November 30, 2018

"The concept is admittedly shallow and heteronormative, verging on dystopian."

"One of the greatest joys of my life is watching the British reality television program 'Love Island,' a daily show in which six men and six women are placed in a luxury island villa, filmed constantly and encouraged to fall in love. The couple that wins the heart of the United Kingdom wins 50,000 British pounds."

From "Marooned on ‘Love Island’/When a medical crisis asks a young woman to confront the messier aspects of love, she plunges into a reality TV version of romance" (NYT).

24 comments:

Mr. Groovington said...

Completely twisted if you’re playing to win. Otherwise, as long as you can fuck, why not.

rehajm said...

Tattoo Fixers and Countdown are my got to British programming at the moment.

Fernandinande said...

heteronormative, verging on dystopian

Good idea.

Darrell said...

It's the UK. I'm sure gays are factored in. I can't name a Brit show where they aren't.

Ralph L said...

If the show becomes sexually diverse, the editors are more at risk of fatal wrongthink.

Does it run long enough for the fake ovarian cysts to develop?

Leland said...

I guess something has to make up for the slaughtered cash cow that was Top Gear.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

I loathe the term “heteronormative.” Guess what: hetero is normal.

TrespassersW said...

Well, I know which segment of Sturgeon's Revelation* this show falls into.

* "I repeat Sturgeon's Revelation, which was wrung out of me after twenty years of wearying defense of science fiction against attacks of people who used the worst examples of the field for ammunition, and whose conclusion was that ninety percent of SF is crud. Using the same standards that categorize 90% of science fiction as trash, crud, or crap, it can be argued that 90% of film, literature, consumer goods, etc. is crap. In other words, the claim (or fact) that 90% of science fiction is crap is ultimately uninformative, because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other artforms." - Ted Sturgeon

Tina Trent said...

A beautiful essay. Only those words grate.

Kevin said...

"The concept is admittedly shallow and heteronormative, verging on dystopian."

Was shallow thrown in with heteronormative and dystopian so Lakisha would know they mean bad?

Jupiter said...

"One of the greatest joys of my life is watching the British reality television program “Love Island,”

I sure hope that she was just really hard up for an opening sentence.

gilbar said...

normalnormative is as big an evil as orthonormative which is as big an evil as heteronormative.

ALL people Must be different:
it is Vital that they are all different the right way

Temujin said...

We are doomed as a species. I feel lucky to have seen both the peak of human evolution and the end.

LordSomber said...

"encouraged to fall in love"

I don't think that's how love works, but then again, we're talking about the UK.

Wince said...

At this juncture, what's the point of watching any of these shows if they are not all naked?

Anonymous said...

was this the Brit show where one of the players was a transwoman, put there to make a statement. One of the males said that he only kissed women with vaginas which set off a social media storm...

Ken B said...

The joyful dystopia.

Comanche Voter said...

While visting my daughter in London earlier this year, I caught a couple of episodes of Love Island. And yes, one of the shows involved a couple of gay guys getting around to getting it on. One guy was pretty butch, the other was classic femme.

The other involved an aging and overmade up cougar. But she was having a good time.

Of course you have to have subplots, and the "love island hotel" has a permanent staff, and there's usually something cooking in the kitchen, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

Scott M said...

How, exactly, does it qualify as anything remotely dystopian? The losers aren't tortured or killed or sent into the Wilds.

Ralph L said...

there's usually something cooking in the kitchen

What is it about restaurants and sex? Is it because after standing for hours, the slightest rush of blood southward removes most of it from their brains? Or is it similar to the strong bonding of men in combat?

gilbar said...

The Drill SGT said...
was this the Brit show where one of the players was a transwoman, put there to make a statement. One of the males said that he only kissed women with vaginas which set off a social media storm...

If a male said that he only kissed (was only attracted to) women with curly red hair, would That set off a social media storm now?

William said...

Here's an idea for a reality show I've been trying to get off the ground. Takes the names of various luxury resorts--Scottish fishing lodges, Caribbean island resorts, Swiss skiing chalets'etc-- and put them in a drum. Then take the names of varied accomplished chefs--Sushi, Cantonese, BBQ, French haute cuisine,etc--and put them in a drum. Then take the names of attractive women of various types--Hooter waitresses, Victoria Secret models, Brazilian bikini contest winners, pornstars etc--and put those names in a drum. Then draw one name out of each drum and make them team up. Each team will have one week to gratify my every sensual need. Next week it will be onto a different team. At the end of the year I will declare the winner......What makes the show work would be the odd pairings and my reaction to their efforts to please me. The show would only work with me as the focal point. I'm trying to get a Gofundme page going to finance the first two or three seasons. It will need a few seasons to find its audience,

PM said...

This conforms to my Lifeboat Theory of Love in which humans are hardwired to pair off regardless of how small the sample size.

JaimeRoberto said...

If hetero weren't normative, or at least normal, the species wouldn't have survived.