Jason Mesnick, ABC’s new pick for bachelor 2009, is the first single dad to hold the title of bachelor as the show’s 13th season begins. If you can’t remember him from the previous season with Deanna Pappas, he was the one sent home crying after his attempted proposal to the bachelorette during the finale of the show. So it seems that his season of the bachelor would be a promising one, considering he knows how it feels to be rejected, and finally gets vindicated with his own selection of 25 attractive adoring women vying for his affections. However, as I began to watch the show, my opinion of Jason Mesnick, and his overall likeability waned, and began to disappear totally as I watched the duration of this disaster.
In the beginning, you’re introduced to Jason as this emotional, caring, and child conscious single dad trying to make his way through the tumultuous sea of love. As a viewer I actually began to believe he was the person he displayed. I figured he was going to play the emotional sensitive type throughout the season considering how he was portrayed in the previous bachelorette, and I was pretty much correct in my assumptions. He takes many of the women out on single dates, and boast about how “amazing” each woman is plenty of times without really getting into why he feels this way, but instead pouring more sugar coated adjectives on top of each description. The emotional depth displayed here is uncanny. If there was ever an argument to Jason’s horrible acting skills, and lack of believable emotions, these short interview clips would be it. Then of course there’s the hilarious date with the blonde and oblivious Natalie in which Jason tries, with such strain and pained sentiment, to let her down slowly after he takes her out on a whirlwind date and bedazzles her with a beautiful diamond necklace. Way to bring down the axe slowly right?
How could we forget the ever so charming multiple make-outs with various contestants on the show just moments after a previous session with another contestant ended? Even though these displays were typical, it seemed unsettling that a single dad who is supposed to be emotionally mature and more selective considering his son, would exhibit such haphazard carnal behavior. Jason never even bats an eye as he goes in for another face sucking on a second round of dates with the rest of the women as the show winds down to his final selections.
My biggest pet peeve of the show, or one of them at least, was definitely Jason’s trite and annoying display of cliché movie acting when he goes in for a kiss determinedly interrupting Molly, Melissa, AND Jillian as they all try to put their growing feelings of infatuation into words. If there was ever a time to slowly caress a desperately emotional woman’s face and hear her express herself, that would be it! Instead, Jason does not even attempt to echo the women’s feelings or express anything like their emotional vulnerability to let them know he understands how they feel, but carelessly interrupts their entire train of thought for another delightful face sucking. Rewarding their candid openness with the one thing he was thinking about the whole time: sexual attraction. He consistently interrupts these women like a Neanderthalic oaf as they are expressing themselves to have his own needs gratified, and thus ruins my impression of him as a thoughtful, emotionally vulnerable single dad. Clearly The Bachelor 2009 is off to a great start!
If there were any more damage that could have possibly been done to ruin his image in my mind, and the public’s, it was definitely accomplished in the After the Final Rose show aired without a studio audience just 6 weeks (one week in TV land) after the bachelor proposed to Melissa during the final episode of his show. Not to mention this was also after he tearfully rejected Molly, and of course his agonizingly emotional displays were witnessed moments before Melissa was paraded onto the scene in New Zealand. As we left Jason and Melissa just a week before, they were happily enmeshed in the other proclaiming their feelings of love and endless devotion. It seemed as if this romance was off to a promising start as they both exclaimed how incredibly happy they both were together, and jumped in the pool with Jason’s son Ty. Knowing all too well what those first stages of bliss lead up to, I, for one, was not fooled in the slightest. As it has happened many times in my friends’ and my own personal relationships, those first few months of unadulterated happiness lead into reality checks and the comfortable phase. Inevitably someone is going to fart, make a stupid decision, and completely manifest their shortcomings for their significant other to weigh out these flaws for evaluating continual compatibility. I didn’t think Jason or Melissa would really end their fairytale whirlwind romance in a much anticipated Bachelor Wedding, but I never expected the whole show to end as horribly as it did.
Not only was it downright disturbing that a bachelor would break up with someone on national television with millions watching, but it was completely heartless. I don’t know if it was worse that he broke up with Melissa after proposing, or that he displayed the same believability in emotions throughout the breakup as he did in the proposal. How could anyone, being in that position before, knowingly cast aside someone (in such an obvious ploy for ratings) without at least warning Melissa first? Despite the internet rumors, I don’t believe she really knew Jason Mesnick was going to embarrass her so horribly on television during The Bachelor: After the Final Rose. I highly doubt any woman, with as much dignity as Melissa, would publicly humiliate herself by wearing the very engagement ring on her finger given to her by a man about to dump her, much less hugging him as they greeted, appearing on the show at all, and participating by accompany him in her own embarrassment. Not only did he heartlessly bring her on to the show without first warning her that he would dump her, but he formed his words and arguments in a way that completely absolved him from blame. He said that the chemistry had changed off the show and that the passion was gone. Its like he had a coward’s book of excuses that covered up his complete lack of trying with Melissa because he knew he had a back up in the ever patient and doting Molly. Of course viewers of the show can see evidence of said passion leaving if they remember the infamous Jason and Jillian hot tub scene. This scene is definitely one filled with passion as both participants in a very low lighted and cheesy attempt at romantic hot tub make-out was filmed and utilized for ABC’s ratings as well. If any viewers wanted Jason to pick a mate, it was definitely Jillian.
After that scene, I think the majority of the viewing population felt they both had such chemistry with each other, and of course Jillian was so bubbly and likable, so naturally the American public was cheering for her to win Jason Mesnick’s heart. Au Contraire! However, when the brilliant Jason Mesnick, bachelor 2009, sends Jillian away, he cites a lack of passion, and too much of a best friend feeling. Quite perplexing this bachelor has become! It was at this point the entire emotional displays of Jason Mesnick on this season’s The Bachelor felt more like a giant ploy for ratings, and an appeal to women who wanted a sensitive emotional guy to win, but instead got some bad acting intellectual void of a man clearly unable to comprehend just how devastating his emotional manipulations would feel to his victims. To me, his entire display was so over done, and poorly acted it was if he was trying to portray some completely devastated character without any substance or history as to why that character was actually devastated. His entire personality seems one of a person taking emotional cues from what he feels he is supposed to act out, instead of someone really feeling what he is displaying on his face. After he sent Jillian home, I could finally see through his emotional crybaby façade to find the vapid cowardly lost little boy inside Jason Mesnick’s body.
The final ax, and definitely the nail in his viewer likability’s coffin, was certainly the moment they brought the poor desperate and still-in-love Molly out to once again face Jason’s inexplicable ability to feign emotion in some attempt to appeal to the public. Just minutes after completely emotionally devastating Melissa, as she bravely held together the tears of embarrassment and pain, Jason makes his attempt on Molly’s own rejected affections by asking for a reconciliation. It is definitely obvious by this display how much emotion he truly felt for Melissa, and obvious by her description of Jason giving up and not wanting to fight for the relationship, that he is in fact a douche bag of immeasurable proportions. Not only did he fully lead Melissa to believe she was his one and only on the final show, but he completely blindsided her on national television on The Bachelor: After the Final Rose. His douchbaggery was definitely established in my mind as he began to humiliate her in front of millions without any chance to prepare herself, and then minutes later flippantly propose a relationship to a desperate and heartbroken Molly whom he also previously rejected in front of millions! This guy is definitely one who can’t make up his mind, and given the isolation and direct contact with only a select few women without outside influences of every day life, its easy to see how this can happen. However, Jason Mesnick completely lacks the dignity and tactfulness of other bachelors that at least attempted a relationship until the show was over giving the final participant discretion and privacy to end the relationship out of the public eye. I mean break-ups are horrible enough, but displaying the raw devastating emotion on television for all to see, and manipulating some unsuspecting woman’s tears while seconds later proposing to the already heartbroken runner up is just completely despicable. I guess its obvious why Jason Mesnick’s previous wife left him, but its still a shame she didn’t get to warn 25 the unsuspicious hopefuls before their entire farce was displayed for all to see.
Sources:
http://tvwatch.people.com/2009/02/24/the-bachelor-the-women-do-tell-all/
http://weblogs.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/blog/2009/03/the_bachelor_still_a_horses_ar.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29481521/
