Emily Maddick
As my mega LI fan friend says:
“Whenever Love Island starts, me and my girlfriends become so aware of our bodies – because we’re spending all our time watching all these gorgeous tiny petite girls on the show. As it’s the summer, you then go away on holiday and it’s always in the back of your mind. It makes you feel shit about yourself.”
And the show’s poor track record on diversity, applies to other forms of representation too. Despite the inclusion of a deaf contestant, Tasha Ghouri in 2022 and 2021’s Hugo Hammond who was born with a clubbed foot, there has never been any other form of disability representation. No LGBTQ+ representation either, which producers have said in the past when challenged, would be “difficult” because of the “logistical element”. Because that’s progression isn’t it? Seeing the LGBTQ+ community as a difficulty.
And finally, there’s the actual nuts and bolts of the show too: the ‘gamification’ of relationships, love and feelings. In the disposable world of dating apps we live in, what does this do to the young minds forming their first impressions of how to go out into the world to interact with potential romantic partners? Language such as “Recoupling ceremonies”, “Unfinished Business” and ‘Heartrate Challenges’ come across as really unhealthy.
Plus the gamification tends to be overtly sexist too. I was absolutely flabbergasted to see this season when they played “The Kissing Challenge” (yes, “The Kissing Challenge” folks) that it was the women who were rated on their style (“too sloppy” “too much tongue” “not enough tongue”) as they lined up one by one to snog the men, who were blindfolded and wearing noise-cancelling headphones. How is this equality? Where is the feminist, empowering messaging here? Where are the men being judged on their snogging skills? Why is it the women having to perform? And why are the women being pitted against each other?
ITV
The show’s legion of fans all tell me that Love Island is brilliant and beautiful because it showcases human emotions, chemistry, relationship ups and downs and our universally shared desire for love. (Although, call me cynical, but this argument somewhat loses its sheen when you read that according to a new QRFY study out this month, just 13 couples remain together out of the 352 contestants to date and that the UK show only has a 7.4% success rate.)
Another friend tells me she loves watching it with her 15-year-old daughter as a bonding experience and discussing behaviour types and the relationship conundrums that come up and how they would have reacted in that scenario.
But I worry that Love Island simply serves to reinforce all the outdated and dangerous stereotypes in our society that we are so urgently trying to move away from, fuelled by our innate human desire for voyeurism, drama and gossip. Here’s hoping that next season, the show surprises us and there’s real change in the show’s format, but somehow I fear it won’t, despite all my passionate protestations!