For any of you who are fans of the Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise—this last week must have really kept your attention. There was a bit of drama that the show likes to bill as “shocking,” and “like nothing you have ever seen before,” but which is often just a variation on one of several plots and character types that keep cycling through.
This season we do have a sweetheart for the Bachelor. He’s a hunk with class and a heart and soul—nice going, producers. Then there are the women—the sweet ones, the aggressive types, Ms. Catty, those with hard luck stories, a divorced mom with 2 kids (it’s always been one in the past), the narcissist, one who just seems clueless, and yes, always a mean girl or a few wanna be mean girls in the bunch.
The group dates continue to be competitions, where there is always at least one contestant who is really good at whatever the date challenge is. The one-on-one dates are always romantic, a little thrilling, and help us see more of how the two people actually relate without all the distractions of other suitors. Then of course, there are the surprises, dreamed up by the producers to keep us on the edge of our viewing seats, least we should get bored or the show get too predictable.
This season Olivia gets to be the hated girl. It started with the First Impression Rose, which always turns the other girls green and a bit mean. Add to that Olivia’s personality and love of the camera and as much attention as she can draw to herself—and the role becomes hers for the duration. However in Olivia’s case, there seems to be a bit of cluelessness as opposed to nastiness at work. She is great at saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, which is interesting, given her real-life job as an on air reporter. Perhaps she shines only when it’s all scripted for her. Some of her comments before the camera when she is being interviewed sound arrogant, but somehow she really seems to believe that “Ben is mine.” This week she made a comment to the group when one of the women was talking about her single parent challenge of juggling children along with the rest of her life. It caused a firestorm from both the other women and the viewing public—but my take is that Olivia was trying to fit in and put her foot in her mouth when attempting to do so. In other words, her intentions were not as they were interpreted, and when she tried to explain her comment, it was just awkward.
Honestly, if we dissect the scene, then examine the comments uttered afterwards by the other women—Olivia looks like a victim of Mean Girls here. They jumped on her and wouldn’t let go. One went to Ben to tell him how awful she is and that “no one likes her.” That is a hallmark of mean girl cliques—they gang up on one poor scapegoat and attempt to destroy her. The surviving twin really put on a water works show to Ben and got his sympathy, big time.
However, Ben has been one of the gang living in the house. He was on Andi’s season and Nick was the hated one in the house. So Ben gets these dynamics and is probably savvy enough to have a sense of what drives these scapegoat situations. It is almost always the “winning” one who gets targeted the most—and it begins with that first impression winner. Sounds a lot like the Presidential primaries, doesn’t it?
Olivia is beautiful, has a great career—and will land on her feet. I do recommend she consider counseling, just to develop some insight into herself and learn to see herself more as others do. Essentially she needs to work on raising her Emotional Intelligence—then she wouldn’t make herself such a great target for Mean Girls masquerading as victims.
