Matt James & Rachael Kirkconnell - Bachelor 25 - Discussion

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albean99 wrote:IMO, the show's GD was all about the "haunted" aspect and not the actual plantation history. Personally, I think the problem is more when an event is glorifying the time when slaves were used. I've toured many a plantation when I lived in Tennessee and I'm sure there could be a photo somewhere. I've also seen the slave quarters, including from former presidents, and found it very eye opening and it made me really think about the huge cost of running those beautiful homes (and I don't mean money). This is all JMO.

pavalygurl wrote:My family drove from PA to Fl for a "big" vacay one year when I was 10 or so.  I remember riding through SC and seeing black people picking cotton and being very upset thinking they were slaves.  My dad explained they may be day laborers or share croppers.  He was a union official and found the working conditions awful also.  We were Catholic and he was thrown out of a motel lobby in Ala. on our way home for asking about where we could go to Mass the next day.  It all made an indelible mark on me and to this day I still remember vivid details.  We saw plantations and such and thus began my awakening to all the sad/awful history there.  No place or time is perfect but I still cringe when any of these "traditions" are used for "entertainment".

blueblues wrote:@gabriele I am not American, and I hadn’t even heard of Antebellum parties until last month, so I may not understand this correctly, but it is my impression that this is a rather big yearly festivity in Wilmington that has nothing to do with celebrating pre-war life, other than the now banned presence of girls in hoop skirts at some of the events. IMO it was not wrong for Ashley to attend, while criticizing that practice as she said she did.

Like I said, without downplaying what Taylor has done it is important to recognize the sinister intent behind these outings and not just run with them without reflecting. Next thing we will probably hear about Rachel’s, Ivan’s and Matt’s old speeding tickets or fake IDs.
All JMO

@albean99 Yes, but guided tours on plantations seem to be a lot about teaching history these days, just like at concentration camps. My problem with the show is that they used it as a playground, without a single thought of the people who suffered and died there.
JMO

mbl wrote:@GuardianAngel Why do you think he went on the LCD with Michelle but not with Rachael? Do you think he cared more for Michelle?

I think he was realizing the situation he was in. I'm sure he knew going into this that he couldn't leave single. Now at that point the pressure is on. Maybe he wanted to quit. I don't think TPTB made him cancel the date.

If it was Michelle that he really cared for, why not take her to the end. Why let her go?

Like I said, if he really cared for Rachel, regardless of what happened with is father, he would have had that date and enjoyed getting to know her better.

I can't see any other lead that would have wanted to cancel the date of their chosen F1. They look forward to the LCD, he didn't? That tells me he had enough. jmo's

For me it all comes down to Matt never wanting to propose to anyone, I said that from the start. I wouldn't be surprised if that was a conversation he had before he signed the contract.

TPTB chose Matt because it was convenient for them to look good, because he was the popular Tyler's friend, and he himself was popular for being Tyler's friend, and they thought it would be a great season. jmo's

So far all it did was it brought out all the racists. Maybe that's a good thing as well.

I'm so disappointed in the ladies. By week 3-4 I had enough of them and it quickly circled the drain from there imo.

GuardianAngel wrote:

mbl wrote:@GuardianAngel Why do you think he went on the LCD with Michelle but not with Rachael? Do you think he cared more for Michelle?

I think he was realizing the situation he was in. I'm sure he knew going into this that he couldn't leave single. Now at that point the pressure is on. Maybe he wanted to quit. I don't think TPTB made him cancel the date.

If it was Michelle that he really cared for, why not take her to the end. Why let her go?

Like I said, if he really cared for Rachel, regardless of what happened with is father, he would have had that date and enjoyed getting to know her better.

I can't see any other lead that would have wanted to cancel the date of their chosen F1. They look forward to the LCD, he didn't? That tells me he had enough. jmo's

For me it all comes down to Matt never wanting to propose to anyone, I said that from the start. I wouldn't be surprised if that was a conversation he had before he signed the contract.

TPTB chose Matt because it was convenient for them to look good, because he was the popular Tyler's friend, and he himself was popular for being Tyler's friend, and they thought it would be a great season. jmo's

So far all it did was it brought out all the racists. Maybe that's a good thing as well.

I'm so disappointed in the ladies. By week 3-4 I had enough of them and it quickly circled the drain from there imo.

GREAT post @Guardianangel.

@GuardianAngel Why didn’t he cancel both LCDs and just go to Michelle’s room to break up with her?  Why spend the whole day/evening with a person you are breaking up with, but cancel on the one you are choosing? That doesn’t make sense to me. IMO

mbl wrote:@GuardianAngel Why didn’t he cancel both LCDs and just go to Michelle’s room to break up with her?  Why spend the whole day/evening with a person you are breaking up with, but cancel on the one you are choosing? That doesn’t make sense to me. IMO

Exactly! If someone is “your person” then when it’s tough is the time you’d want to spend with them just to decompress. I don’t believe Rachael has the emotional intelligence to have been able to deal with the heaviness of that situation. She was just focused on getting to the end.

@luvnunity I think his dad came after his LCD with Michelle. I can’t see him cancelling on Rachael because he doesn’t care about her but not canceling on Michelle. The only thing that makes sense to me is that his dad was brought in after Michelle’s LCD.

@mbl As per my post in the SC thread, there’s a video with Matt describing what was going on in the emotional scene. He mentioned a very vulnerable conversation that he had with “the women” he spoke i. Plural. That conversation was had on the same day as the meeting with Dad. He didn’t have his LCD with Rachael, so who did he have that conversation with? We have the SC from season preview of Michelle crying, and then there is footage of her they used on the farm GD of her completely disheveled saying, “I don’t want that.” She looks like she’s been crying long and hard at that point just like Matt did. I think that was all at the same time and on the day of his meeting with Dad.

@gabriele  You asked: Would a teacher have a hard time getting hired after being the lead with all the makeouts and FSs?

I think it depends where you are trying to get hired. In very conservative areas, it likely would not fly.

The bigger issue for me is the time off. It is very difficult for a teacher to take time off during the school year for anything other than a pregnancy, a medical reason, or military service. Sometimes I've seen teachers who have been with the school district for a number of years be able to get a week or two off for a honeymoon. If you get a prestigious fellowship, you might be able to pull it off. That's about it. In my school district, you would not be getting two months off to film a TV show. You would have to quit to do that. And if you quit during the school year, it's normally considered to be breaking contract, which has legal consequences in terms of getting hired again for the following school year. Of course, the rules and laws vary from place to place. I'm curious as to how Michelle handled it.

@Amethyst Thanks for the info. I think Michelle would make a great Bachelorette and didn’t realize it was a possibility as a teacher. I can see how getting the time off would be tough though. It’ll be interesting to see what Matt’s F4 do in the future.

@blueblues said:

it is my impression that this is a rather big yearly festivity in Wilmington that has nothing to do with celebrating pre-war life, other than the now banned presence of girls in hoop skirts at some of the events. IMO it was not wrong for Ashley to attend, while criticizing that practice as she said she did.

I wasn’t going to comment on this further but I think I need to. The Azalea Garden Tour is the main event of the Azalea Festival and these Garden Tours have and do take place at plantations. So, it isn’t really possible to say this Azalea Festival that Ashley Spivey spoke at  isn’t celebrating the Antebellum South or disassociate it from the Azalea Belles who dress in the hoop skirts and are prominent features at the Garden Tours.

Of the 3 gardens listed below from this tourist article in 2019 two are at plantations: Orton Plantation and Greenfield Park which was Greenfield Plantation.

The main event of the festival is the garden tour that highlights the Wilmington area’s most beautiful gardens.

The Azalea Festival began in 1948 as an idea of Dr. W. Houston Moore, M.D. Dr. Moore held a meeting in Wilmington’s Chamber of Commerce with leading civil club representatives to discuss and begin planning for the first Azalea Festival. The festival would take place in April 1948 and would serve the purpose of showcasing the beauty of the local gardens such as Airlie Gardens, Orton Gardens, and Greenfield Gardens. The first sidewalk show was also held in 1953 and has continued as a tradition since.

A unique tradition held by the Azalea Festival is the Belles. The belles are young ladies serve as hostesses and guides to the gardens in the area. They wear antebellum attire and serve as a traditional accent of the NC Azalea Festival. To become an Azalea Belle, one must apply for the position; however, precedence is given to those girls who are either daughters or granddaughters of Cape Fear Garden Club members. The number of belles needed for each year is dependent upon the size of the gardens in the tour.

https://islandlifenc.com/nc-azalea-festival/



As for plantation tourism from what I’ve read there have been some improvements but it sounds like they are rather minor. Except for a few they still center the white plantation owners in both how they conduct the tours and recount the history of slavery.

gabriele wrote:@Amethyst Thanks for the info. I think Michelle would make a great Bachelorette and didn’t realize it was a possibility as a teacher. I can see how getting the time off would be tough though. It’ll be interesting to see what Matt’s F4 do in the future.

I was giving it further thought. The easiest way to do it (at least in my state,) would be to quit for the year. You would do The Bachelor in the fall, and either the Bachelorette or Paradise in the spring or early summer. Pick up substitute teaching gigs as needed. Then seek a new teaching position for the following fall.

It may work somewhat differently where Michelle lives, but I think it's fair to say that walking away from your class during the school year is very much frowned upon.

I don't see any evidence that Airlie Gardens or Greenfield Gardens were ever associated with plantations. Instead, they are on a par with what might elsewhere be called arboretums (i.e. Minneapolis, MN,) conservatories, public gardens (i.e. Boston,) or Botanic Gardens (i.e. Brooklyn, N.Y.)

Orton Garderns used to be a part of a plantation, but is now private property and no longer associated with the Azalea Festival.

I go back and forth on the "Southern Belle" dresses. They are typical of the Victorian hoop-style dresses of the period that were also worn in England and Europe [the linked article states that southern women would often bring back dresses and patterns for dresses from their European travels.) The dresses seem to sometimes have more embellishment than the northern counterparts, but not always.

I think what you can say unequivocally is that these types of dresses were worn by professional class, well-to-do, and rich southerners, who may or may not have owned plantations or slaves. Fairly similar, but sometimes plainer, hooped dresses were also worn by northern women of the time.

http://projects.leadr.msu.edu/uniontodisunion/exhibits/show/the-history-of-the-southern-be/southern-belle-fashion

If nothing else, the photo and the associated event might be considered problematic for the young men who appear to be wearing Confederate military uniforms. However I can say that when Civil War battles are reenacted in the north, there are people who are playing the role of the Confederate soldiers. This doesn't mean that those people approve of the Confederacy or slavery, just that they are playing a historical role.

The American south has a complicated history with some benign and some problematic aspects. I'm not sure how you begin to unravel it. I think the current emphasis on getting rid of Confederate flags and statues of Confederate leaders is a good start.

I see the photos that Rachel was in as remnants of an earlier time and mentality that was not sensitive to the needs of black Americans. I think she unwittingly became a part of a larger conversation regarding racism in the U.S. I don't see her as a bad person any more than I see the photos of the Azalea Festival garden tour guides as being bad people. I think the photos have become a part of the larger conversation about what is or is not appropriate.