People know and love (or hate) Shepard Rose from Bravo’s Southern Charm, a show with almost two million weekly viewers about a group of wealthy friends from Charleston, SC. A main theme on the show is the fact that Shep cannot seem to commit to a girl, despite the fact that he is 37 years of age. He is your stereotypical bachelor that drinks more than enough for two people and quotes Shakespeare on the regular. Some find him charming and funny, and others perceive him as an arrogant asshole. So naturally, Shep recently received his own spinoff show on Bravo entitled RelationShep. The purpose of the show is to eventually have Shep settle down with a nice girl that he could potentially marry; a Bachelor-style show with a twist. The twist is that he will travel around the country with the help of his producer named Sarah and have his friends from LA to New York set him up with women that they know Shep will probably like, to eliminate the obvious mismatches that you see in the first few episodes of The Bachelor. You as the viewer believe that because it is his friends that are setting him up, he will be more successful in finding a life-long partner.
Essentially, every editing choice is made to make him look good and genuine, despite viewers seeing another very nasty side of him on Southern Charm. You see his large, perfect home with his two perfectly-in-love parents that just want the best for their son. “The best” apparently happens to be a high-class, white, beautiful, and charming young lady who will appease the judgmental southerners and fit the mold of what a southern wife should look like and how she should act.
In the end, you are lead to believe that he and the girl he chooses (who happens to be a 24 year old, high-class, white, well-traveled, diplomat’s daughter from Brooklyn) will live happily ever after, just like every other matchmaking show on television. As Pozner puts it, one woman will get “whisked away by a network-approved knight in shining Armani” (35). In reality, as opposed to on the reality show, he and the woman he chooses break up almost immediately after the show. You can read more about it here.
The Ethics of Immortality/ Digital Media and Culture/ Reality Television 