It’s been a cool 11 years since the first and only time I watched any of the Bachelorette/Bachelor franchise. I only made it a few episodes into Ali Fedotowksy’s season in 2010, bowing out shortly after it was revealed that one of the contestants still had a girlfriend, which ended with the potential suitor in question limping away on crutches through some plants because he refused to answer to Ali? It was trash TV at its finest, but not the queer kind that I like.
Ordinarily, in the age of #MeToo and Times Up, people like Underwood would rarely be given such prime-time attention after such high-profile allegations of abuse. But what Underwood is banking on and benefitting from—and what GMA is happily handing him—is a freshly laundered reputation under the guise of queer acceptance.
