The Bachelor would be better off if it dumped Chris Harrison

Vulture

Harrison was 30 when The Bachelor premiered in 2002. He was about the same age as The Bachelors. But at age 46, Harrison has been struggling to keep up with his "host-as-pal" persona. He seems more concerned with The Bachelor franchise, and not The Bachelor himself -- or as Willa Paskin put in her review of Monday's finale, Harrison is "an emotional succubus posing as an empath.” Indeed, as Kathryn VanArendonk notes, Harrison is "a man whose onscreen personality has long since been scooped out and replaced with corporate-speak and a burning desire for better ratings and social-media engagement. He is a human-shaped instantiation of network notes." She adds that Harrison's approach to The Bachelor is stuck in 2002, and needs a shakeup. "His tone, his demeanor, and his transparent pleasure at hyping a calamitous breakup have become the embodied tone of The Bachelor," she says. "Outside, it’s all solicitous worry for the people involved. Inside, it’s a complete contempt for the softies who think maybe you shouldn’t, say, cast racist suitors for the first black Bachelorette. If Harrison is a puppet, what I’m arguing is that the strings are now way too visible."

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