Chris Harrison
The case of Chris Harrison may be the most interesting instance of cancel culture that we’ve seen unravel this year. For, Harrison himself wasn’t “cancelled” because he explicitly did something wrong, but instead, because he passionately defended someone else who did.
If you don’t know, for the past 19 years Chris Harrison has served as the host of the reality dating show The Bachelor and its ever-growing laundry list of spin-off series. And I’ll admit it — I’m a complete sucker for this sort of cringey reality TV, meaning I follow all of the happenings within #BachelorNation pretty closely.
Now, the most recent season of The Bachelor (which just wrapped in March) was historic within the franchise for a couple reasons — most notably, that it was the first time a Black man (Matt James) had been cast as the lead, or the bachelor in question. What came along with that momentous (and far, far too late) decision to portray greater diversity on our screens were not only many important conversations about race both woven into the storyline of the season and had by viewers looking in, but also greater scrutiny of the women contestants cast to vie for James’ heart.
And boy, were many of them hugely problematic.
Fans started following one contestant in particular, Rachael Kirkconnell, an early front-runner, and looking through her social media — only to find a whole slew of racially-insensitive, derogatory, and appropriative posts made or liked by Kirkconnell just a few years earlier. The TikTok below showcases some of the worst, including a claim that she used to “bully girls for liking Black guys” in high school, and photos of Kirkconnell dressing up and attending an “Old South plantation sorority party” (which glorified the Antebellum Era), appropriating Native American culture through various costumes, and supporting displays of the Confederate flag. And thus, due to her immensely harmful social media history, full of instances of prejudice and appropriation that simply no longer stand in 2020 (especially to the increasingly activist young generations that make up the The Bachelor's primary fan base), Kirkconnell was “cancelled” accordingly — or, should I say called out and held accountable.
In today's day and age of social media, we as young people are taught to be especially mindful of the things we're posting — mostly because it can impact future job prospects and the like. But, it's clearly not only employers that are monitoring and reviewing others' social media behavior. Everyday consumers are doing it too, probably so that they may feel more fully informed on someone in the public eye's background and values before offering up their support to them. And, once controversial or problematic posts are discovered, the (usually famous) person who created and published them often goes silent online for a while — possibly out of shock that people uncovered unsavory moments from their past, or to reflect, or, just to garner more time to formulate their apology statement and conjure up their next PR move. At least, that's exactly what we saw Kirkconnell do in the aftermath, here.
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Referencing the Antebellum party pictures in particular, Harrison said, “My guess? These girls got dressed up and went to a party and had a great time, they were 18 years old. Now, does that make it OK? I don’t know Rachel [Lindsay], you tell me. Were we all looking through [a “woke” 2021 lens] in 2018?” Here, he somehow wanted “grace” for Kirkconnell, without showing any empathy for Lindsay or communities of color. Harrison went on to invoke the phrase “woke police” a frankly annoying amount of times, essentially trying to claim that nowadays, people are “too sensitive,” too quick to cancel, and too focused on being “politically correct.” This rant even bled over into discussing whether we should “erase Lincoln and Washington because of what they stood for,” arguing that people today don’t give others “enough time” to become “woke enough” or “eloquent enough” to handle situations like this.
Disbelief. I sat at my computer in disbelief watching that interview play out, confused how someone could truly first believe and then publicly make those sorts of claims. And many others seemingly agreed, as Harrison’s “cancellation” post-interview was instantaneous, the backlash loud and unwavering.
The comment section under the interview exploded, with users exclaiming “Why is he acting like 2018 was 60 years ago?!” and “He worried so much about that girl getting cancelled that he cancelled himself.” People, like usual, also took to Twitter to express their frustration with Harrison, The Bachelor franchise, and the lack of anti-racism efforts in this country. There were calls for Chris Harrison to step down as host, and, too, a petition started to replace him moving forward. Some fans even vowed that they would not continue to tune in to the show unless serious changes toward equity and justice were made.
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Interestingly, on her podcast, Higher Learning, Lindsay shared that Harrison actually ended the Extra interview thinking that it went great for him. “When I finished that interview with Chris Harrison, he had no problems with it. He was fine. He texted me after, he appreciated the conversation. He was like, ‘Yeah, I'll probably get a little flack, but I thought it was great that we could disagree, but do it in a civil way,’” Lindsay explained.
It wasn’t until the next day, when people started talking, this backlash ensued, and his “cancellation” began that Harrison apologized to Lindsay and then issued a public apology on Instagram. In it, he re-affirmed that he was only asking for “grace” to be given to Kirkconnell, but didn’t realize that he was actually perpetuating racism in what he said. He also announced that he would be temporarily “stepping aside” from the franchise.
As far as cancel culture apologies go, Harrison’s was very typical. Like many celebrities who get “cancelled,” he only felt the need to reflect on his words and actions and apologize after people started calling for his career to be affected. Additionally, he “promise[d] to do better,” which is a very common, almost empty phrase used by “cancelled” celebrities to show that they want to change just enough not to be “cancelled” again or permanently lose their job. Without any actionable antiracist steps laid out, this apology felt very much like a placeholder, so that people could see that he “apologized,” move forward, get over it, and eventually forget that they were ever mad at him for defending a contestant’s unfavorable past.
Now, it’s also super important to note that Kirkconnell’s problematic photos and posts were not that far back on her social media pages to begin with. You’re telling me that no producer went back and vetted her Instagram and Twitter that thoroughly? I, for one, think otherwise — believing that some producer probably did see these posts, but, too, acting ignorantly towards their weight, didn’t see anything wrong with them. And that goes to show that this issue is bigger than just Kirkconnell or Harrison themselves. It’s institutionalized and ingrained within the fabric of the show. As many cultural commentators have pointed out, and Harrison’s “cancellation” has made only more evident, The Bachelor franchise (and other reality TV shows, and Hollywood in general) “has a race problem.” And Harrison himself even admitted that The Bachelor franchise could “do better” in terms of diversity, on and off the screen.
The franchise as a whole has always been formulated with the white, male gaze in mind — never accurately representing the diversity of America. Out of 41 total reasons, to date, there have only been three leads of color. There are most often primarily white, conventionally attractive contestants, and even if a contestant of color is cast, they are usually eliminated early on. This seeming discrimination even led to a class action suit in 2012, though it was eventually dismissed. Further, the producers of the show, along with the executives at its parent company, ABC, have time and time again appeared to not adequately background screen their casts, letting a number of problematic contestants onto their shows and, then, working to sanitize and cover up their words and actions once subsequent scandals arose.
Yet, still, there is a whole subsection of The Bachelor viewers (and Americans) who don’t see all that I just explained as an issue. During the height of Chris Harrison’s “cancellation" (AKA, in my mind, the time when he was negatively trending on Twitter amongst all the other more important American news) in fact, we saw an alarming amount of people actually rush to his defense. On Twitter, users blamed “liberal cancel culture” for Harrison’s demise, not his questionable claims and lack of accountability. They also spread an intense amount of hate toward the Extra interviewer, Rachel Lindsay, arguing that she caused Chris to have to step down from his role, which ultimately forced her to deactivate her Instagram account because of death threats and harassment.
And we see this playing out often in cancel culture. While the majority rushes to call a celebrity out, still, others show even more intense support toward them. Whether they truly support the person in question, or just simply hate cancel culture as a whole, I don’t know. But, it is interesting to see how these two very different sides in a “cancellation” debate manifest and begin to battle with one another.
Though he may still have some loyal followers, for Chris, things aren’t looking great in the long-term. He’s been removed from the tapings of at least the next two seasons of The Bachelorette, being replaced by two female hosts (and former Bachelorettes themselves), one a woman of color. However, the latest news to break is that he has also just hired a big-shot Hollywood lawyer to represent him amid all this controversy, ready to “tell the truth” about the franchise and possibly sue ABC in some fashion.
So, while there are small steps being taken to counteract the systemic racism deep within the franchise, I guess only time will tell if these problems will truly ever be duly addressed. However, without the “cancellation” of Chris Harrison, I really wonder if so many would even be talking about The Bachelor's racism problem at all? Its existed for 19 years, after all.