A look back on the Love Island 2021 season

Over two million anticipating Brits tuned in to watch this year’s Love Island – the popular ITV reality show which sees the UK’s most attractive singletons spend an entire summer attempting to find love.

The glamorous Majorca villa opened its doors again this summer to welcome another round of beauties after a year hiatus due to Covid-19. But what did we make of this year’s show?

The casting of this year’s Love Island saw an improvement in inclusivity of different races, body types, and disabilities. However, there is still work to be done. We saw mixed race women like Sharon Gaffka and disabled contestant Hugo Hammond, who was born with a club foot, enter the villa.

While it is great to see the show are trying to increase representation of different ethnicities and body types, there is room for improvement. For instance, there were still no women on the show who represented mid-size or plus-size body shapes, with all female contestants sporting a toned tummy and legs.

The average woman in the UK is a size 16, yet most women on the show are visibly around four sizes smaller than this – leaving many viewers questioning how normal their bodies are and reinforcing the dangerously high body standards women struggle to live up to.

43% of the show’s audience are under the age of 30 and without the much-needed representation, many young people feel like outsiders in their own skin.

The cast of Love Island 2021 seemed familiar, appearing to be clones of those from prior seasons. Take finalist Toby – many compared him to 2018 contestant Wes and both earned themselves the 'womaniser' label for their respective series. While understanding the producers of Love Island want to preserve the authenticity of the show, introducing cast members with unique appearances and personalities would make it more interesting and enjoyable than watching imitators of past seasons.

The winners of this year’s show, Millie and Liam, were a favourite to win from the beginning of their romance. The couple went through a turbulent time after Liam’s unfaithfulness during the show’s ‘Casa Amour’ segment, which sees the male contestants leave the villa to be tempted by new single women. Despite this, the pair’s strong chemistry was visible on screen, and they were the only couple on this year’s show who stuck by each other through the challenges which faced them, making them deserving winners.

The show itself - while entertaining at times - did often feel like waiting for drama that never occurred.

The show is usually renowned for bust-ups, cattiness, and break ups, but this year’s contestants rarely argued, their relationships seemed ingenuine (with the strongest couple breaking up a few days before the final), and few scenes caught the viewers’ attention – this year primarily saw contestants chatting on the beanbags. While we should not take pleasure in the drama, is that not what reality TV is viewed for?

The future seasons of Love Island need to present a more diverse cast, or the show risks being crossed off all our must-watch lists. Is it time for a new reality show to hit the blocks next summer?

Edited by Hannah Youds