Halftime at “The Bachelorette”: The dating format has never been as interesting as this year

Halftime at “The Bachelorette”
The dating format has never been as interesting as this year

Recently, things have not been going well for RTL’s “Bachelor” formats. Despite having twice the male strength, “The Bachelors” reached a low point in ratings this year. And as a precaution, RTL showed the new season of “The Bachelorette” almost exclusively on its own streaming service (new episodes every Monday on RTL+). But now things seem to be changing.

Forced to think in new directions, RTL has broken the previously rock-solid, heteronormative boundaries of the format and cast Germany’s first bisexual Bachelorette, Stella Stegmann (27). For the first time, women and men are now competing for the same woman. However, the gender ratio is not balanced: Stella initially had 15 men to choose from, but only five women. RTL told the news agency spot on news: “The decisive factor here was not just gender, but much more the personality of the applicants and their compatibility with the Bachelorette.”

How differently do women and men flirt?

For the first time, the show allows us to observe the different dating behavior of men and women in the fight for a woman. Male show-off behavior, which fitness manager Markus (32) displays in every episode, clashes with female restraint, which gives social worker Leila (27) an unbeatable advantage in the latest episode. She is the only one who has been given a secret cell phone that she can use to write to Stella. There have never been such exceptions in the show before.

The mixed villa creates another level of tension. Theoretically, a couple could find each other there this year too. After all, the participants spend a lot more time together than with the Bachelorette, and fans of “Princess Charming” know the problem. Rapper Ferry (29) and service employee Emma (21) flirted so hard with each other that it became an inflammatory topic of conversation in the villa. And something could also develop between the women. Emma and dental assistant Akosua (21) recently impressively demonstrated on the pole dance pole that they are not averse to each other.

Stella shakes up concepts of values

It’s good that the main character Stella doesn’t have a problem with jealousy. She emphasized from the beginning that she could imagine an open relationship and thereby caused some of the men’s (men’s only) value concepts to waver. In general, it is interesting to observe how different the level of knowledge is between queer women and (mainly) heterosexual men when it comes to topics such as relationship types and sexuality. While the queers immediately know what terms like polyamory and pansexuality mean, some of the men can’t even say the word “heteronormative” (Martin, 35: “Heteronormal?”).

In fact, the men were apparently not aware that this year there were also women in the competition, as RTL confirmed to spot on news. The arrival of the competitors was a shock for everyone, which led to some interesting short-circuits: Soldier Bennett (27) immediately declared the season the “season of political correctness” because of the female participants and made it clear that he had not applied for it. He did not have to struggle with it for long, Stella voted him out on the first night of roses. It was also Bennett who, after an escalated discussion about the term “mentally ill”, claimed that there had been no arguments with heterosexual women. As a viewer, you get the feeling that he was the problem. The atmosphere in the villa has definitely been more sensitive, relaxed and open since Bennett was kicked out than in the pure “bro villas” before.

Some men also show bi-interest

Bullet point loosely – here too, the show’s new queerness helps. Without Stella’s bisexuality as a constant theme, Ferry would probably not have come out as bi-interested. And it is doubtful that marketing manager Erik (30) would have danced by the pool as “Lieutenant Sexy” with a whip in a men-only villa and admitted that he would like to explore his submissive side more. The fact that Stella also has little to do with stereotypical male attributes is shown by the usual favorite, sales manager Devin (28). Of all the men, he is the least of the typical masculine type – and received his first kiss halfway through the show. Men can still learn something this way: For example, that it is quite promising to rely less on feigned self-confidence and more on honest feelings and insecurities.

On social media, all of these components are creating a renewed interest in the format. Reaction videos, such as those by YouTuber Silvi Carlsson, for the respective episodes receive more than 100,000 views in a week. By comparison, a video from 2022 from the official Bachelorette channel has not even collected 90,000 views in two years. RTL also confirmed the renewed interest to spot on news: “Compared to the last season, we have seen significantly higher activity, which is reflected overall in a higher social buzz.”

Maybe the channel should have looked for a bisexual bachelorette earlier – because the format has never been more entertaining, exciting and loving.

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