Skip to main content

From racism to trolling, Love Island is merely a reflection of real-life toxicity

The reality show is highly problematic, and attracts viewer complaints of all stripes. But one TV show can’t – and won’t – get to the root of bigger issues plaguing society

For just over a month now, Love Island (and therefore, Love Island discourse) has dominated the summer. Not since Take Me Out’s 2010s reign has a British reality dating show generated so much conversation, alternately heralded as the best thing on telly and condemned as the most controversial. As predictable as the fast fashion collaborations are the complaints, whether it be Tweeters drawing up petitions or viewers escalating their grumbles to Ofcom.

It goes without saying that Love Island, like any other reality show, is problematic. To date, the most complained about episode is from season four, when fan favourite Dani Dyer sobbed as she learned that the ex-girlfriend of her love interest Jack Fincham had joined the show. Ofcom received more than 2,500 complaints and the show was accused of “emotional manipulation”. And this week, after two years of forgoing the infamous postcard that caused such distress, it was brought back to spice up what has been a largely uneventful series. Producers showed images of castmate Teddy Soares kissing another woman during a challenge, despite spending most of his time in Casa Amor pining after Faye Winters. Watching Faye put her walls up once again, faced with the misrepresentation of his behaviour, was infuriating rather than entertaining.

Continue reading...

from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3lafwe6

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Degrees of separation: what connects Seinfeld to Steve Bannon?

From the US sitcom to the far-right rabble rouser, we go down the rabbit hole, thanks to the arrival of Jerry’s show on Netflix Seinfeld All 180 episodes of the 90s’ most misanthropic sitcom have arrived on Netflix, but not everyone is happy. Some viewers have complained that the new transfer puts Jerry Seinfeld ’s show in a different aspect ratio: from an older square format to widescreen … yada-yada … now the picture crops out some sight gags and just seems slightly bizarro . Motion impossible: fallout It’s not the first time modern technology has caused problems. HD TVs can make even visually stunning films look like cheap soap operas, through motion smoothing – a process to reduce blurring (good for on-screen sport). But Tom Cruise was there to save the day: in a slightly awkward 2018 video , he explained how to adjust TV settings to undo this flat fiasco. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3mr722c