Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1499757
14 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 21 MAY 2023 NEWS "SEX on the TV, everybody's at it," sang Damon Albarn in Blur's End Of A Century, a dirge to the silent, evening TV interaction of growing couple. "He gives her a cuddle, they're glowin' in a huddle. Goodnight TV..." And yes, here we are – at the end of a week of non-stop tuning in to Love Island Malta, its promises of steamy coupling taking the island by storm, draining the office watercooler, dominating Maltese meme-mery and break- ing the Facebook feed. Oh, and what was that other Blur song? "Girls who want boys, who like boys to be girls, who do boys like they're girls..." – yet love on TVM's hit programme (160,000 tuned in on the first night of Love Island Malta) is anything but the stodgy 1990s of monotonous monogamy. For the first time, Malta is seeing its youngest generation revealing how love and dating works. Malta is the latest market to join the dated Love Island franchise. The British version has had its dark side played out – toxic culture drove some post-Island celebs to suicide; from beginning to end, the for- mula will create heroes and villains, and the gentle, sweet coupling we saw this week will be short-circuited by 'bomb- shells' gradually inserted into the show, testing loyalties and emotions, all for the quest of a €20,000 prize. Money – not love – of course, is the bottom line of Love Island or any reality TV contest. TVM and producers Media Exclusive reap the bounty of advertisers lining up for their widest ever exposure on national TV; the contestants willingly participate in being scrutinised, to win the cash, and us the willing public, get to enjoy this gentle, saccha- rine-sweet purge, to cast judge- ment on sins and doubts con- fessed in private, to mock and celebrate. Never has the Maltese TV public been as engrossed in the lives of others as now. But set aside the exuberance. Love Island is only the last of so many iterations of reality TV. When cable TV came to Malta in the early 90s, MTV was air- ing The Real World: "This is the true story… of seven strangers… picked to live in a house... to find out what happens… when peo- ple stop being polite… and start getting real… The Real World." Then came Big Brother, and I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! Bung up strangers into a small space of focused adver- sity and forced performance, and watch them tear each other apart. 30 years going strong, this TV formula never disappoints. The gaze The critics on Facebook think they are saving their skin when they tut-tut at the brashness of the confident Dales, Kyles and Svens. But are they reeling in horror and switching off the box, or do they revel in the thrill of watching over these objects of desire? It is thanks to one French thinker particularly, whose His- tory of Sexuality in 1976 fun- nelled the history of capitalism and European society through the 'invention' of "sexuality" – that is, a relationship of power that conditions all of us – that we can understand the pleasure and punishment of Love Island. "Foucault essentially shows how, after the social repression of sex of Victorian times, more people started talking liberally about sex. This assumed liberty makes us feel we are no longer under the thumb of this repres- sive power," says Dr Kurt Borg, a lecturer in political science at the University of Malta. "But Foucault says we are still caught up in the trap of the 'gaze' – the appeal of watching and being watched – and this is the same discourse inside Love Island." Borg says reality game shows like Big Brother or Love Island, play to the gaze, which condi- tions the way people act, and because it is linked to pleasure, these participants enjoy being watched. "It works – just like the Catholic confessional in which we eagerly tell our private sins for the reward of forgiveness – the Love Island participants are willing to confess their desires to us, and we enjoy hearing it, a pleasure that will lead to a prize, or redemption." Borg is instantly mistrustful of the moral outrage and paternal- ism of so many critics on Face- book. "I won't knock the sex positivity of these participants – on one level, it is excellent. But without wanting to over-the- orise, they might believe they are emancipated in this dating game, but the pleasure they pursue is one where their bod- 20-year somethings in bathing costumes, positivity getting ready to MATTHEW VELLA flicks off the moral explore the conversation in Malta on the viewers, in this new entertainment crazy little thing The show about sex we always wanted (but were too afraid to ask for)* "The sexual element of sculpted bodies, the way youths conceive of sex and dating shows us they've been looking outwards. Their confidence is this TV formula's strength – even though Love Island perpetuates a very formulaic and normative notion of 'fuckability'."