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July 6, 2008 | Happy Birthday, America! I guess you're probably feeling your age this year, huh? Well, it's true, you're not nearly as young or as cool as you used to be before they paved over your amber waves of grain to put up five-bedroom, eight-bathroom McMansions. Your gas and food prices skyrocket while the value of your homes spirals downward. Meanwhile, your citizens refuse to distract themselves with idiotic new dances and high-grade cocaine like they did back in the '70s.

Have you lost your mojo once and for all, buddy? I thought the Iraq war was supposed to make you feel sexy again. It worked at first -- all of those big, pretty explosions over Baghdad were like Jägermeister for the red-blooded American soul. So how did all that fun devolve into dusty, lukewarm kabobs and homemade explosives?

But let's not think about that now, America. Let's try to be positive. It's your birthday, after all! Put out your cigarette and come inside. The cake is ready, and everyone's waiting to sing Happy Birthday. Of course they'll snipe about how tired and fat you looked as they're driving home. But for just a second, put on a big, fake smile and suspend your disbelief, OK?

After all, what could be more American than that?

Snatchlorette!
I'll tell you what's more American than that: "The Bachelorette" finale (8 p.m. Monday, July 7, on ABC), a television event that features more big, fake smiles and suspension of disbelief than any other.

And that's good, because we Americans need something sickly sweet and insipid to take our minds off our personal budget crises and burgeoning credit card debts. We need to see a pretty young woman (DeAnna, the Bachelorette herself!) filled with hope -- that naive flavor of hope we had a long, long time ago, before our mortgages went upside-down and our minds and bodies were annihilated by a steady intake of Two Buck Chuck and Awesome Blossoms.

Even though the whole thing is an elaborate farce, like when Princess Diana put on several miles of white silk taffeta and paraded into St. Paul's Cathedral, blinking her long lashes and flashing her already-trademarked Shy Smile like she meant it, like she actually wanted to marry that pudwhacker, we're still ready to gasp and smile along with the latest promotional sweetheart. After all, Diana glowed like a bride for us, not for herself, since she knew she was likely to spend her married life pacing through the lonely halls of Buckingham Palace hating on the queen, wondering where her dumb nerd husband disappeared to with Camilla, and daydreaming about chocolate eclairs. She glowed for us, and we repaid her with that unnatural, obsessive fandom that eventually disintegrates into unvarnished scorn.

Similarly, DeAnna beams and flashes bleached teeth at us not because she's really anxious to marry Jesse, the professional snowboarder who irritatingly refers to his hometown of Breckenridge, Colo., as "Breck," as if the entire ski town is a good bro of his. DeAnna knows, like we know, that Jesse is caught up in the chase, and the chase makes him think he loves DeAnna even more than he loves "shredding" (and well, huh huh, needless to say, he never thought that was even possible, dude!). DeAnna doesn't sigh deeply and smile coyly because she's dying to marry Jason, the nice, slightly dorky divorced guy who apparently shares custody of his 2-year-old son with his ex-wife, a little fact that the producers seem to be downplaying, lest it squat on our glorious vision of wedding bells and true love that springs eternal, unblemished by pain-in-the-ass co-parenting scenarios. DeAnna knows, like we know, that Jason is caught up in the chase, and the chase makes him think that DeAnna is just as important to him as his adorable son is -- with the added bonus that DeAnna, unlike his son, has nothing whatsoever to do with his ex-wife. Not yet, anyway!

Luckily, since this is "The Bachelorette" and not "The Bachelor," it will actually end with a big, splashy, ill-considered wedding. Why? Because men who have to fight over a woman end up pretty certain that they're madly in love with that woman. And if, in the heat of the chase, at that peak moment of vulnerability, they're asked to get down on one knee with a big diamond ring and propose, they'll happily do so (particularly when the diamond ring is free!), even when they've been warned several times that they might be rejected by their dream girl as all of America looks on.

OK, maybe no one is warning them about that. Maybe they're just reminding us, the viewers at home, about it, as they show us teaser shots of both Jesse and Jason bending down on one knee, ring in hand. Suckers. (I think one of them actually has the ring box open, with the ring clearly displayed, as he's kneeling down. Did DeBeers make him do that?) This is the modern version of the circus freak show: "Which of these men will get his heart smashed to bits before your very eyes?"

Please note, though, that while men who fight for a woman end up demeaning themselves thusly, men who are fought over by a bunch of women end up pretty certain that they should go out there and get laid as much as humanly possible, since chicks seem to dig them so much. This is why "The Bachelor" ends not with a diamond ring, but with a flinchy hug and a pledge to "get to know each other better," the sort of halfhearted exchange that results in a three-month relationship at best, during which the Bachelor pines for all of the hot sluts who approach him in bars and restaurants and beg to service him sexually, preferably in the nearest available restroom stall.

So whether DeAnna spends the balance of her days with "Breck," bored out of her skull (since, not surprisingly, Jesse's best bud of a town turns out to have the sparkling personality of a slightly drunk ski bum after a day of shredding), or spends the balance of her days bickering with Jason's ex-wife about how to raise their 2-year-old (who, not surprisingly, says less cute stuff and throws himself facedown onto the floor far more often when the cameras aren't rolling), it hardly matters. Either way, DeAnna will be trapped, just as trapped as the rest of us!

Hurray for true love! Hurray for "The Bachelorette"! Hurray for America!

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