The Bachelor: Whiteness in the Harem

This examination of the representation of whiteness and women of color in the reality-based television series The Bachelor shows how the series is “raced.” It is a context in which only white people find romantic partners, a process that women of color work to facilitate. The Westernized trope of the Eastern harem structures The Bachelor, duplicating in the series the imperialist, Orientalist, and oppressive racist premises of the harem trope.