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

Knives Out review – Daniel Craig goes Columbo in Cluedo whodunnit

Craig grills an all-star lineup of suspects when a wealthy novelist is found dead in Rian Johnson’s sharp, country-house murder mystery R ian Johnson unsheathes an entertainingly nasty, if insubstantial detective mystery with his new film, Knives Out. Back in 2005, his debut movie Brick (a high-school thriller) paid tribute to the hardboiled noir genre. Now he does the same thing for cosy crime, although there is nothing that cosy about it. Knives Out has a country house full of frowning suspects, deadpan servants and smirking ne’er-do-wells and an amusing performance from Daniel Craig as Benoît Blanc, the brilliant amateur sleuth from Louisiana who annoys the hell out of one and all by smiling enigmatically, occasionally plinking a jarring high note on the piano during the drawing-room interrogation and pronouncing in his southern burr: “Ah suh-spect far-wuhl play!” Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2L0NKO4

Thirty Years of Adonis film review: sexually explicit gay drama mixes porn and pomposity

1/5 stars The line between soft-core porn and pompous art-house cinema grows ever finer in the seventh feature by writer, director and producer Danny Cheng Wan-cheung, also known as Scud. Intended as a philosophical statement about the meaninglessness of life, Thirty Years of Adonis instead comes across as a badly misjudged piece of sensationalist filmmaking. God’s Own Country review: gay love story set in the Yorkshire countryside The film revolves around aspiring gay actor Adonis Yang... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2qgQkop

Tracey Emin decorates Regent's Park and a celebration of Islamic creativity – the week in art

Emin and others survey the state of sculpture, Glenn Brown takes his decadent imagination to Newcastle and artists offer northern exposure – all in your weekly dispatch Frieze Sculpture Park Tracey Emin, Barry Flanagan and John Baldessari are among the artists decorating Regent’s Park with a free survey of the state of sculpture. • Regent’s Park, London , 4 July until 7 October. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2IDCpPV