell All" With Wesley Morris (Ep. 337)

Episode Date: August 2, 2017

The Ringer’s Juliet Litman is joined by The New York Times’ Wesley Morris to discuss this week’s “Men Tell All” episode, Rachel’s season so far, and the upcoming ‘Bachelor in Paradise’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Make sure to watch the Ringers' new live reaction show, Talk the Thrones. Each week, Andy Greenwald, mother of dragons, Mallory Rubin, Chris Ryan, and our very own Macer, Jason Concepcion, are coming to you live after the East Coast airings of Game of Thrones, Stephen Seven. Talk the Thrones will stream exclusively on Twitter and Periscope right after each episode ends and can be found on the Ringers's Twitter handle at Ringer. They'll be reacting at the same time as you, contextualizing the events and explaining everything that just unfolded. Again, the show is called Talk the Thrones, and you can stream it live after the East Coast airings of Game of Thrones season seven out on our Twitter and Periscope at Ringer.

Welcome to Bachelor at Party. I'm Juliette-Litman. I promise that I wasn't going to talk about the mental hall and then I would do it on Tuesday. It's Wednesday and I want to talk about the mental all because it was appalling. It was an abomination and therefore had to bring back by good friend Wesley Morris at the New York Times. Hello, Wesley. Hi, Juliet. How are you, buddy? Listen, I'm okay. I mean, you know, the world is falling apart. It's true. And some of the ways in which the world is falling apart meet up with The Bachelorette.

So really convenient. Let's start. The world falling apart is kind of hard to tackle. So let's just start with The Bachelorette. Is that cool? We'll probably wind up there anyway. Yeah, it's true. So this was the MENTAL-All.

You've never seen a MENTAL-All special, right? This is your first time? No, but, but you know, I think one of the men-tell-all special. of the one of the few ingenious things about this production is that for people like me, they will tell you how these things have previously gone. Well, okay. Thanks for bringing that up, because that's actually new. They don't usually do that.

There's not usually a highlight reel of like previous things that happened on the men tell all, which leads me to believe that it was... I know what you're going to say. There was not a lot to work with, and it was really boring. Oh, that's not what I thought you were to say. What were you expecting? I would, I don't know. I was going to say something like, this must mean that they know that they have an audience that has not watched.

The numbers must be different. I don't know if the numbers are better or worse, but they're probably, they must be different. That's a good point. I didn't even think about that. Huh. Like maybe there's a black audience that just isn't watching The Bachelorette and they just don't know what they'd be in for. Sure. But I also like your, I also like your problem solving solution.

Yeah, it was like a time filler because it took up a lot of time. That was a lot of filler. Yeah. That was like five to seven minutes of like previously on the men tell all special, which like honestly is never that exciting. It's just kind of kind of weird. Like that's why I didn't think we would cover it. I thought I would like do some random pod this week because it's usually so boring to me. Like there's like because why would they save like something that's really juicy for that special? You know, I feel like they'd find a way to like work it in otherwise. But, you know, here we are. Let's talk about Rachel's appearance at the end first. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. First of all, where are you, like, do you like Rachel still? This is, this is your first season of the show, so you've never seen before. Well, before I answered that question, I would say that I, watching the other bachelorettes, like, I have only heard you and David Jacoby talk about Jojo, for instance.

Sure, sure. She was hot. And who were some of the, like, was there, was there a person, who were some of the, who were some other, who were. Who were some other bachelor's featured in that previously on other seasons of men tell all? There was Ali Fedatowski. There was Ashley Hebert. There was Caitlin Bristow. Who else did this show?

Okay, so Caitlin, Caitlin and Jojo were the two that really struck me as being interesting women. Yes. And I don't know why in the little bit that we got of them, but they just had something that was appealing to me. The thing about Caitlin, what they showed was like all these really mean tweets about her, like calling her a whore. and that was so bizarre. And I guess you probably don't know this, but like Caitlin's season, she had sex way before the Fantasy Suite,

like in week four or five. Oh, yes. I mean, I've heard tell. Yes. So that was like a big deal. And I guess that's like, they use the men tell all to kind of address the audience, basically,

to sort of like address the storylines that have evolved that maybe they couldn't control. So let's get back to your comments on Rachel and then we'll kind of follow up with that because that explains a lot of how this week's episode went down. I like her. She didn't seem nervous at all to me. Not at all.

She seemed very aware of all the dynamics. She seemed very aware of how she made individual men feel. I think, and I don't know if this was prep or this is just her intuition. But either way, she handled it all really. well. I don't know. I've been not, I've been looking for a reason not to like her, but I've been looking for reason to find her participation in this show suspicious. I don't, did you find any? That's a good question. Yeah, well, you and I have discussed this before. Like, I don't know why anybody would do this,

although I was watching it last night thinking, I had a lot of thoughts about last night, but one of the thoughts was, I would, if they were a gay bachelor. Yes, I would love that. And I, you know, somebody like you goaded me into like trying out for it, what I'd do it. And first of all, I wouldn't make the cut because I'm too short. I don't know. But I definitely am too short for that show. They only, these shows are all about tall, tall, tall.

Would they give you? What if they like, they were like, we love you so much. We'll put lifts in your shoes like Ryan Outland on the OC. No, I don't want to live that life. I don't want to live that life. I want to be me. I'm short. I respect that.

Sure. So I don't know. I just really, I find the prolonged exposure to her really disarming. Because she's boring. I think that's kind of the conclusion, which is unfair, because it sounds mean, but it's true. She's just like, she's just normal. Like, she's not weird. She's not slutty. She's not prude. She's just normal. She's just like a 31-year-old lawyer from Dallas who wants to be married. Like, and that's just like, that's just like as basic as a get. I mean, I don't know. Who does that not? That applies to like so many women. So. But can you imagine what would have had? I mean, the poll, like politically, I mean, like for, okay, so for entertainment purposes,

you are correct. There is nothing remotely. I mean, she is charismatic. Yes. She does seem smart and kind and poised, right? Like, she does not, it's hard to mess her up. even the blooper reel was just like, that's all you got. She is poised.

That's a couple times. That's an important, that's like an important note about her. Is that she's kind of like unflappable? Like what could you throw at her that she couldn't handle? And one thing that was really interesting was from the earlier part of the season when you see her talking to the producer when we talked when she was like cut herself off from talking about race. She clearly had prepared herself to talk about being the first black bachelorette because she was like, I thought it was very charming. And she was like, I'm black. What?

like joking about how people, that was like a thing or whatever. So she obviously kind of like, I feel like she coaches herself in a good way, which I think is cool. It's like a very like pretty like sort of like self-possessed person does that, which I appreciate. But to your point, the other side of your point about her being extraordinarily normal, I think that that is the only way a black bachelorette can function at the moment. because if she were like, I mean, imagine if, like, if they got one of the women from like, I love New York or like flavor of love or whatever. Right. And that was your bachelorette. And like teal tequila or something.

Right. Or something like black America would go crazy. Yeah. Because. Of course. But I just, I think that the degree to which she was normal was disturbingly necessary. Right. I think we had to see a perfectly functional, completely sentient, like hyper-intelligent.

I mean, the breakdown that we talked about a couple months ago was really about her acclimating to the conditions of having to be on this show as a black woman. And I think by the end of it, I think she had turned. Like now she's a politician, right? And her being a politician. And her being a politician doesn't make her any less human, but it does seem to make her fully aware of the surroundings, fully aware of her surroundings. Right, right. She, the politician is a good note because I feel like that's how kind of all of the bachelors who start out exciting. You're like, yeah, I really like them are bacheloretts as well.

And you're like, you're like jazzed about them being on TV for 10 weeks and like following their quote unquote journey. Then they all end up being political because the reason. like they were good in the first place because they were polished and then they become even more polished and you're just like, oh, well, now you're inauthentic. But it's not an authentic. It's just sort of like that's the evolution of someone who is aware of what's going on on camera. Like they're not real housewives, you know? They're not like looking to get asked back for the next season. They're just trying to come off good. They're trying to like do right by themselves and the show. And because you don't have to worry about

coming back, there's sort of like no incentive for having a meltdown or like being crazy. That's because that's right. That's how the housewives work. were like, I don't know if you watched Real Housewives of New York. I do. Oh my God. Not all of those. Are you current? Have you watched this season?

No, I'm not current. I'm not current. I've dipped in and out. So you're probably familiar with Ramona Singer. She's been on since the beginning. Ramona has lost her mind and like picked all these fights with Bethany and like made herself look physically strange. Like she showed up after like some facial gone wrong and everyone was like what happened

to Ramona's face? It's really weird. But in the course of this. show Ramona's daughter is like gone from 13 to 22. She's gotten divorced. And now she's like out in the world. And she's nuts now. And I actually don't know if she's any crazier than she used to be.

But she knows there's incentive for her to like pick fights with Bethany because Bethany is like the lead of the show. So that ensures that she'll be on. And anyway, it's made for riveting television, although I, I, neither them are my favorites anymore. I don't personally like fighting. But it's just. I don't either.

It's just interesting that like, when you don't have that incentive. I feel like the smart people move to become more vanilla opposed to becoming wackier, basically. Basically. Yeah, I just find that, I mean, if you don't like fighting, I don't like watching 50-year-old women, like, sit in a pool, balance on floaties, having heart to hearts with sunglasses on their head that they don't need. I just find that a genre of human interaction that is not to my taste. Do you like reality TV? Like, in general, do you like ever just put Bravo on in the background?

Because you're like, yeah, why not? You know how you feel about sitcoms? Yeah. How you don't like them? Yes. Because I'm still not sure what your aversion to sitcoms is, actually. It's like, it's too little TV. Is that correct?

Yeah, it's too little TV. And, like, I just really respond to drama. I just do. Not necessarily fighting, but I really like emotional drama. I've rewatched all of Meredith Gray's great monologues. from Grays Anatomy like several times. I love ER. Like that's the kind of thing I respond to is like the like sort of outpouring of emotion

in a really explicit way. So I would say that my aversion to certain aspects of reality television is that even though it's extremely fake, it also might be too real for me in a lot of ways. Because if you're not watching a, if you're watching a contrived scenario, you are also watching states of mind that I don't enjoy watching. Like, I am familiar with mentally ill people. I'm familiar with people who drink too much. The combination of the two, and this is something that I think recurs on at least the real housewise and was disturbing for me for a lot of the first half of the Bachelorette. The combination of alcohol and mental health issues, just, it's

me over the edge and I just cannot, I cannot handle that. That's fair. So that's like interesting for The Bachelor because that's like so much of what's going on here. And so I don't know if anyone on the show has like mental health issues, but it's come up with a lot. Yes. Yes. Yes. We can talk about who in a second, but absolutely yes. I'm not, by the way, everybody should know this. I am not a mental health professional. Nor am I. I'm mental health professional adjacent. That's it. Does that mean you have a therapist? That means, yes, I have a therapist. I am friends with mental health professionals.

For 45 minutes a week, I'm physically mental health professional adjacent. Just kidding. Yeah, you do. My mom wishes that were true for me. I don't know who, I can't wait to find out who you think could potentially be mental health adjacent. It's pretty obvious. So you think it's Lee? Yeah.

Let's just talk about Lee. Oh, my goodness. He is... Wait, before we talk about Lee, can we talk about, like, the, well, maybe, no, let's just start talking about Lee, because I actually have a real sort of major moral problem with the, with this men tell all. Oh, great. Let's hear it. Idea. Well, my first question for you is, what is the obligation on behalf of these men to participate in this event?

Because a lot of them weren't there, obviously. So what does it mean, what does it say about the men who work? That they're trying to make money. Okay. There's like a short window in which you can sell stuff on it. Sell stuff on Instagram or get cast in some other reality show or make an appearance at a bar for $5,000 for one hour. And they're trying to cash in on it.

I mean, also like the ones who kind of like made waves on the show to even get air time, like obviously we're invested in that already because that's like, one of the reasons why they were doing that. So my second question, so, I mean, that explains why, that explains some of the sort of rowdier behavior, right? Like, some of these guys had been, like, had been reft into, or coached into a frenzy by the time they'd gotten out there. They were, they were amped and ready to go. Yeah, absolutely. Such people include Iggy.

Iggy definitely feels wrong. Iggy's probably pissed that he didn't get more screen time. He's probably mad he didn't fight with Leymour. I'm sure he watched back every episode and was taking notes about how he fucked up. I think he was a paradise though. So we'll be getting more of him. Does that mean we're going to see him with no clothes on? Oh, I forgot that you're into him.

Yeah, I mean, with very little clothes on, yes. Yeah, okay, that's great. So you're in. You'll be watching them. Yeah. Other people who are thirsty, who were thirsty last night, surprisingly, I hate to say this, but I think Dean was kind of thirsty. Definitely.

I was wondering if Dean is trying, if they're grooming him to potentially be the Bachelor, if he's, like, still as an option. Oh, he's definitely going to be the Bachelor. You think so? There's no way. I mean, obviously it's typically one of the first three people, right? Yeah, it's usually someone from the top three. Or the last three people, right?

Yeah. I mean, I definitely think they're going to, like, they're just going to give it to Dean. Did you hear how people were screaming for him? I know. People really like him. Whatever he did anything? And no. Even the other dudes were like, we bowed out before you, Dean.

I don't get it. I don't know. He's just like, he seems very vacant to me. And also, I, you know, I would never get over the once you go, I want to go black and never go back. Like, that's just unbelievable. And I don't know. I'm so glad you reminded me. And I'm so glad the show reminded me last night.

I know. That was the same person. I don't get the appeal of. Dean. Like, I'm all about, like, a dumb hot guy on reality television. And I don't know if he's that dumb. I don't mean to, like, say that. But, like, he just doesn't seem like he's going home and, like, reading Proust or, like, working on his art. You know what I mean? So... Juliet? Yes. Do we need to have a conversation about, like, well, who among these men do you think is going home and reading? None of them are. None of them are. But, like, at least some of them go home and

read. I have no proof that anyone on this season of the show is literate. Oh. See, I think Dean is smart, and I do think he is informed and he possibly as a reader. I think that his problem is that he, the problem these shows never reward people who get caught thinking on camera. Right. And they never reward, they don't reward people who seem, who don't seem utterly spontaneous. Right. And so I don't think Dean is a spontaneous person. I actually think he's thoughtful.

Yeah. And I don't think that always comes out in paragon. long statements. I don't think that necessarily is revealed in, in, you know, like, concise self-explication. I do think that he's smarter than the show allowed him to see. Yeah. I mean, the most likable he was when he was, like, like, so wrecked with emotion when he went home that he couldn't, like, be playing a character. And so I really liked him then, actually. So I guess maybe that bodes well for what he's like in real life. But for everyone in the crowd, He doesn't really know him.

Is it just because he's really cute? And I don't even think he's that cute. He's not my style. Every, like, I mean, here's the thing about this show. Here's the thing about these shows in general. And here is why it took so long to get a black woman to be a bachelorette. Okay. Tell me.

America has a football fetish. I mean, not even a fetish. I mean, America is football. It's a civic religion, yes. Right. And who is the most, like, quarterbackly of, of these guys? guys. I mean, Dean is probably built like a running back. Yeah. It's Dean and Peter. Peter, like the athletes. Yes. Well, I mean, they're all, they all seem like athletes, but like,

it's only the quarterback position that really matters. Yeah. And who do we see, who do we, who can we imagine being, I mean, Brian is the one who looks most like an NFL quarterback to me. But I also think that, I mean, in the most stereotypical sense, right? Yeah. I don't think that Dean is the most attractive. I think Will is the most attractive of all the men. Will was cute. I thought Anthony was also very handsome and also happens to be a football player. Yeah. At Northwestern. I don't think, I mean, you know, I like Anthony. I thought Anthony's, wait, wait, wait, wait, we have to back up for a second. Let's, let's think, I mean, how should we talk about what happened last thing? Because I think we should sort of be a little bit

strategic. Yeah, let's talk about it. Before we do that, let's just knock out these sponsors and talk about them. First, I want to talk about hotel tonight. If you're like me and you're not so great at planning ahead, I've got good news for you. There's this awesome app called Hotel Tonight that helps you find amazing hotel deals at the last minute. It sounds counterintuitive, but unlike flights, hotel rates usually get cheaper at the last minute. And Hotel Tonight helps hotels sell their unsold rooms, allowing them to pass those deals along to you, dear listener. These aren't the last resort places either. They're actually cool, top-rated hotels you'll want to stay in. And with so many awesome partner hotels in a ton of different countries. Hotel Tonight can help you find a

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I have a Casper, and I slept very well last night. I highly recommend it. Get $50 towards any mattress purchased by visiting www.caspper.com slash Bachelor and using the offer code Bachelor. Again, that's www.casper.com slash Bachelor, offer code Bachelor. Come on, do it. Make me look good. Terms and conditions apply. All right. we need to actually get into it. Like, the Lee stuff was just so incredibly disturbing.

I think maybe worse on Mentel All than at any other point in the season, in my opinion. I actually am, like, curious for your take because I'm just sort of like, what do I do with this? As a Bachelor professional, I don't see myself stopping watching the show. And I don't see myself not, like, talking about it. But I really trying to use a one-hour special hosted by Chris Harrison to kind of like purify Lee of his sins is wrong and like disturbing. And when I used to watch teen mom, which a show I really used to really enjoy, there was always a reunion at the end where Dr. Drew was brought in to like talk to everyone about how they're feeling and like counsel them on their lives. And it used to make me

so angry. Just like we are not health professional, mental health professionals, neither is Dr. Drew. He does not know how to like counsel a 17 year old woman about it. Wait, wait. Dr. Drew's not a doctor? I mean, he's a doctor, but he's not like a psychologist. What is he? Dr. Drew is not a psychologist. He's just like an internist. He's a medical doctor, but he's not, like you and I, he is not a mental health professional. And like maybe he has more, he has, he's also like a, I guess he was a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Keck School of Medicine.

Fine. I'm kind of wrong. But I still don't think he should be giving out like therapy sessions on television. I have a real problem with any doctor who goes on reality TV. Like there's a reason why there's HIPAA laws. Keep it private people. But Juliet. Okay.

This, your point. gets to my fundamental disgust with this entire premise, right? Because the thing that was most missing from last night, and I'm going to just I'm going to back assume

that it was missing from every other version of this that happened in previous seasons. Chris Harrison should not be moderating this thing, or he should be moderating it in the way that Ryan Sechrist hosts American Idol. I think that there needs to

be a mental health professional on the, find the like glitsey's most glamorous one that you can find, or get the woman who plays the shrink on Unreal to come on. I don't know. That's obviously contradictory, but, but, my point is just, you, you cannot, you cannot have something called the hot seat that involves people opening up with each other are opening themselves up to a live audience and their competition. In Lee's case, a group of men deeply skeptical of him and in many cases contemptuous of him, you can't ask a person to do that and get satisfying results or at least like convincing results with without a mental health professional there or like a like a journalist.

Like somebody who's like really good at asking questions. Yeah, like we got to get Maggie Haberman there. She's accustomed to crazy people. Or crazy men, I should say. I agree with you. I mean, so basically what happened was, in case anyone didn't watch, they kind of were, like, addressed how Lee was racist and read some of his offensive tweets. It took a long time to get the racist, by the way.

Yeah. It took a detail. It was more about, like, him, like, fighting and, like, being an instigator. And then Kenny, like, was, like, addressed it explicitly. And then by the end of the show, Chris Harrison's, like, I think we got there. tonight. Did we get there? Do we get there? Like, and there being, like, to a place of, like, higher understanding and, like, acceptance of people. And that's just, like, that, like, you said, to use your premise. Like, that premise is so absurd and, like, offensive that it's, like, kind

of hard to, like, overlook it. I don't know. It's, like, a very, very bright light being shown, like, right in your eyes and you can't, like, look away. It was, it was very vexing. And I was just so shocked by it because like it just was not a good handling of the situation at all. I think it was a good idea to like confront his tweets and I'm glad that they didn't try of course, of course. Ignore it. That's all this show had this season really. Yeah, completely. Was this manufactured dust up between these, between Kenny and Lee?

Right. But I also think that like that that that confrontation was a proxy for all the ways in which we are incapable of talking about this stuff in the first place, right? Like the show itself barely knew what to do with Rachel being black, let alone this like this racist, this guy that they, this guy that they cast on the show who like through some miracle of good fortune on the show's part was a racist or like exhibited racist behavior. It's funny. That correction is funny because we came up against us a lot when writing about the show on the site. And our copy editor was always like, we shouldn't call them. a racist, it's more about like exhibiting racist behavior. And the reason I was kind of like okay with

that edit, not only like for kind of like libel reasons, but it's also just because like it's very hard to know if he wasn't just like playing a character that or or amplifying certain tendencies or inclinations based on producers like provoking him. Um, because that's definitely possible. And so then and then that's like almost like giving and that's an extremely kind and generous reading of what Lee was doing. But it is possible. But it is possible. But it It is like kind of, it's interesting. Like, ultimately it doesn't matter who he is because he'll be, like, gone in, you know, six months or less. No one will know who he is.

But it is like this season of the show is bigger than the individual actors. So, like, the fact that they use this season and then the special to give a stage to racist behavior is just like so, so troubling to say the extreme least. I will say that there were some novel things that happened in this interaction, right? Okay. Like what? Well, I've never seen this before. We're like, you're watching a show. I mean, I've never seen this outside the context of like a Phil Donahue,

Mori Povich. I've never seen... Mori. It's interesting to watch these black men sort of... I mean, they were... I mean, it wasn't literally a soapbox, but it was from the people who brought you a soapbox. Sure. A literal one sort of stand up in Cascigate Lee, who was seated and below them.

them at some point. I mean, the optics of it, what was, what was DeMario's term? Ocular Facts. Yeah, Ocular Facts. I like that. I'm going to use it. The ocular facts were really something. And I think that the thing that appalled me about that entire encounter wasn't so much that Lee couldn't cop to his behavior, although I have to say, the thing that makes me suspicious about the sincerity of the tweets in the first place was it was almost as though he was paid to do it or something, right? Like, he couldn't throw whoever made him do it under the bus, but he just seems so unsure about how those tweets got made.

This is incredible. This is incredible that you think he was paid to tweet those things. That is, no. That's hilarious. I'm not really, I'm speculating. But I do think there was something so, he wasn't. It's not that he wasn't contrite, but his contrition, it was almost, it was like transactional. It was transactional.

It wasn't even, well, transactional implies that, like, I got something out of the transaction that benefited or satisfied me. Right. Of course, the transaction wasn't between me. It was between Lee and these men. But it was between a particular kind of racist attitude or a particular kind of white person who at least even momentarily, whether it's at a dinner party or at a bar, traffics in a kind of racism or on some social media platform.

Sure. And then is called on it and cannot understand why people are upset with his behavior. And the funny thing about Lee is I don't know if he's smart, but I also don't know that he's healthy. Like he couldn't I mean he was asked repeatedly by numerous men why he did what he did and he would say things that would I mean his language around having tweeted that stuff was really interesting because it was it was like a dissociation. Yeah he does seem like he has some kind of clinical problem. We need Dr. Drew to explain it to us.

He I hate Dr. Drew. He's like one of my most hated people on television. Anyway, the least, yeah, I mean, he was, it was sort of like a sociopath, like saying the words, but there was no, like, feeling behind it. It was like very vacant. Yeah. I don't even know that he would be a sociopath. I actually, I thought a lot about, I mean, I've been thinking a lot about this knowing

that I was going to come talk to you today. And I'm a person who really is interested in understanding. racism and understanding why, why, if you have racist views, you feel compelled to air them in a particular, in a particular way. Right. Like so many people think and so many people think offensive, racist, misogynist things, but they don't say them. So like what is different about the pathology of someone who feels the need to say them? I think what was interesting to me was the point at which, and I don't remember, which guy this was. I think it, it might have been Kenny, or it might have been Josiah, or I think it was either Kenny or Josiah, who said at some point, I don't understand, given your views, and given, I don't understand how the person you could have tweeted

what you tweeted about the NAACP basically being the same as the KKK. I don't understand how that person could come on a show whose object of love is a black woman. Right. What did you expect to get out of that experience? It's a great question. He didn't have an answer. No. And his lack of an answer wasn't like, I'm not smart. I can't come up with one.

It was as though... It was like withholding. It's like there was something for him to say and he didn't say it. Right. Right. I mean, he has an answer. He just didn't say it. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. That's a good point. It's a good point. He didn't seem like he was not dumbfounded by the situation. he was not nervous. He was actually very even keeled, which I think kind of is... Well, Chris kept trying to say he was shaking in his boots.

Yeah, but he wasn't at all. He did seem, he seemed shifty in a nervous way, but... I feel like a con man, though, not like someone who... Yes, yes. Oh, Juliet, that's great. Yes. Yeah, I mean... That's so right. Thank you. It was weird.

I thought also, like, another really interesting, poignant moment. And this is kind of like, not that I expected The Bachelor to be like a Sunday night special about like what can we learn. But I thought it was kind of interesting when Kenny was like, I know what race and feels like. It's insidious. I know what it is. This wasn't that. I wrote that down. I thought that was fascinating.

I thought that was really interesting. That was kind of the most, one of the most genuine moments of the season, I thought. And I think it kind of spoke to how personally he took the whole Lee situation because he wasn't willing. to just write it off as kind of like something he's encountered before or group it in with a type of behavior that is like rightfully stigmatized in a certain way. He was sort of, it was almost like, it was more personal than just sort of like abject racism, which I thought was really fascinating. And it almost was like he didn't want to call it that to let Lee off the hook. He almost didn't want to be like, this guy's a racist. Like, fuck him. He was more like, he was like, no, this was

different. This was more specific. And I just thought that was really fascinating. And like, I wish we had kind of like gotten more of those moments, obviously. I think, well, first of all, I like your interpretation of Kenny's response to Lee under those circumstances. Because I heard what Kenny said and I thought, well, I don't know if, does Kenny know about all the other racism there are? And like that Lee could be a, could be practicing one that isn't like, like hood oriented. Right. Or like N-word-oriented. And that, you know, he could be practicing a more insidious kind of, I mean, I just, I didn't, it was interesting how Kenny's, I like your interpretation because it's not generous toward Lee.

It's generous toward what I call benefit of the doubtism, which is that you give all, as a black person, you kind of give all white people the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. And nothing that we saw in the context of the television show was ostensibly racist, right? Right. I think the thing that we never talk about with these shows is, like, the repressed homosexuality of some of these contestants. Absolutely. Okay. So actually, one of the things they showed at the beginning, we were just talking about this, the kind of like previously on Mentel-alls, I was just thinking how this would never fly now. there was a whole there was a whole like plot line

in Caitlin's season with these two guys who were like obsessed each other that was 20 let's see it was I was I was in D.C.

when that happened it was 2015 and it was like this whole thing about how they were like in love with each other and like oh my God what's wrong with them

like they're so intense about each other and then they got into a fight like the way like people who are dating do and that would that was just two years ago and it was like

it was offensive at the time but I wasn't like appalled by it. And watching it back, I was just like, seriously this happened on this show? Like, that's crazy. It's not good. I think that, I mean, this is me just like now I'm just losing my mind. But I think that one of the things that was interesting to me about Lee's obsession with, he didn't care at all about Rachel. Right.

He didn't give, he didn't care at all about her. But there was something about his being around these other men. especially the black men that seemed to really intrigue him. And it wasn't. It was like titillated him, you know? Yes, yes. And it wasn't, I mean, it could just be like a racist titillation. He could have grown up in an environment in which, you know, there were racist people around him, racist people in his family or whatever.

But I think there was something as a gay person. I'm very, I'm very sensitive to certain types of what I would say are abnormal male behavior. other people who exhibited it for me on this show were Iggy. Iggy definitely struck me as like being something that wasn't exclusively heterosexual. And even if he doesn't know it, I just think that his relationship to the other men in the house, he also didn't seem to be interested in Rachel.

No. It doesn't make him gay, but it also doesn't make him, it also just calls into question. I just think his relationship with the other men was so, interesting. That's interesting to me. Yeah, I didn't think about it in those terms, but I feel like I know what you're talking about. His focus was so much more on like the dynamics in the house and he used his time with Rachel to talk about the other men versus trying to like even pretend to like be interested in like the romance of the show. Also, I mean, of all the men in the house, he also was the most narcissistic in a way that like his vanity, his vanity was just different from everybody

else's vanity. And this isn't to say like that, you know, this isn't like, I don't want to be categorical about this. But the combination of behaviors that Iggy exhibited to me just suggested that like a lack of, like a self-obsession, but at the same time a lack of self-awareness. He's extremely put together, but also kind of unaware of how his behavior comes off. they were the two people who fascinated me the most psychologically and I think Eric is also the most psychologically fascinating person on the show yeah Eric is interesting I love Eric he seems really I have fallen in love with Eric I've fallen in love with Eric

I'm going to I feel like if he when he gets cut I'm going to cry that's how we really invest in the upcoming show he just is like a he's such a I think thought he was a clown, right? I felt like they cast a bunch of black guys to sort of act a fool. Yeah. And they did for like the first three or four episodes. They were like most of the black men on the show were, or like at least half of them were kind of playing to a type that made me uncomfortable because I thought they could have found a way around that. But then Eric stuck around and he lasted. And I just think, I don't know why she kept him.

Well, one thing that, I mean, this is really the show, and I'm sure we just didn't learn about any of them, but we don't know any of her interest. Like, the only thing I know she's interested in is basketball, and that's because, like, there was, like, three dates that involved basketball. And so the whole thing that she, like, maybe dated Kevin Durant in college. So given that, I'm like, yeah, Eric makes sense. We've only been told that she has one interest in it's basketball. And guess what? He played basketball. So, and as someone who has a real interest in basketball players and, like, other people involved.

in the basketball industry. I'm like, yeah, okay, I see it. But that's because we literally have only been told that she has one interest. Like, I don't know anything else she's interested in. Actually, it's not true. She has church and she has basketball. Those are the two things they've like assigned to her as like her things. You know what I mean?

Yes. But I think, I mean, one of the interesting things about this experience for me. I don't know about this for you because you've gone through it a number of times. But one of the things for me is like I find myself, it's interesting how you find yourself disarmed by a certain, people the longer you're exposed to them. I mean, Rachel was like that for me. But I liked her from the beginning.

I had a lot of sympathy for her. I felt like she had an impossible job to do as a performer and as a single woman looking for a man to marry. But Eric is the person who just, I mean, I see his picture and I'm just like, oh, Eric. Yeah, he seems like a good guy. I'm like sad he was on the show because I just don't know. I'm sad he's on the show, yeah. Because I just feel like he deserves better.

I hope he finds someone. Yeah, he's going to get his heartbroken for sure. 100%. 100%. And he's a good dude. I wonder if they'd make him The Bachelor. I don't know. Like, I don't know.

Do you even want, do you want there to be a Black Bachelor? At this point. I think this is over. But would you want there to be a Black Bachelor given how poor, how like they've like set back the dialogue of race probably? I'm kind of serious about that. I think the racism of the show is sort of probably going to keep me from watching much more of it. Sure.

Because I don't think the other thing is, like, and this is probably true for all of these guys, from all the seasons and all these women from all the seasons, the show doesn't care about these people, right? They chew them up and they spit them out. They want to have a hit show that everybody's talking about. So, I mean, once the show is over, you know, they fall into oblivion. Sure. I think what's interesting is like it doesn't this first of all like the ratings are not gangbusters for this season. They're always lower than the bachelor's always lower than The Bachelor.

But I just think if you look at shows that have a reality shows that have mostly black cast, so Real Housewives of Atlanta, which is the most popular Atlanta show. Oh, sorry, most popular housewives. And you look at all the shows that Mona Scott has done for VH1, the love and hip-hopes, etc. Those are wildly popular as well. and those like just also I think to I mean you know they're not as popular with white audiences

as they are with black audiences but they are shows that like I mean the Mona Scott ones like definitely play into like some to use Kenny's word some insidious stereotypes but there's also like some genuine people on them and like they're also fun and I think the real house of

housewives of Atlanta has like has birth legitimate celebrities like Nini Leaks might be the most famous person to come out of the housewives world and she started there And it's just sort of like those shows took more risks and allowed their characters to be who they are instead of sort of like they took a very broad framework, which is reality television and sort of like looking for a subculture and then exploring that subculture, opposed to trying to like a 10 year old show that relies extremely heavily to begin with on like outdated tropes. And it was just like a real disservice to Rachel and to the dialogue around the show when they could have taken a different tactic. Which is, I was thinking about that because, like, when people, like, point to their ratings because of the Real House of Atlanta is, like, really popular. I remember when Andy Cohen was on Bill's podcast a couple months ago.

Like, he was like, don't, there's like, there's, like, there's no mistake. The biggest franchise they have is Real House of Atlanta. So, like, it doesn't have to, it doesn't, it wasn't like an inevitability, like, the season of The Bachelor, like, wasn't going to go well for ABC. They just went about it all wrong. Well, what they did was they dip their toe in the water, and I'm assuming they got, they're getting, they're scared and won't do it again. Because here's what I think is going to happen. I think she's going to pick, she's going to pick Peter. Brian's going to be the next Bachelor because it'll get them.

I mean, I don't know how much Channing Dungey is involved in the day-to-day operations of The Bachelor. Because you had the reality guy on your show. Yeah. But. I love that guy, by the way. Rob, he's great. Yeah, he seemed, I mean, he seemed great. Yeah, he is.

But I do wonder, like, I mean, because I think Brian is a perfect bachelor in that he's a Latino, who you really have to like, you know, he's a white Latino, basically. And who knows they can do anything next season with the women. Right. And they still get to say that they have, they have a man of color on the show because they do. Right. Right. That's kind of like with Juan Pablo. He was, he's from Venezuela and he was on the show. Yeah. He was The Bachelor. Right. Yeah. So I do think, I don't know. I find, I find, I don't know why it would be, I don't, how do I put this? How hard would it have been for them to just have, like, a bunch of black people on The Bachelor?

You know? Yeah. And, and, and you, you just, you just cast a Black Bachelor. Totally. I mean, and put it on ABC and call it a day and see what happens. I mean, I think that from an advertising standpoint, and I don't, I'm sure, I mean, I see all kinds of ads wonderful for wonderful companies, Fortune 500 companies on, you know, TV One and BET and broadcast during Empire and and love and hip-hop.

I don't know if you're ABC what your fear is from an advertising standpoint. I think you probably, if you market the show, show rate and you don't just have it be like America's first black bachelorette. You actually just double down on having a black woman who's looking not just for love, but a specific kind of love. Because a lot of black women are. Not all black women want to date Adam or Brian or, you know, or Peter. I don't.

Oh, no thanks. Eric's definitely my number one from this season. and it's not Eric well I mean I didn't get to know Will very well but he definitely is my my personal favorite of the from the in the Handsome department but I do think that

I don't know this is I don't know this is why I write about what what people at ABC do instead of working at ABC but I do think that the only way to make this more normal is not to sort of

have her choose between two white men and a grudging black contestant. Because I actually do think that they, as wonderful as Eric is, I don't, I don't, I'm curious about why they kept Lee around so long, and I'm curious about how Eric has lasted. Right. And I think of the, of the black men that she had a connection with, Eric is, I mean, Eric is wonderful, period.

Like, there's no, there's no qualification for how wonderful he is. But in the context of where the show has gone, I definitely think that she might have wanted to keep. She also didn't have a good reason for cutting Dean. I think they made her cut Dean and keep Eric. And Eric's going to go first. Yeah, I think he's going to go too. It just seemed like also the fact that he went first on the hometowns means that there's one episode left, right?

So it's the finale. I mean, he went first in the overnight date. It's sort of like that's like so much. That'll be so much in the rear view mirror by the time we get to the finale that it's sort of like if he was more important, and he would have been in the final episode more. You know what I mean? Yeah. This is a matter of editing.

It's just crazy to think about at the end of the day, what a sort of white-controlled television show about love and ultimately, in this case, about race, even though the show is like insisting it's not. It just spent two hours of TV on Monday dealing almost exclusively with one contestant's racism. I know. Right.

It's like, and I'm sort of like resentful of them. Like, we've just had to spend 45 minutes talking about it. I'm just like, God, I'm mad. I'm just like, this guy sucks. But that's the other thing, though, right? Like, you cannot have, this show could not have happened without them manufacturing some sort of racist tension. Yeah. There had to have been a racist in the house.

That's the only way that the sort of that the white power structure understands black people, right? It's here are your options. You're either a slave, a victim of racism, or you're in the drug trade slash criminal justice system. Those are your three options, basically. There's like nothing in between. There's virtually nothing among those three things, right? Yeah. So I think that the show, I don't know, I would love to have seen this show without Ali and the way that we think about this stuff. and the ways in which Eric had to be kept around in some way to offset.

I mean, first of all, the sort of social incompetence of the show, and then the toxicity of having had Lee around for as long as they did. Also, as we've discussed, Eric is just wonderful. And I would certainly date Eric. But I don't believe that Rachel wants to. Me neither. She kind of seems overall of it, honestly. She just seems like she's ready to move on.

And I would be too. I mean, it seems fairly painful. Can I ask one more question? Oh, yeah, of course. Is DeMario... DeMario is the object of all of this Bachelor in Paradise stuff, right? Jesus, I can't believe we forgot to talk about it. I've blocked it out.

Yes, he is. I also find it incredibly immoral and completely fraudulent that they spent two hours with that guy on a stage and then teased us about any sort of Bachelor in Paradise preview. And didn't address it. I know. That is a crime. You have the alleged perpetrator of a sort of national popular culture incident for at least a week and a half, if not longer, in your hand.

Yeah. And then today they released the cast photo from the show. It happened while we were talking from Paradise. And first of all, Iggy's on it, shirtless. So I'll send you the picture. Oh, please send me the picture. Yes. And second of all, DeMario and Corinne, the two people involved in the incident are both in the photo as well.

So they're just kind of like going back to like business as usual and like just. But see, you can't do that. It's bizarre. It's bizarre. It's really weird. You can't do it for any number of reasons. Reason number one is like they haven't told us what happened, right? No, they haven't.

And so not knowing what happened and knowing this involves a black man and a white woman. Right. knowing it involves a black man who has been framed as and who didn't necessarily help himself in this framing as, you know, a promiscuous guy. Mm-hmm. As like also like a mendaciously promiscuous guy. I just feel like I'm uncomfortable supporting the infrastructure around a show, around it, around a sort of franchise that is going to manipulate my interest in it this way.

Right. I know, it's really, it's tough. I find it profoundly immoral, and if you ever have that guy from ABC come back on, I would love to know what they were thinking. I'll ask him. That's, it's a good point. I mean, we could talk about the whole thing. Because what do they know about race is the other thing too, right? Yeah.

I mean, also the, um, DeMario is just like his, his role in this universe is that he like wrongs women now. Like that's like kind of like what, what is said about him because he, fuck that. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm not comfortable. with that. Yeah. You don't, just don't have them on the show. It was,

it's bizarre. I mean, also, like, why does he want to be on it? Like, there's another question, but that's besides the point, I guess. It's,

we could do so much more into Mario. Maybe you'll come back. I don't know. I feel like this, this isn't a being lingering for a while. Yeah, I mean, I would love to, I mean,

I don't know that I don't know that I'm going to, I mean, just start to watch it. No. I do feel sort of nauseated at the prospect of, of having to go into that world. It just, I mean,

I think I'm inclined to like the Mario up to a point, but I also can't because he is letting them use him in this way. I know. He probably thinks there's something to gain from this, and I don't think it's worth it, it would be my guess. But he also has like, he's been on TV before. He had like a weird interaction with Britney Spears like 10 years ago. I mean, you know, he's like looking, he's looking for the limelight. And he gave us the great phrase, ocular facts. Oh, boy.

Wesley Morris. Thank you so much as always. You can read Wesley in the New York Times. You can read me on the ringer.com. You can also hear me on jam session next Wednesday. And we'll be back next week with Bachelor Party as well for the finale. I am Juliette Littman. This has been The Ringer Podcast Network. And thanks for listening.