Is it Sinful to Watch 'The Bachelor'?

Is it spiritually malformative (or even sinful) to enjoy this popular franchise? This clip comes from an exclusive segment on Holy Post Plus called "My Hill to Die On," where we share our cultural hot takes. Unlock the full conversation here.

Kaitlyn: My hill to die on is that it is, at the very least, spiritually malformative—if not potentially sinful—to watch or participate in any way in The Bachelor and Bachelorette franchises.

Skye: A lot of people just threw their phones or fell off their chairs.

Kaitlyn: Let me give my pitch. My reasoning behind this is that it does something to you to watch people—intentionally or not—harm themselves in body, soul, and mind.

And I think that’s what’s happening in The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. People are willingly subjecting themselves to great spiritual, and sometimes bodily, harm. They’re putting themselves in situations I don’t think humans were meant to be in—constantly vying for different people’s attention.

Skye: Harems have been around for a long time...

Kaitlyn: and those are deeply spiritually malformative, if not outright sinful!

Here’s the analogy I like to give: If there were a very popular reality TV show where we stuck a bunch of drug addicts in a house and hid drugs around it—then said, “Watch them fight for the drugs”—we would say it’s immoral. Certainly malformative. Watching people willingly destroy themselves for your entertainment is wrong.

To be clear, this has nothing to do with salacious content—though that’s something for people to weigh with their own conscience. My concern is that you are enjoying watching people harm themselves, and that is wrong.

Esau: So how do they hurt themselves? Are they literally fighting for the man? You said physical harm...

Kaitlyn:Some of the physical harm is that they’re really pushed to be quite physically intimate.

Esau:Oh!

Kaitlyn:It’s a cable show. You’re competing with other people to win the affections of one person. I’m not using “physical harm” in the sense of violence. But I do think that pursuing a bunch of different relationships at once—or explicitly fighting with other people for someone’s attention—is harmful in a variety of ways.

And we all act like it’s fine because we know it’s fake, all reality TV is fake. Most of the people who go on are trying to launch a social media career, not find love. But getting yourself physically, emotionally, and otherwise invested in those kinds of situations can still be harmful—even if you're not sincerely trying to find love.

The drama is the point. The drama of disputes and tears.There was this amazing—well, amazing in some ways—scripted TV show influenced by people who actually worked on The Bachelor. It was about a producer on a reality dating show. It showed things that, to my knowledge, are pretty accurate: producers intentionally pitting contestants against one another, digging up childhood trauma, putting them in embarrassing situations so they’ll cry and get emotionally involved.

It’s psychologically destructive to people—and we watch it for entertainment.

Skye: I’m not here to endorse it, but I want to ask: what would you do if a group of women from your church or community said,“Hey Caitlin, we’re all getting together to watch The Bachelor finale—want to join us for a fun night?”

Would you say, “Sorry, I’m washing my hair”? Or would you go so far as to say, “Not only do I not want to participate, but I think you are perpetuating a degrading and harmful practice—both to yourselves and to the women on that show. And you should be ashamed. I’ll see you in hell.”

Kaitlyn:The funny thing is, you’re saying this like it’s such an insane thing to do, but I have in fact responded to an invite to a Bachelor watching party with,“I actually think it’s nearly sinful to watch this.”

Esau: But you’re walking your talk, right?

Kaitlyn:I have seen it in the past, and I have gone to events where it was thoroughly a community-building event. Like a lot of reality TV, it becomes communal because you’re talking back to it. It’s so ridiculous. You form strong opinions about different contestants. I totally get why it’s appealing.

I’m kind of joking, but I’m also kind of serious. I had a real moment watching it when I was in seminary. I thought, “This is doing something bad to me, to watch other people harm themselves and get entertainment out of it.” And I’ve seen other people do the same thing. There’s a whole other conversation to be had about how we act like we can consume content like this and not be shaped by it, especially in how we think about healthy relationships.

But I think for a lot of people, it does shape them. Even though most would say,“Any of the relationships on those shows? I don’t want that.” Still, I think it sets the bar too low. You end up thinking,“If that’s a terrible relationship, I just need to be a step or two above that.” And maybe that leads you to excuse a lot of bad behavior.Because you’re like, “Well, he’s not dating 15 other women.”Or, “At least he’s not saying those kinds of things.”

Esau:I feel like I want to ask some follow-up questions...

Unlock the rest of the conversation here!