Reality TV double standards: Taylor Frankie Paul edition

The fallout over the failed season of The Bachelorette continued this week with rumours of lawsuits, multi-million dollar network losses and a Nick Viall connection that, in the grand scheme of things, totally tracks. This all follows the premiere of the show being cancelled at the eleventh hour, just before it was set to air last Sunday, the aftermath that followed the release of a video that captured an instance of what, by all measures, appeared to be a case of domestic violence. In the video, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Taylor Frankie Paul is seen hurling a chair at her ex, Dakota Mortensen, with her child in the room. It’s alleged the child was hit and got a ‘goose egg’ on her forehead.

Executives had to decide – and quickly – just how far they’d go with the damage control. But with the video being as gruesome and devastating as it was, the decision to pull the plug on the season was made, prompting a flurry of conversations online that range in focus from the double standards for men and women to the double standards for Black and white show leads. And more.

A number of reality TV pundits have weighed in. Former Real Housewives of New York star Bethenny Frankel says the men on the show have a case, should they decide to sue. She slammed the network, not only for cancelling the show but for casting Taylor in the first place.

“That’s insane that a show that is predicated on finding someone, their life partner, and the ultimate, biggest love connection on the biggest platform would literally cast someone who has a problematic past,” she said in a video post.

Hannah Berner and Paige DeSorbo, who host the Giggly Squad podcast, discussed the situation on their latest episode, saying they ‘envy’ people who are mad at Taylor because it suggests they’ve never dated someone like Dakota. They went on to liken him to Stephen Demarco’s character on Tell Me Lie which, based off what I’ve seen from the show, is actually not too far off of a characterization. “You hired her knowing this information,” Paige remarked.

And according to reports, Paige is correct that production was fully aware there was a video. In the last piece I wrote about this, I noted that Dakota tried to warn production that Taylor’s past wasn’t squeaky clean, which is a typical requirement for the lead. Which brings me to the next person sharing their thoughts on the debacle.

Former Bachelorette herself, Rachel Lindsay, who was famously cast as the very first Black lead of the show back in 2017, pointed out the “double standard” in casting on a recent episode of her Higher Learning podcast, and called out ABC for pushing her to be “damn near perfect” only to, less than ten years later, usher in a white woman with a track record of violence and public intoxication.

“It was funny to me that the show wanted to take the risk, but for you to have a lead of color – that was too risky,” she said. “We were going to have our first lead of color…which took 15 years…and that person had to be damn near perfect on paper because that had to make sense for the audience.”

The sentiments Rachel shared were similar to those expressed by Emmanuel Ocho, who hosted a special for the franchise in 2021. He said he had to undergo “severe” background checks before even being propositioned to host.

“I say that to say the franchise knew everything you needed to know about this woman, and they turned a blind eye. And that to me, is disgusting.”

To say the franchise has got egg on their face is the understatement of the century. But the question of the century is…why? Why Taylor Frankie Paul? Why choose the person most likely to bring absolute chaos over to the franchise? And why all the double standards?

When this franchise first started airing, it was practically one of very few dating shows on cable TV. With its only competition being Temptation Island and maybe Blind Date, the show had no problem amassing a huge audience gripped by the fairly new concept of over a dozen people competing for one person.

Since then, though, The Bachelor and Bachelorette franchise has come to have some stiff competition. And it’s not just up against other cable TV shows, it’s up against an entire catalogue of pretty successful dating shows on streaming services, like Love is Blind, The Ultimatum, the new Netflix show, Age of Attraction, and a swath of others that have become fairly successful in their own right. I can imagine the pressure these producers are under from network execs to deliver something people will watch. And while it makes sense that they’d explore the crossover, none of it justifies the decisions that were made throughout the process, most notably, the casting of Taylor Frankie Paul.

The idea to cast her was proposed by none other than Nick Viall, a former Bachelor himself turned reunion host, who did a much better job than expected with his hosting of the reunion for the second season of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Back in September, he initially took credit for suggesting Taylor be the Bachelorette this season, saying on his podcast:

“Well, it’s happened. Taylor Frankie Paul is your next Bachelorette. You are welcome, Bachelor Nation. You are welcome, ABC.”

But he’s singing a bit of a different tune months later. In the most recent episode of The Viall Files, he tries to break down how disenfranchised the different production teams and distribution are, as if to suggest that the makers of The Bachelorette were totally unaware of who Taylor really was and how she might have been portrayed on the show.

“People involved in making Taylor Frankie Paul’s season of ‘The Bachelorette’ had no idea what they were about to watch on season 4. That this was an entire season about a woman who was having mental health struggles that was in this very toxic situation,” he said, before adding in something he says people ‘don’t realize’: “You have Warner Bros. who produces ‘The Bachelor’, so they have a whole team of producers. That’s their entity. You have the production company that makes ‘Secret Lives’. Those are two completely different companies, completely motivations, completely different interests. They’re not aligned.”

Yes, Nick, you’re correct that not every audience member has that information. And why would they? It’s not their job to understand this stuff. It’s their choice to turn their brains off for a few hours a week and watch the weekly episode of this woman being courted by these men until she makes the final decision on who she wants to leave the show with.

But in the same way it’s not the audience’s job to know all the inner workings, is it not the job of the producers to find a suitable show lead? I mean, what happened to grabbing a fan favourite from a previous season? Rapport had been established, vetting was complete, it worked like a charm every single time. Now we’re taking suggestions from a podcast host whose wife is constantly earning him bad press and is now hosting a dating show on Netflix? What is going on here?

How lax were the rules in order to facilitate Taylor being cast as The Bachelorette? It’s the same question that Bethenny, Hannah, Paige, Rachel and Emmanuel all remarked on – what did production know? And specific to the points that Rachel and Emmanuel made, they, as Black people appearing on the show, didn’t have the luxury of having so little as a parking ticket without production’s knowledge. So Nick’s explanation appears to be way off and is more likely that he’s covering his own ass and not souring his relationship with the production teams in order to keep the ground fertile for further opportunities.

The biggest mystery is whether production thought they’d get away with it, or were they hoping the video release wouldn’t come until after the season aired? Or were they just so desperate for a bombshell of a lead that they were willing to take the risk anyway? Something tells me it’s a combination of all of the above. And I think the precedent that sets for future seasons of not just this series but the many others out there is dangerous. Because it perfectly encapsulates the desperation to produce good TV, which sometimes translates to platforming people who have done bad.

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