Love Island has captured the hearts of many, and though it is often labelled ‘Trash TV’, the number of viewers in the last 4 years has soared.
The show provides long-lasting entertainment, sex-appeal, excitement, and mouth-watering cliff-hangers that keep the audience on their toes. The drama is never-ending, the pulling of the hair, throwing drinks, ultimate betrayal at Casa Amor, brutal dumpings; and the bombshells ooze with flavour and sensuality, they really are a sight for sore eyes. While all of this releases a lot of serotonin for us viewers, there are a lot of issues that go alongside Love Island’s bliss.
Wait, this is fun to watch but..... What about me? Do I even look good enough to go on Love Island?
While it can be amusing to feast eyes on the Love Island contestants, who have always set a particularly high beauty standard; the unattainable levels of attraction have evidently had a negative impact on many viewers, particularly in areas that concern personal image and self-esteem.
Often, both the male and female contestants describe their ‘usual type’ – this mostly derives from physical attributes rather than emotional. In recent years, it has become apparent that most of the contestants are day-to-day models, Instagram influencers, pro-athletes or makeup enthusiasts, so the levels of beauty have an expected standard to uphold naturally.
This removes the normality of the entrance application to Love Island. Most of the contestants we see on the telly are not your average Steve or Mandy. Whilst the viewers have the power to judge how attractive the contestants really are, the simple fact that they are expected to look a certain way makes many question whether they could be good enough to even be on the show.
According to the Principles of Psychology, associating yourself with physically attractive people is seen as rewarding as they are ‘enjoyable to look at’ and somehow, make us feel better about ourselves. However, how does this really make us feel, knowing we may not be attractive enough for Love Island?
Is Love Island bad for my mental health?
The lack of body diversity is so profound, in a survey carried out by Student Beans, 85% of 16-24 year old viewers have voted that Love Island creates unrealistic standards for body image; it has increasingly affected many individuals in terms of their self-esteem and mental health.
The rise of depression and anxiety soared by 23%, ¼ of 18-24 year olds stated that they were suffering with suicidal thoughts and low self-esteem as a result of watching Love Island. According to mentalhealth.com, in 2019, 15% of the population had confessed that they were self-harming themselves as a result of concerns about their body image. It is also important to address the mental health issues the contestants face both on, and off the show. Love Island is known to have a history of mental health challenges, with two former contestants committing suicide (Mike Thalassitis and Sophie Gradon), and also the host Caroline Flack.
Love Island and political issues is bad but...how bad are we talking?
With the male contestants historically having the power to choose what female contestant they wanted to start their love island journey with, it has led to many problems of micro-aggressions, racial profiling and racially driven biases, such as the hypersexual standards and the fetishist commodities often aired on the show.
2020 contestant Rachel Finni recently filmed an interview with YouTube star and journalistic enthusiast Murad Merali, resurfacing the viral Instagram live (featuring four male contestants of that years Love Island crew) that she had been mocked specifically by her on-air lover Brad McClelland.
The star said that he "was only using her because he needed to stay on the show" and claimed she was "not even a bombshell."
Often bullying or public humiliation like this example tends to happen to black female contestants, such as Samira Mighty and Yewande Biala, who also experienced a profound level of racial bullying by trolls and flares of micro-aggressions from her former co-star Lucie Donlan.
As mentioned before, Love Island is infamous for having relative mental health challenges, but many contestants have recently stated that they do make an effort to support the contestants’ when they leave the show, and are encouraged to go to therapy. A topic that is rarely discussed is the toxic masculinity the show brings, The constant need to paint the men as the villains, and lack of accountability taken by the women is ridiculous, and also heart-breaking.
Love Island suffers with a plethora of issues, issues that have been discussed before but seem to be ignored. The ignorance of these challenges questions whether the producers of this show are considerate of the well-being of their viewers and contestants at all, and if this is not the case, is there really any point to continuing to air a show that brings a lot of pain and loss, in comparison to enjoyment and good engagement?
Edited by Imogen Bowlt
Picture Credit: Love Island Instagram page (@loveisland)