Reviews tagging 'Forced institutionalization'
Bachelor Nation: Inside the World of America's Favorite Guilty Pleasure by Amy Kaufman
1 review
marisa_n's review
dark
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
3.0
I love reality TV dating shows. The hot singles, the drama, the crushes, the potential fairy tale endings. That said, I realize these shows can have a dark underbelly.
The author made some good points, such as:
- Girls are inundated with princesses and fairy tale romance stories from a young age. Women are socialized to view love/ marriage as the most important thing in life. This can lead women to seek external validation from a love interest to maintain their own self-worth-- which is unsustainable. Men experience less of this socialization & pressure.
- Dating TV shows can be exploitative, toxic environments. Ex: participant are denied access to outside world with no contact with friends / family, no phone, no books, no movies. Theyre pressured to drink excessively. Producers lie to and manipulate them, and often twist their words from interviews.
- Reality TV can be high risk, high reward. A select few find lasting love, while most are disappointed / heart broken. Some never need to work a regular 9-5 again because they can make money from social media deals... and most risk losing a stable 9-5 due to long absences from work & the potential to gain a bad reputation (rightfully or wrongly).
- People are quick to call watching reality TV a guilty pleasure or anit-feminist. Yet they rarely say the same of shows popular with men (Ex: football & bad behavior / concussions)
I liked a lot of the topics brought up, but had a few big issues with the book:
- Lack of cohesion: the book read like a patchwork of interviews, letters, & notes that were never fully integrated. It felt more like the author was hosting a virtual focus group than synthesizing her research into a coherent book.
- So. Much. Name Dropping: Even as a fan of the show, I was often confused about who the author was talking about. The references are quick and frequent, with a lot of assumed knowledge.
- Breadth > depth: there were so many interesting points that I wanted to dig in more, but they were only ever superficially mentioned (sometimes more than once). There was so much room for nuanced conversations that was never really explored.
The author made some good points, such as:
Spoiler
- Girls are inundated with princesses and fairy tale romance stories from a young age. Women are socialized to view love/ marriage as the most important thing in life. This can lead women to seek external validation from a love interest to maintain their own self-worth-- which is unsustainable. Men experience less of this socialization & pressure.
- Dating TV shows can be exploitative, toxic environments. Ex: participant are denied access to outside world with no contact with friends / family, no phone, no books, no movies. Theyre pressured to drink excessively. Producers lie to and manipulate them, and often twist their words from interviews.
- Reality TV can be high risk, high reward. A select few find lasting love, while most are disappointed / heart broken. Some never need to work a regular 9-5 again because they can make money from social media deals... and most risk losing a stable 9-5 due to long absences from work & the potential to gain a bad reputation (rightfully or wrongly).
- People are quick to call watching reality TV a guilty pleasure or anit-feminist. Yet they rarely say the same of shows popular with men (Ex: football & bad behavior / concussions)
I liked a lot of the topics brought up, but had a few big issues with the book:
- Lack of cohesion: the book read like a patchwork of interviews, letters, & notes that were never fully integrated. It felt more like the author was hosting a virtual focus group than synthesizing her research into a coherent book.
- So. Much. Name Dropping: Even as a fan of the show, I was often confused about who the author was talking about. The references are quick and frequent, with a lot of assumed knowledge.
- Breadth > depth: there were so many interesting points that I wanted to dig in more, but they were only ever superficially mentioned (sometimes more than once). There was so much room for nuanced conversations that was never really explored.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Forced institutionalization, and Sexism
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