this season is so indicative of the hard right shift in the usa, and the audience follows along
EDIT: since so many people are commenting the exact same things, let me clarify. i'm not a child, i am (almost) 26. i'm not new to reality tv in the slightest. my all time favorite show is vanderpump rules (which if anyone doesn't know is actually where ariana started!) i also loved big rich texas, antm, liuk, flavor of love, rpdr, and more growing up. i guess in this sub the one real crime is having empathy for what's happening on a show, and looking into the broader consequences of what we see play out on our screens. to give some more insight: i studied gender studies, childhood development, and psychology in school. probably because of the knowledge i gained from those courses i tend to see the concepts i learned about in a lot of reality tv. which honestly makes watching them a lot more interesting, but also can become irritating or even depressing when large swaths of people deny the existence of these things or simply deny that they have any merit at all. which is why i made this post. contrary to popular belief, i actually have really enjoyed this season and all the drama and discussions it has brought us. i also do not believe that the things we see happening in reality tv have no consequence whatsoever. usually it's a more zoomed in look at our actual reality that we live in every day, which can be pretty bleak. if you don't agree with looking into things that's okay, but it's also okay not to comment what has already been commented a bunch of times. scroll through, find someone you agree with, and like their comment instead! (p.s. i did unfortunately fully forget about caleb :/ sorry caleb! <3 i haven't seen caleb do anything i would say is disrespectful or shady, but he is a bit of a nothingburger so i unfortunately will not be voting for him to win :/ sorry caleb x2!)
honestly, all of the men this season have been beyond disrespectful in a way we haven't seen in love island in a while. usually in each season there will be one guy, maybe two, who is a complete dickhead and the entire audience hates them and thats it. this season there literally isn't one guy that i'm fully rooting for.
the things kc has said about aniya are just abhorrent. the way sincere has twisted women around all season is spooky as hell. corbin was so nasty about kenzie and the other women, zach is rude 95% of the time and then claims he's joking to avoid the backlash, bryce doesn't stand up for the women when the men are dogging them, not even TRINITY, gal was beyond weird to jen, dylan seems manipulative af. the only one of the men that i've never actively disliked is carl, and he's brand new. i have high hopes for him from what we've seen, but truly who knows.
not even just the men, but also the women have disappointed me. i love that it seems like they're all close and are leaning on each other for support, but there are just some things that they do that are so concerning to me.
for one, the way the girls all turned on mela in the beginning with her being mad at sincere and crying about him talking to sol. she tried to tell those girls (mainly aniya and bea if i remember correctly) that he was telling her one thing and then doing another, and they didn't care. bea was actually really callus about it the entire time she was there, and even after she left. then the way they so easily talk shit about each other to the men. i'm about the same age as them, and one thing you will never catch me or my girls doing is talking crazy about a woman to a man. literally the last thing i would ever do because men take that shit and run with it! they think because a woman has agreed with them they're 100% right and whichever girl they're mad at deserves the vitriol they throw at them.
also, the way kayda and jen were talking about kenzie was crazy. i understood jen's frustration since gal dumped her and then went and kissed kenzie, but they very quickly became sl*t shamey. saying she needs attention from men to survive on the show where you're supposed to explore multiple men was such crap. and the audience digs into her even worse! there's think piece after think piece about how kenzie needs to leave and she's the worst in the villa and truly, what did she do? she was honest with both jen AND dylan about exploring gal, which is quite literally what they all signed up to do, and you would think she got married and then slept with the best man the night of the wedding with the way the audience has reacted to it. even jen telling kenzie they wouldn't be friends in real life if she acted like that. like yeah, duh, this is love island! the only place in the world where its socially acceptable to talk to your friends man! like seriously, what are we doing here?
quick mention that zach saying melanie ruined her and sincere's reunion by being upset that he was fucking around on her made me want to bash my head in. like these men really truly do not have any respect for these women's feelings it is so sick and twisted.
and truly movie night killed me. like the boys watching some of the awful shit kc said about aniya, and then genuinely believing it's the same damn thing as aniya saying she was going to explore and kissing carl is the craziest fucking thing i've ever seen in my life. and it wasn't just kc, it was ALL of them! then you have amora and titi jumping in to side with the men and it's like, what the fuck is going on? aniya was allowed to be mad when kc brought back titi, idgaf what anyone says. and of course her girls were going to have her back watching her get hurt like that, but NONE of them said a word against titi until she opened her mouth to argue with them. and kc continues to try and lie and say they did, it's soooo frustrating. there is no double standard. if aniya brought back carl and kc came in single, all of those boys would be talking shit about her. they already did it to kenzie when she picked corbin during the love letters. so why aren't the girls allowed to be mad at kc?
i'm not even going to get into parmida and titi being rude to the villa girls when they came in because it's not even worth my time.
idk, truthfully i got really sad after movie night last night. mela's summer has been destroyed by a man that believes as long as he admits that he's a liar that makes it okay, and i really don't think any of the other women are better off. it is such a bleak look at the dating pool today and it's seriously fucked me up seeing this all take place. i hope when all the islanders leave they're okay mentally and physically and can grow as people, but i also really hope the women on this season get away from these men and find happiness in their lives, and eventually men that treat them right and care about their feelings