Nick Viall - Bachelor 21 - Episode 9 Feb 27 - *Sleuthing Spoilers*

MiaHawk wrote:

notarose wrote:Oops, I was the one who began the convo by pointing out the edit which included Rachel's HTD focus on her church and interracial relations - we know more things happened since he was with her for many hours however that is where the edit went.
To clarify, my interest in is tptb's choice of footage in shaping public perception of the new Bette. HTD and FS airing is after the public was made aware of her new role so IMO what is shown in each is the beginnings of her storyboard for next season.

Not intended by me as commentary on Rachel as a religious practitioner . More intrigued by the direction tptb may be heading in packaging Rachel.

I think it is interesting that they highlighted Rachel's family and their acceptance of inter-racial couples, including the sister and BIL's marriage. I thought that this portion of her HTD was very well done, and showed honest and frank conversation about "the elephant in the room". I really enjoyed hearing her family's concerns and input on the subject. I think this showed that while  being open to all men who might enter Rachel's life, they are not unaware of the challenges that they might bring.  They touched upon the fact that while individuals in their family may not care about an inter-racial relationship, there still are others in society who may push back against it. Again, I really liked the conversations shown.

As to the footage of Nick and Rachel at her church, my take away wasn't so much that they were presenting Rachel as a church going Christian, somebody of a certain moral code, or someone who has a particular view of sex. None of those things came to my mind while I was watching. And, I think that each viewer, through their own personal lens would interpret this differently, perhaps. What entered my mind while watching that footage was seeing Nick being immersed into a different community of people, one predominantly of a race different than his. I think that they were contrasting the cultural differences between a black congregation's service with the type of service that Nick is accustomed to in his (assumedly) white/mixed congregation. There is absolutely no denying to me that there are stylistic differences  between services. Things like music, singing, sermons all vary from church to church, but there is a stylistic difference in black versus white/mixed congregations. One is not better than the other. They are just different. I think that by putting Nick into this unfamiliar setting for a familiar activity it was to see how he would react to it. Would he embrace it? Would he shy away from discomfort of being "the outsider"? I was focused on that aspect when I was watching that footage. I actually think that the church footage was a very good way to illustrate that while some of their foundations may be the same, the way in which those foundations have been expressed may be very different. JMHOAA.

Also, I really, really hope that going forward into Rachel's season that we are all able to maturely discuss topics without giving or taking insult. We all have our own thoughts, ideas, opinions, personal experiences and biases, but that shouldn't stop us from  being able to exchange them. Hopefully we can learn from one another. I guess I would just hope that we can be gentle with one another as we discuss difficult topics and use Rachel's family as a good example of that. JMHOAA.