The Bachelor the Bachelorette Can’t Buy Me Love Essay

The Bachelor the Bachelorette: Can’t Buy Me Love? Do you know the guiltiest pleasure of the American public? Two simple words reveal all—reality TV. This new segment of the TV industry began with pioneering shows like MTV’s The Real World and CBS’s Survivor. Switch on primetime television nowadays, and you will become bombarded by and addicted to numerous shows all based on â€Å"real† life. There are the heartwarming tales of childbirth on TLC, melodramas of second-rate celebrities on Celebrity Mole, and a look into a completely dysfunctional family on The Osbornes. Yet, out of all these entertaining reality shows arises the newest low for popular culture, a program based on the idea of a rich man or woman in search of†¦show more content†¦The Bachelorette, created in order to be politically correct in my opinion, is the same show in reverse—twenty-five young dashing men after one single, attractive and rich woman. Addressing these shows with an eye bent to cultural analy sis, the messages and constructed social meanings depicted are decidedly derived from a capitalist society. Therefore, the Marxist base-superstructure model must be consulted, and the capitalist ideology behind The Bachelor explained. Karl Marx’s theory basically states that the base determines the superstructure’s content. Upon relating that idea to mass media or more specifically TV as the superstructure, the base can be defined as capitalist corporations consisting of writers, producers, editors and directors who all support capitalist ideology. As a result, the American audience sees what capitalists believe should be America’s dominant ideology. The primary message that The Bachelor sends is that money can bring a lasting happiness and a loving marriage. There are also the inferred ideas that people should value a person’s youth and attractiveness above personality and intellect, and that a meaningful relationship can be formed into a marriage proposal in just a few months. For many skeptical and educated viewers, it is hard to see the re ality or truths in these shows. So this is when