The Bachelor's trolling finale proves that it's a "abyss of meaning, vacant but transfixing"

The Daily Beast

Some viewers and Bachelor alums were outraged by the brutal footage shown on Monday night's season finale. But when you really think about it, says Samantha Allen, "none of this matters...The Bachelor is an abyss of meaning, vacant but transfixing. I don’t doubt that Becca K.’s heartbreak is genuine. But she is just one more spurned contestant who, in all likelihood, will go on to become the Bachelorette, collect a five-to-six figure check, and start a failed relationship of her very own. The cycle will continue, nothing will change, and I will still watch." Allen adds: The Bachelor has always been an exercise in forcing human beings to conform to rigid and arbitrary rules for finding romance, and yet we still act scandalized every time one of these relationships fails spectacularly. It is simultaneously thrilling and depressing to watch contestants get right to the brink of realizing that the system they inhabit is broken, like witnessing Westworld robots edge dangerously closer to self-awareness."

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