Courtesy of The Root
Yesterday, in news that exists only to give our day comedic relief, the Hollywood Reporter reported on a class-action lawsuit filed against ABC’s dating-competition series, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, on the grounds of racial discrimination. Here are the two biggest claims:
The plaintiffs — Nathaniel Claybrooks and Christopher Johnson, both African American — claim that they were left out of the normal audition process because of their race, after they were taken to a side room and neither was called back, according to Entertainment Weekly.
Claybrooks and Johnson call out ABC; The Bachelor production companies Warner Horizon Television, Next Entertainment and NZK Productions; and Executive Producer Mike Fleiss for not casting a single person of color as the featured Bachelor or Bachelorette during the show’s 10-year, 23-season history.
Let us take a moment to think about the significance of this lawsuit, understanding that an injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere. Good. Now, with that out of the way, let us all laugh at what has to be one of the most frivolous race-based lawsuits in the history of law.
I hope that Claybrooks or Johnson don’t think they’re about to get a march started in their favor over this. Everyone knows that the reason The Bachelor and The Bachelorette have been on so long is that they stick to the same formula, right down to the color of people they cast. Everyone also knows that as popular as those series are, they are the definition of junk TV.
If these guys really want to stir up some fervor over injustices on television, they should be watching more television. I see injustices everywhere on my screen, and if I had the time, the resources and the space in my heart to care enough, here are the five television-related wrongs against which I would sue on the basis of race.
[The Bachelor/Girls image via Celebrity News/The New York Post]