About a month ago I watched the final episode of The Bachelor, 2011, because it was set in Cape Town and I was curious to see what they showed of my hometown. I’ve never watched more than a few minutes of any “reality” show before.

Soap operas may be vulgar shows, but they are based on some common human feelings and situations. Telenovelas may be vulgar, but they refer to genuine passions, however exaggerated. The Bachelors was a mass of contrivance: unconvincingly fake drama, fake sincerity, fake passion, fake feeling, fake joy and fake suffering.

The Bachelor, 2011, was nothing like An American Family, the so-called original reality show about the Louds, where the camera interfered with and influenced and modified the interactions of a family by observing it, but at least began with something real. The drama there, if I can believe the movie Cinema Verite, was in the effect of the observer of the observed. But in The Bachelor, there is nothing to modify or observe that wouldn’t be there if not for the camera to being with.

It was beyond vulgar.