The unlikely TV hit of the year
She knows it’s trashy reality TV, but there are good reasons intelligent viewers are glued to it, argues Elizabeth Day
Istarted watching Love Island by accident. I was sitting on the sofa this time last year, idly thumbing the remote control, when I stumbled across several women in bikinis on ITV2. They were standing on podiums, like performing seals, and were being encouraged to “step forward” if they liked the look of a certain man. The men would come on one by one, bronzed and tattooed, their pectoral muscles so defined that they deserved their own entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Well, I thought, this looks thoroughly awful. How trashy, I told myself, I should switch over right now and tune into an edifying documentary on BBC Four about steam trains. But I didn’t.
It wasn’t the skimpy swimwear or the muscled masculinity I was drawn to. It was the intriguing range of emotions that I felt every time a man walked on. They were almost always cocky, and would talk confidently about how great they were in the introductory videotape. But then they stood nervously on the edge of an azure swimming pool, eyeing up the women on the other side, and there would be a heart-stopping few seconds when no one was stepping forward to claim him, and you could see a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes.
The television cameras would zoom in as a light sweat broke out across his brow. You could see him thinking, “Oh, maybe I’m not God’s gift to womankind after all. Maybe this is like that time at school when I wasn’t picked to be on anyone’s team for sports day.” And then, just as his entire sense of self started to disintegrate on the side of that pool, someone would step forward – and the relief would be tangible.
It was that tiny but telling moment of human vulnerability that really got me hooked. Because we’ve all been there. We’ve all been passed over by the boy or girl we like. We’ve all worried about not being popular enough. We’ve all tried to act more confidently than we feel. We have all been Love Island.
I soon became addicted and was roundly derided by most people for my Love Island obsession. Apart from my boyfriend (and, fabulously, his mother), hardly anyone I knew seemed to be watching. They treated my interest with mild disdain, and dismissed Love Island as just another trashy reality TV show.
On paper, it sounds risible: for seven weeks, a bunch of total strangers are plonked in a telegenic holiday villa (this year, it’s in Majorca). They are encouraged to “couple-up” with other contestants, which involves sharing a bed and possibly allowing romance to develop, while the public votes to keep their favourite pairing in the villa. Those with the fewest votes are kicked out by their fellow housemates. The last couple standing scoops a £50,000 cash prize.
This year, my former critics have seen the light. We’re now four weeks in to the new series, and almost everyone I know is watching. People who never previously realised that ITV2 existed have been flocking in their droves to tune in at 9pm every weeknight. The British and Irish Lions are watching it to relax between Tests, and last week, my phone kept beeping with texts along the lines of “OMG, I need to talk about Love Island”, each one sent by serious, fully functioning adults in their thirties. A friend has even set up a Whatsapp group purely so we can exchange our thoughts on the programme as it airs. On Monday, the show attracted 2.2million viewers – an all-time high.
I suspect that this is partly explained by the depressing and stressful nature of real life. The news has been particularly grim of late, from terrorist attacks in London and Manchester to the Grenfell Tower fire. The general election has left us in a soup of uncertainty, and no one knows what’s going to happen with Brexit. It’s as if we need escapism like never before. Being able to spend an hour watching good-looking people frolic in a sun-dappled holiday villa every night suddenly seems like bliss.
There are several reasons to adore Love Island 2017. The first is Camilla. She is rumoured to have once dated Prince Harry, and is the poshest Love Island contestant ever. She clears landmines in former warzones for a living. Camilla is kind and reserved and has conversations about feminism.
When the house played a game last week involving bitchy things that the contestants had said about each other, the only one who hadn’t said a single mean-spirited remark was Camilla. Camilla has just been dumped by Jonny (a pathetic, swivel-eyed wastrel of a man), but handled it with such grace that the entire internet swooned and her name trended on Twitter.
The only person I like as much as Camilla is Montana, who is bright and hilarious and also way too good for any of the male chumps in the villa. In fact, one of the most appealing things about this series has been the solidarity of the women in the face of provocation: they have mostly had each other’s backs, even when the men have tried to play them against each other.
Camilla and Montana, arguably the two most intelligent and naturally beautiful women in the villa, have as yet failed to meet a man capable of being their equal. But they have stayed true to themselves, realising that being on their own is preferable to being with someone who just isn’t good enough. It’s feminism in action. Part of me would love it if Montana and Camilla just coupled up together.
The second reason I love the
‘I was roundly derided by most people for my Love Island obsession, but now everyone watches’
programme is the Love Island lexicon, which has introduced me to expressions such as “melt” (a complete idiot), “muggy” (daft or unlikeable) and “pied off ” which means to be blatantly ignored or made to feel worthless.
But my attraction to Love Island also goes deeper. Superficially, it has all the tropes of traditional reality television. The women appear contractually obliged to wear the most revealing thong bikinis at all times, preferably with lots of extra straps that serve no purpose other than to frame a pair of pneumatic, silicon-enhanced breasts. The men are all called single syllable names like Dom or Chris or Kem and have biceps the size of bungalows and teeth so white that they can be spotted from outer space, like the Great Wall of China.
Yet it always surprises me how much the contestants genuinely want to find someone special. Sure, there’s a cash prize but, quite quickly, the most important thing becomes the need to connect with another human, to be understood by someone else on an intimate level. Most of the Love Island inhabitants are engaged on a quest to find “the one” and there’s an unexpectedly traditional flavour to the show.
Couples will often not have conjugal relations under the duvet for several weeks because they want to be sure of each other’s intentions. One of the contestants, Marcel, has just officially asked Gabby to be his girlfriend, and it was like something out of Jane Austen. Last year, there was even a special episode where everyone met each other’s parents. One couple from that season (Alex and Olivia) are now engaged.
Both the men and women on Love Island will talk frequently about wanting to meet someone in the villa who “gives me butterflies”, and not wanting “to put all my eggs in one basket” until they’re convinced the relationship is going to work.
When one of the female contestants, Liv, was caught kissing two boys in the space of 24 hours, everyone in the villa was very shocked and concerned that the right thing had to be done. Her paramour, Chris, opined that Liv needed to end the love triangle – “and make it into something that isn’t a triangle” – before musing over the lack of a two-sided shape with which to complete his metaphor.
According to his Love Island biography, Chris is “a golf clothing ambassador from Gloucestershire”. On screen, he has admitted to sleeping with 13 women. No one in the villa has derided this as a pathetic number for a modern-day reality TV star, even though it is (Marcel used to be in a band and has slept with 300).
But here’s the thing: unlike other reality TV shows, Love Island contestants actually make an effort to be nice to each other. The girls are supportive rather than bitchy. The boys are sweet rather than aggressive. They’re all united by a firm, unquestioning belief in the transformative power of love. (And a £50,000 cash prize. But mostly love.)
Trust me, in these difficult, dispiriting times, Love Island is the best thing on television. Don’t be a melt and just watch it.