I’ve never watched The Bachelor, not even a minute of it; haven’t in fact ever channel-surfed by accident to it while it was on. I do know it was at least once shot on location at a swanky hotel in my area. Never mind. But I did see a recent commercial for The Golden Bachelor during a football game broadcast on ABC. It shows a guy crying over something he did with someone sometime somewhere. Don’t know for sure, wasn’t really paying much attention as I waited for the return to the game. But those tears of regret on an elderly gentleman made me wonder about all the need to display oneself on TV, on SnapChat, on TikTok, on FaceBook, on…
Here’s an aside: Do I even need to see the food you’re about to eat at a fine restaurant? Is this a perversion of the old postcard from vacationing friends? “Having a wonderful time; wish you were here” becoming “Look what I get to eat while you’re sitting at home eating leftovers.” Do we need to display every event in our lives? Or every emotional low?
Rub Some Dirt on It
Some might say I’m just too old school, the school in which we were told to “rub a little dirt on it” when we got hurt. I mean, com’on now, everybody gets hurt sometime; everyone has some regret, or, as Scotty P spells it in his tattoo in We’re the Millers, “ragrets.” Anyway, this bachelor guy piqued my interest by his videoed reaction to something he did or said to a woman, especially because, though younger than I, he appears to be a senior citizen, thus, “the golden bachelor.” Surely, he must have grown up in a time before safe spaces, PC cops, cancel culture, and people offended by pronouns. Surely, he grew up in some tougher time. What’s this need to wear emotions on a sleeve?
My knowing someone who has starred in a couple of realty shows has given me the insight that the golden bachelor’s tears could have been edited out or edited in—the choice lay in the director’s hands after the scene had been shot. I suppose that in this Age of Hurt Feelings, the inclusion of those tears was meant to establish the humanity of the man, particularly his vulnerability and sensitivity. I’m pretty sure that by comparison, I’m an insensitive boor.
“Ragrets”
It’s not that I don’t have “ragrets” over this or that. Sure, I’ve been human. But nothing in my upbringing motivates me to mimic Gerry save crying at a funeral, where I might also think, “If only I could have…” or “I never told her (or him)….” Of course, I have regrets over either consciously or unconsciously not treating others with the respect they deserved, or in not working even harder to uplift others in their moments of doubt or despair. I have some regret over not perfecting skills, gaining more knowledge, or working on projects that I thought of only in passing. But “water under the bridge” stuff can’t be sent upstream once it’s flowed past the bridge supports. I can’t get back the unproductive time I spent.
From what I saw in the commercial, Gerry made a public display of regret in a confession to a stranger whose role I can only guess was as some program moderator. His “confession” was filmed for public viewing. But there’s a reason that confessionals are private booths. Gerry’s tears don’t substitute for just going to the offended party to say, “I’m sorry” because he has no way of knowing whether his apology reached the person he offended. Was he thinking it was like some jumbotron proposal during a game? But jumbotron proposals are made in the presence of the person to whom they are directed.
The Truth Will Out in a Nosy Society
This morning I saw this headline: “The Golden Bachelor’s Not-So-Golden Past: Secret girlfriends, a juiced-up résumé and the selling of a septuagenarian stud: The secret history of America’s senior sweetheart, Gerry Turner.” * Yeah. Who needs to read an article whose headline fully describes what it’s about? Apparently, I do, so even having never seen the show, I read the article. Lord! I’ve joined the world’s gossip groups.
The Hollywood Reporter article, written by Suzanne O’Malley and Barbara Lippert, reveals that Gerry wasn’t exactly who he said he was, that he was not a super successful restauranteur, for example, and in spite of his saying he hadn’t dated in 45 years, actually had a live-in girlfriend among others he dated, starting a month after his “beloved” wife died. Gerry, Gerry, Gerry. Seventy-two years old and you still don’t know that just about anyone can discover just about everything about another person. Nor did Gerry mention in his pre-show vita his successful life as a hot tub installer, or as a maintenance man at the Vera French Mental Health Center in Davenport. Not glamorous enough, I suppose. But, hey, I’m not knocking those professions because I believe there’s dignity in any kind of work, especially because I’ve been over the years a garbage man, a ditch digger, a carpenter, a janitor, a pneumatic-hammer operator, a local delivery guy taking cloth diapers in a time before paper diapers from the laundry to homes of newborns and picking up the soiled ones to return to the laundry, a road construction worker, and then all that “academic stuff” and environmental research associated with my main career. No, I have no problem with Gerry’s hot tub installation. Why didn’t Gerry acknowledge those last two jobs on his Bachelor vita? Had I been a fan of the show, I would have been impressed that he did the kinds of jobs I did when I was young. Work and dirt, Gerry. That’s what I appreciate.
Is this the sign of our times? Have we senior citizens become the generation we fathered and mothered? Nay, even grandfathered and grandmothered? Where’s that generational separation we talk about in local bars? Where are the “Kids these days” comments made with a shaking perplexed head? Where’s the dirt we used to rub on a wound?
Oh! No. I’ve Become My Children
You know that moment when you catch yourself saying or doing something that reminds you of your mother or father? That thought, used in so many TV shows and movies, can be summed up in “Oh! No. I’ve become my mother (father).” Now, it seems, we say it in reverse. “Oh! No. I’ve become my children (or grandchildren).” That’s what’s happened when older adults adopt the emotional weakness of the current snowflake generation whose need to display themselves to the world is irrepressible. Too much pressure among the retired? Too much stress? Too much work? Too many demands? Too many searches for identity and fame? As the Eagles sing, “Get over it.”
That’s what I think when I think of Gerry’s emotional display on that TV commercial. Sorry, Gerry. Your tears might have been real; you might be a very compassionate guy feeling empathy for someone you wronged over the past 72 years. But on TV? In front of millions around the world and not personally in the room with the offended person? Gerry, you’re now stuck in temporal nowhere because that scene can be replayed next week, next year, next century, and it will be played in the context of your uncovered deceit and in the context of a contemporary but younger generation of people who needed safe spaces and who were offended by pronouns or face paint or by “appropriation." A century from now, if the trend reverses, people will say, “Look at what the adults became in the early twenty-first century. Think they never heard of the healing powers of dirt?”
The Context of Deceit
Gerry’s reality wasn’t the reality his audience was led to believe according to the article by O’Malley and Lippert.
That Gerry isn’t the Gerry everyone thought he was because of his deceit (“I haven’t dated in 45 years” and “I’m a successful restauranteur”) is reason enough for taking his crying spell as an act. Reality programs aren’t really real because they’re edited. Someone chooses the “reality” you see. And that harks back to the first so-called reality TV show, An American Family, that centered on the Loud family. Such “reality” was at the time seen as novel, cinema verite, and praised as such by figures like Margaret Mead. ** After the Loud’s divorce, the show was itself the subject of documentary and fictional films that portrayed the sobering reality of the Loud family. Will Gerry’s story be retold like the Loud family’s story? Will people years after the Golden Bachelor’s final episode weigh in on the reality of the reality the way Jean Baudrillard wrote about the Loud family in his book Simulacra and Simulation? Will the viewers have viewed a simulation? Does Gerry live in the Matrix?
Were Gerry’s tears real or just a simulation put on for an audience eager to see more TikTok-like displays? I don’t know. I’m glad I don’t watch The Bachelor or The Golden Bachelor. I have to suspect in light of the deceit that Gerry is no Adam molded from dirt by the hand of God. I think that if any dirt is involved, it’s of Gerry’s making.
*https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/golden-bachelor-gerry-turner-ex-girlfriend-speaks-out-1235683869/
**Maybe Margaret was unaware of the Hawthorne Effect. Certainly, walking around in front of cameras is the perfect example of how observers can influence people they observe. And knowing that millions of observers will see behavior has to have a greater Hawthorne Effect on the observed person or persons than observation by a single anthropologist working alone with a pad and pencil.
Here’s an aside: Do I even need to see the food you’re about to eat at a fine restaurant? Is this a perversion of the old postcard from vacationing friends? “Having a wonderful time; wish you were here” becoming “Look what I get to eat while you’re sitting at home eating leftovers.” Do we need to display every event in our lives? Or every emotional low?
Rub Some Dirt on It
Some might say I’m just too old school, the school in which we were told to “rub a little dirt on it” when we got hurt. I mean, com’on now, everybody gets hurt sometime; everyone has some regret, or, as Scotty P spells it in his tattoo in We’re the Millers, “ragrets.” Anyway, this bachelor guy piqued my interest by his videoed reaction to something he did or said to a woman, especially because, though younger than I, he appears to be a senior citizen, thus, “the golden bachelor.” Surely, he must have grown up in a time before safe spaces, PC cops, cancel culture, and people offended by pronouns. Surely, he grew up in some tougher time. What’s this need to wear emotions on a sleeve?
My knowing someone who has starred in a couple of realty shows has given me the insight that the golden bachelor’s tears could have been edited out or edited in—the choice lay in the director’s hands after the scene had been shot. I suppose that in this Age of Hurt Feelings, the inclusion of those tears was meant to establish the humanity of the man, particularly his vulnerability and sensitivity. I’m pretty sure that by comparison, I’m an insensitive boor.
“Ragrets”
It’s not that I don’t have “ragrets” over this or that. Sure, I’ve been human. But nothing in my upbringing motivates me to mimic Gerry save crying at a funeral, where I might also think, “If only I could have…” or “I never told her (or him)….” Of course, I have regrets over either consciously or unconsciously not treating others with the respect they deserved, or in not working even harder to uplift others in their moments of doubt or despair. I have some regret over not perfecting skills, gaining more knowledge, or working on projects that I thought of only in passing. But “water under the bridge” stuff can’t be sent upstream once it’s flowed past the bridge supports. I can’t get back the unproductive time I spent.
From what I saw in the commercial, Gerry made a public display of regret in a confession to a stranger whose role I can only guess was as some program moderator. His “confession” was filmed for public viewing. But there’s a reason that confessionals are private booths. Gerry’s tears don’t substitute for just going to the offended party to say, “I’m sorry” because he has no way of knowing whether his apology reached the person he offended. Was he thinking it was like some jumbotron proposal during a game? But jumbotron proposals are made in the presence of the person to whom they are directed.
The Truth Will Out in a Nosy Society
This morning I saw this headline: “The Golden Bachelor’s Not-So-Golden Past: Secret girlfriends, a juiced-up résumé and the selling of a septuagenarian stud: The secret history of America’s senior sweetheart, Gerry Turner.” * Yeah. Who needs to read an article whose headline fully describes what it’s about? Apparently, I do, so even having never seen the show, I read the article. Lord! I’ve joined the world’s gossip groups.
The Hollywood Reporter article, written by Suzanne O’Malley and Barbara Lippert, reveals that Gerry wasn’t exactly who he said he was, that he was not a super successful restauranteur, for example, and in spite of his saying he hadn’t dated in 45 years, actually had a live-in girlfriend among others he dated, starting a month after his “beloved” wife died. Gerry, Gerry, Gerry. Seventy-two years old and you still don’t know that just about anyone can discover just about everything about another person. Nor did Gerry mention in his pre-show vita his successful life as a hot tub installer, or as a maintenance man at the Vera French Mental Health Center in Davenport. Not glamorous enough, I suppose. But, hey, I’m not knocking those professions because I believe there’s dignity in any kind of work, especially because I’ve been over the years a garbage man, a ditch digger, a carpenter, a janitor, a pneumatic-hammer operator, a local delivery guy taking cloth diapers in a time before paper diapers from the laundry to homes of newborns and picking up the soiled ones to return to the laundry, a road construction worker, and then all that “academic stuff” and environmental research associated with my main career. No, I have no problem with Gerry’s hot tub installation. Why didn’t Gerry acknowledge those last two jobs on his Bachelor vita? Had I been a fan of the show, I would have been impressed that he did the kinds of jobs I did when I was young. Work and dirt, Gerry. That’s what I appreciate.
Is this the sign of our times? Have we senior citizens become the generation we fathered and mothered? Nay, even grandfathered and grandmothered? Where’s that generational separation we talk about in local bars? Where are the “Kids these days” comments made with a shaking perplexed head? Where’s the dirt we used to rub on a wound?
Oh! No. I’ve Become My Children
You know that moment when you catch yourself saying or doing something that reminds you of your mother or father? That thought, used in so many TV shows and movies, can be summed up in “Oh! No. I’ve become my mother (father).” Now, it seems, we say it in reverse. “Oh! No. I’ve become my children (or grandchildren).” That’s what’s happened when older adults adopt the emotional weakness of the current snowflake generation whose need to display themselves to the world is irrepressible. Too much pressure among the retired? Too much stress? Too much work? Too many demands? Too many searches for identity and fame? As the Eagles sing, “Get over it.”
That’s what I think when I think of Gerry’s emotional display on that TV commercial. Sorry, Gerry. Your tears might have been real; you might be a very compassionate guy feeling empathy for someone you wronged over the past 72 years. But on TV? In front of millions around the world and not personally in the room with the offended person? Gerry, you’re now stuck in temporal nowhere because that scene can be replayed next week, next year, next century, and it will be played in the context of your uncovered deceit and in the context of a contemporary but younger generation of people who needed safe spaces and who were offended by pronouns or face paint or by “appropriation." A century from now, if the trend reverses, people will say, “Look at what the adults became in the early twenty-first century. Think they never heard of the healing powers of dirt?”
The Context of Deceit
Gerry’s reality wasn’t the reality his audience was led to believe according to the article by O’Malley and Lippert.
That Gerry isn’t the Gerry everyone thought he was because of his deceit (“I haven’t dated in 45 years” and “I’m a successful restauranteur”) is reason enough for taking his crying spell as an act. Reality programs aren’t really real because they’re edited. Someone chooses the “reality” you see. And that harks back to the first so-called reality TV show, An American Family, that centered on the Loud family. Such “reality” was at the time seen as novel, cinema verite, and praised as such by figures like Margaret Mead. ** After the Loud’s divorce, the show was itself the subject of documentary and fictional films that portrayed the sobering reality of the Loud family. Will Gerry’s story be retold like the Loud family’s story? Will people years after the Golden Bachelor’s final episode weigh in on the reality of the reality the way Jean Baudrillard wrote about the Loud family in his book Simulacra and Simulation? Will the viewers have viewed a simulation? Does Gerry live in the Matrix?
Were Gerry’s tears real or just a simulation put on for an audience eager to see more TikTok-like displays? I don’t know. I’m glad I don’t watch The Bachelor or The Golden Bachelor. I have to suspect in light of the deceit that Gerry is no Adam molded from dirt by the hand of God. I think that if any dirt is involved, it’s of Gerry’s making.
*https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/golden-bachelor-gerry-turner-ex-girlfriend-speaks-out-1235683869/
**Maybe Margaret was unaware of the Hawthorne Effect. Certainly, walking around in front of cameras is the perfect example of how observers can influence people they observe. And knowing that millions of observers will see behavior has to have a greater Hawthorne Effect on the observed person or persons than observation by a single anthropologist working alone with a pad and pencil.
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