Yet we met it the same way we meet all Big Gay TV Shows: with immediate snark, dismissive cynicism, and intense scrutiny for-dear god I can’t believe I’m about to use this word-“wokeness.” This is basically a version of that, and as such is wish fulfillment for some, and a lightning rod to others. In the push for diversity in TV, the idea of a gay suitor on the actual Bachelor series has always seemed a provocative one. If nothing else, we should at least be getting a boner out of watching this TV show. A lot! On a dating show! That’s still a really big deal. It doesn’t happen in Thursday night’s first episode-nothing really does-but the season trailer shows men making out with men. It’s a big pop-culture milestone when it comes to normalizing the gay experience.
This is, for better or worse, a watershed moment. It’s 2016 and there has not been an all-gay dating show.” Still, as aggressively groomed host Lance Bass rightfully acknowledges early in the episode, “This is a game-changer. It’s less a pop-culture earthquake than it is the gravest disaster that could befall a piece of entertainment in 2016: It is bad reality TV. The answer is it doesn’t matter, really, because Finding Prince Charming is so lifeless that it’s impossible to imagine any broad cultural aftershocks from its existence. Straights have gotten to be messy and complicated for years.
