Week 7, The Diversity

So, I'm just gonna go ahead and begin this week's coverage with a rant. Maybe it's because I took the ill-advised approach of watching the episode directly on the heels of our World Cup loss to Belgium and couldn't fully appreciate Brussels' beauty; maybe it's because this week's episode was about as predictable as the outcome of a standard game of peekaboo; maybe I've just reached my saturation of the pouty, simpering face Andi makes after her shameless fishing for declarations of love pays dividends, but I think more than that, it's the program's continued white washing of anything even approaching diversity.

This disappointed face is equally as
applicable to Andi as it is to missing the
game winner.

Look, when Andi was selected as the next Bachelorette and people began to dance the proverbial Hora, I didn't exactly rejoice because at long last they had chosen a woman I could see myself in. because frankly, I'm just not that Jewish. I wasn't bat mitzvah'ed or married under a chuppah and I've, in fact, had to google the proper spelling of each of the Hebrew words tat appear in this post. But even for a girl like me, even for someone that spent 14 years in Episcopalian school and even more years eating bacon (not, like, constantly or anything - I sometimes take a break to go to work), the treatment of Andi's faith has rankled.

It's not so much that, despite her own affiliations, there seem to be no Jewish men amongst her suitors. I feel pretty confident that they at least cleared that with Andi before forcing these gentlemen to vie for her hand and my own husband looks like a walking Hitler Youth poster, so who am I to complain. But in last night's episode, we saw Andi and Josh light a candle in a church; we witnessed as she upheld the sanctity of a monastery; and even more galling, we watched her continue not to have the conversation about marital faith, how their children will be raised, whether or not they'll have a Christmas tree (so, you know, just the important things).

Okay...seductive widows of a certain age plus Morticia Addams

It's entirely possible that these scenes are captured in a heap of sensible life planning on the cutting room floor, but in an episode where they've let us see Andi as Demi Moore from ghost (which, actually I'm totally buying - and Chris as Patrick Swayze is also not too far of a stretch. You have to think that was some producer inside joke -  otherwise that was just too random), and as a seductive widow of a certain age (the only appropriate demographic for a black, long-sleeved sequined dress), I just wish they would also let us see her as a Jew.