The Bachelorette was meant to be the perfect time for Jenn Tran to find the love of her life, but instead, the franchise failed her the same way they’ve failed other past leads and future contestants should take note of their behavior. Jenn, who was originally introduced on The Bachelor season 28 as a funny, effervescent contestant looking for love with Joey Graziadei, has been through a journey of her own now that she’s led a season. Becoming The Bachelorette after her fellow contestants Daisy Kent and Maria Georgas turned down the role, Jenn had big expectations for the show.
Hopeful that she’d be able to find someone she genuinely loved and cared for as The Bachelorette, Jenn’s time as the lead started out difficult, but was something she hoped would pivot with time. As the first Asian-American lead of the franchise, there were some major expectations put upon Jenn as she moved into the leading role, and she felt a sense of responsibility to her community as a representative for her culture. Though Jenn didn’t want to put such a large sense of pressure on her journey, she was hopeful that she’d be able to take a successful journey.
Jenn's Season Of The Bachelorette Wasn't Carefully Curated
It Was Originally Meant For A Different Lead
Although Jenn was chosen to be the lead of The Bachelorette season 21 after a difficult stretch of miscasts for the franchise, her season wasn’t curated in the right way because of the issues it faced. Jenn’s time as the lead came after both Daisy and Maria had turned down the role, and while Daisy had been upfront about her disinterest in being The Bachelorette, Maria initially accepted the offer. While Jenn was still on the back burner, Maria had accepted the leading role and was in the process of getting ready to film when she decided to back out.
After Maria backed out of being The Bachelorette, ABC scrambled to find a replacement who would be interested in taking on the role so quickly. With seemingly days before the reveal, Jenn stepped into the leading spot and was able to embody what it meant to be a Bachelorette, but the season built around her was set up to see her fail. Instead of changing anything about the season created for Maria, Jenn was simply given the same cast, same travels, and same drama. Rather than things being curated for their new exciting lead, Bachelor producers dropped Jenn into place.
Bachelor Producers Didn't Take Care Of Jenn
They Didn’t Give Her Grace Or Understanding
While Jenn was a great grab for The Bachelorette with her fun attitude, charismatic spirit, and understanding nature, the producers of the series didn’t take care of her in a way that fostered a positive relationship. With Jenn in the leading role, The Bachelorette got the opportunity to bring awareness to an entirely different cultural subset of their viewership. By casting an Asian-American woman as the lead, The Bachelorette brought representation to Jenn’s culture and should’ve taken advantage of that to help build a connection to the AAPI community at large. Instead, the franchise dropped the ball with Jenn entirely.
The Bachelorette producers should’ve been prioritizing Jenn’s journey in a way that would make her reach a place of happiness, even if the romantic piece of her story didn’t fall into place. Instead, the franchise chose to go for spectacle and create drama by refusing to change things up to meet Jenn’s needs. With an entire cast comprised of primarily men who weren’t even romantically interested in Jenn, they set her up to fail miserably. By allowing people who didn’t want to be with Jenn and then pressuring them to develop feelings for her, Bachelor producers messed with her heart.
The Bachelor Franchise Has A History Of Letting Leads & Contestants Down
They Don’t Care About The Love Stories Or Emotion
Although The Bachelor and its subsequent spin-offs are predicated on the idea that the lead will come to find earth-shattering love by the end of the experience, the franchise doesn’t actually seem to care about the stories of the contestants or leads. Consistently letting its leads down by making strange and gimmicky casting decisions, The Bachelor franchise often makes itself look like a joke with the way the cast members are treated. Making a mockery out of their personalities and putting them into strange, obviously produced situations, Bachelor producers aren’t usually looking for genuine emotion, but instead hope for spectacle.
Throughout the last few years, the love stories on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette have become more genuine without the producers seeming to interfere. Instead, the stories of the contestants who aren’t the final choice for the lead are focused on more aggressively and tend to be far less serious. Played off for the sake of humor or levity, the contestants on The Bachelor franchise shows are usually made out to be jokes or played off as villainous. Instead of paying attention to the genuine emotion of each season, Bachelor producers have stopped caring about the reality behind the series.
The Franchise Needs To Shift Its Priorities Before Next Season
Bachelor Nation Needs To Change
While the most recent seasons of The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and The Golden Bachelor have caused some serious drama in the franchise, producers need to shift their priorities in a major way before coming back to The Bachelor season 29. The franchise has prioritized spectacle in a concerning way, ignoring the genuine human emotion behind the onus of the shows. The point of The Bachelor and its subsequent shows has long been to create heartfelt, emotional stories that show a fairy tale romance, even if it ends poorly. Rather than focusing on this, the franchise has truly lost its way.
With another season of The Bachelor on the horizon, the franchise needs to take a step back and look at the damage they’re doing. While there are merits to the entertainment that comes from The Bachelor franchise, the fact that they felt comfortable enough to push Jenn to watch her proposal after prodding her for details on a difficult breakup for the majority of her time on stage during After The Final Rose should be a major red flag. With viewers up in arms about how heartless The Bachelorette has been, the franchise needs to reassess where its priorities lie.
