On Tuesday’s Darkish Facet of the 2000s, former producers of The Bachelor got here clear on the numerous ways the franchise has used to create extra drama for the cameras.
The ViceTV docuseries, which every week focuses on completely different features of popular culture from the 2000s, explored the historical past of — and secrets and techniques behind — some of the fashionable and profitable actuality courting exhibits within the historical past of tv.
A lot of the episode revolved round Mike Fleiss, who was the creator/producer of Who Needs to Marry a Multi-millionaire earlier than later reimagining a brand new model of that present, known as The Bachelor. And one matter of debate on Tuesday was the method they’d undergo to decide on ladies for the present, as informed by Marki Costello, the casting director for the primary season of The Bachelor.
“Mike Fleiss liked stunning blondes,” she mentioned. “We had been searching for ladies that had been good, stunning, educated, stunning, stunning, stunning. They don’t need fats, they don’t need ugly, they don’t need pimples. They need somebody that’s visually interesting.”
Michael Carroll, a producer on the present throughout the 2000s, additionally described how they’d attempt to forged sure roles for the present, like a villain.
“We would have liked a bimbo. We would have liked a ho. We would have liked a ditzy lady that everybody may make enjoyable of,” Carroll mentioned.
From there it was a matter of studying the way to higher produce every contestant by determining what their tendencies could be whereas on the present.
“We might create boards that had slightly backstory and an image,” Costello mentioned. “‘She simply went by way of a breakup, she simply acquired over anorexia, she has been a bridesmaid 15 occasions however by no means a bride. She’s gonna f*** someone on day one. She’s a virgin and she or he’s by no means gonna f***. That’s the truth. They wish to know what’s gonna occur in that home.”
And as soon as they had been in the home, creating extra drama was a continuing problem for producers, who discovered that among the best methods to do this was to get a lady to cry on digital camera. Carroll defined how that was achieved.
“You needed to go for his or her scorching buttons. Their dad left them after they had been 8-years-old. They had been left on the altar. And that’s how it’s if you wish to be on The Bachelor: You’re gonna cry proper right here, and in the event you don’t cry sufficient, we’re going to discover a solution to get you out, after which we’re gonna make you cry whenever you go away since you didn’t get the bachelor. So… you higher cry.”
And so producers would take the data they acquired throughout the screening course of and wield it like a weapon to get what they needed.
“Citing issues that do not must be introduced up and simply, you understand, wrecking them psychologically,” Carroll mentioned.
One other main instrument utilized by producers to create extra drama and ship the outcomes they needed was supplying alcohol. Carroll remembered an occasion early on when the crew was establishing for the primary episode of the season and the women needed to simply wait it out.
“They’re simply sitting within the limo, consuming champagne till they’re blotto,” he mentioned. “There’s nowhere for them to go to the lavatory, so all the attractive ladies, 25, need to get out of the automotive and pee on the facet of the highway. Incredible.”
A former lady in the home, Trish Schneider from season 5, mentioned that she was positive that producers purposely tried to get contestants drunk.
“It’s like a fact serum in a scenario like The Bachelor. So sure, in fact, I believe alcohol performed an element in some folks both being extra snug in entrance of the digital camera or keen to share extra,” Schneider mentioned.
And Carroll went on to say that alcohol was at all times offered and accessible behind the scenes for the crew as properly, as Fleiss and fellow government producer Lisa Levinson would allegedly drink overtly whereas watching the screens.
And talking of Fleiss and Levinson, it was revealed Tuesday that they’d go even additional past the ways already talked about to get their desired outcomes for the present. As in, taking the truth out of the truth competitors.
“Each rose ceremony, there was an argument between Mike Fleiss and Lisa Levinson and ABC the community about which chicks, which ladies, ought to get roses and which ought to go house,” Carroll mentioned.
The Bachelor has achieved large rankings by way of the years and expanded with a full-on franchise that’s nonetheless going sturdy in the present day. Fleiss was finally pressured out over allegations of bullying and racism.
Darkish Facet of the 2000s airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on ViceTV.
