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Last night was an eventful one for television: Twitchy Fallon officially joined the White Dudes With Monologues club and a revitalized The Bachelor had its "dramatic" finale, sending a certain segment of the population—women who can still tolerate the show—into a tizzy. This has been a comeback season for ABC's long-running dating program, which, to my mind, provides one of the ultimate dichotomies in present-day American life—red or blue? Rich or poor? Someone who believes you can find love on The Bachelor or someone who does not? This season's resurgence has been credited to the fact that the bachelor in question, sweet and dull Jason Mesnick, a one-time runner-up on The Bachelorette, has a son. After all, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a toddler must be in want of a wife (as opposed to football players, princes, heirs, and navy men, who are maybe just after some tail). Plus, any man with a little kid, even the kind of man who would put that kid on national television, can't be a total cad, right? Wrong.
On last night's finale, Jason proposed to cheerful former cheerleader Melissa. They were so happy they declared their love for each other multiple times and then jumped into a horizonless pool with all of their clothes on. But then, on the After the Rose Ceremony special that airs immediately following the finale, but was filmed six weeks later, Jason explained that something had "changed." When the cameras left, apparently so did their chemistry (one of the most interesting things about The Bachelor has always been trying to find the sex between the platitudes; maybe it just wasn't any good?), and now all Jason can do is think about Molly, the big-eyed lady (chicks on The Bachelor are exclusively referred to as girls, never women) he'd thrown over in the finale. Melissa got mad ("You bastard"), Jason cried (again and again and again) and then made a play for Molly, who accepted his apologies and smooches. Adding another layer of absurdity to all this "drama" is that the Molly-for-Melissa switcheroo had been very accurately predicted weeks and weeks ago by one very dedicated, uhm, reporter, named Reality Steve (so popular this day after that his site appears to have crashed).
All this pre-wife swapping has pissed off some longtime Bachelor watchers, who now think Jason is a jerk and that the show has been wantonly cruel to Melissa. I'm honestly impressed by these folks continued ability to be shocked by reality TV's manipulations—their faith runs deep—but I suspect this evening's interview with Jason and Molly (After, After the Final Rose or something) will assuage their anger. The route might have been circuitous, but the program's delivering its happy ending, as promised. This show's gonna make it to 25 seasons easy.
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Although it seems to be having a few technical problems, Nadya Suleman, ad hoc CEO of the octuplets+6 media corporation, recently set up a tasteful portal to capture a revenue stream (accepts credit cards!) during the launch of her new family business. As Dahlia mentioned last week, the newly delivered mother of eight slightly resembles Angelina Jolie. In addition to their age and some physical similarities, both women also seem very comfortable with far more notoriety than a truly rational individual would ever want. (Is it a coincidence that Jolie's 1999 breakthrough performance as a mental institution patient in Girl, Interrupted was the same year as Suleman's injury at her California mental hospital job? The worker compensation settlements provided development capital for her new venture.) Giving a whole new meaning to the notion of sweat equity, to provide manpower for the company, the fecund executive also ovulated enough viable IVF embryos to incubate 14 of them to delivery from six pregnancies.
Speaking of compensation, NBC insists it paid "not a dime" to air the first post-birth Ann Curry interview with "Octomom," nor for any of the access and personal materials used in the network's "special Dateline" featuring her other six children. Nevertheless, I'd love to read the contract between NBC's legal department and Ms. Suleman's business managers, spelling out what everyone did agree to.
Anyway, I applaud the fledgling media dynamo's entrepreneurship and resourcefulness and hope for Suleman that she gets that cable reality show. Who knows? Maybe it will even get network interest from, say, NBC. As for Suleman's 14 fatherless offspring, they will, it seems, be joining the growing ranks of working realty actors that includes ratings magnet and 3-year-old son of the current Bachelor star Jason Mesnick. While the Pitt children, though perhaps too often pressed into service as accessories, are so far still unemployed.
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Sound the trumpets. Not for Obama's inauguration. Even better. The Bachelor is featuring its first ever "single dad" this season. Or so everyone says. "Single Dad a First for The Bachelor," reads a headline in the Chicago Tribune. His bio on the show's site calls him "a handsome single dad—the first in the series' history." And in a post on Glamour's Web site called "The Bachelor: Enter the (HOT) Single Dad," Christina Coppa raves about the "single, smingle dad": "Did you catch the sunset silhouette of Jason with his little son on his shoulders? Stop. Movie moment!"
Yes, Jason Mesnick is cute (if you go for that clean-cut, cheesily symmetrical look). Yes, he's single—a status he is trying to change by the tried-and-true method of surrounding himself with a bunch of cameras, 25 ridiculously attractive women, and detailed rules about when and how he can spend time with them all. And yes, he's a dad to 3-year-old Ty. But is he really the single dad everyone's holding him up to be? To me (and the male friend who alerted me to this strangely applied label) "single dad" means a dad doing it on his own. A widower, most likely, like the bumbling Dan Aykroyd character in My Girl, or maybe someone abandoned by his wife, like the sweetly depressed couch-bound father in Pretty in Pink. But not a divorced guy splitting parenting "50-50" (although obviously less at times ... like when he's starring in reality-TV shows) with his son's mom.
It's bad enough on the macro level that a hot guy with a kid gets extra strokes for being all sensitive and adorable while a hot woman with a kid is viewed as having baggage. Even child-loving Jason seems to think so: He kicked off two of the four single moms in the first episode! But it's even more appalling on the micro level to picture Ty's mom having to sit at home and watch everyone oooh and ahhh at the commitment of this so-called single dad as Ty plays at her feet. I hope she gets herself some airtime over this, to assert the fact that yes, she is still very much in the picture and involved in raising her son. If Jason is as close to her as he says he is and their approach to Ty's upbringing so collaborative, maybe the ex-wife should get to come on the show, Slade-style, and have a say in which of these ladies gets to join the family.
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