Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1499757
15 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 21 MAY 2023 NEWS ies have been commercialised, gamed for profit, and of course it celebrates opposite-sex love only. They become a brand." Gen Z's tinderisation of love There is no doubt that Love Island's command of attention also reveals the priorities of its viewers, including those who claim to denounce it. "But they don't switch off the TV," Borg says. "At an unconscious lev- el, viewers tune in to its sexual titillation. And Foucault saw sexuality become the gateway mentality for European culture – everything goes through the body." Borg in fact places his finger on the thrill of older Maltese view- ers suddenly coming to terms with the way love works for Gen Z, a 'tinderisation' that has its visuals: the girls rate highly the male physique, fitness regimes, and tattoos. Nothing wrong in this unquestionable positivity on love and sex. But it exposes the gulf with the dating culture of yesteryear. "20 years ago this show would have been impossi- ble. For the first time we see a transformation: the sexual el- ement of sculpted bodies, and the way youths conceive of sex and dating shows us they have been looking outwards. Their confidence is this TV formula's strength – but critically, Love Island perpetuates a very for- mulaic and normative notion of 'fuckability'." Great bodies and unabashed confidence to hook up – may- be the 'envy' of critics reveals a deeper anxiety about a genera- tion they no longer understand, or whose pleasure they will nev- er get to experience. Maybe we weren't made for these times; or maybe we missed out on the promise of this new generation. Naturally enough for Dr Valerie Visanich, a senior lec- turer specialising in the sociolo- gy of emotions and visual sociol- ogy, Love Island offers fieldwork into this not-so-private spec- tacle of emotional and physical intimacy. But in this 'reality TV' pack- age, coupling is only a simula- tion of contemporary intimacy. "It highlights the pervasiveness of love or the 'sexual quick fix' in the heteronormative rep- resentations that dominate the media. It's fluid love – a casual- isation of intimate relationships, the commodification of love and sex, in the continuous search for personal fulfilment." Like Borg, Visanich points out the objectification of men and women in swimwear, crucial for the camera lens – our gaze – to inspect sexualised body parts, not the participants. "It perpet- uates their dehumanization... while we witness the double standards of spectators: social media hysteria and memes that verge on cyberbullying. The male Islanders are celebrated for their sexual prowess, the wom- en as unruly for demonstrating similar attributes, a situation which contrasts with the aspired cultural shift for greater gender equality in all aspects of life, in- cluding the display of intimacy and the expression of emotion- ality." Vilifying young, dangerous bodies Dr Maria Pisani, a youth work- er and University of Malta calls out those who robotically vilify these bright, young, dangerous bodies. "It would be easy to slide into moral panic, reflecting a well-trodden response to con- temporary youth culture – of every era going back millennia – but I honestly don't think this is useful." "It offers great opportunities for sociological inquiry and rais- es political questions... academ- ia should be talking about it too. The public response shows we should engage in a conversation, not a monologue, with young people and speak about issues that matter to them... gender relations, the commodification of sex, class issues and how they intersect with language." The Is- landers' liberal code-switching from Maltese to English, a ma- jor class signifier for Malta, evi- dently does not raise the Broad- casting Authority's dander as do minor transgressions of the broadcasting code. "The relationship between sex, class, and money is nothing new, so what, if anything, does Love Island tell us about our con- temporary historical moment?" Pisani asks. "To what degree, if at all, does Love Island reflect the values and ideals of contem- porary Maltese culture?" Be kind... they tell us Elsewhere on social media, the bonfire of vanities – about PBS's dumbing-down mainly – appears to be ignored. Pasti- zziposting on Facebook is steal- ing the show with memes cele- brating the mandibularly gifted Dale, his confidence and genial- ity. Dale's tiger-mama has even challenged his detractors online. Punch up, not down – these are teens and young adults. "Be kind," say the Love Island pro- ducers, even though all is fair in the world of profit-minded TV – love and hate. A psychologist has been enrolled to handle any frayed emotions: another con- fessor, this time to buffer the producers from any fallout on broken hearts, bruised self-im- age, unlikeability and... unfuck- ability. The horror stories from the UK show that negative trolling on social media has led contest- ants who were once chasing in- fluencer-status, into a dark spi- ral of anxiety and even suicide. We won't know as yet what the blind submission of Love Is- land's participants to this gilded cage of social media status, will bring. "They're fully aware of the cameras, and the audience that follows and judges them... they perform to entertain this audi- ence-consumer. It is what lit- erally keeps them going," says Professor of philosophy at the University of Malta, Jean-Paul de Lucca. Here he reminds me of the etymology of 'entertainment' – from the Latin intertenere, a sense of 'holding or controlling each other' – as if the audience was indeed controlling the par- ticipants. "To the audience, the on- screen reality is more intense and engrossing than the reali- ty of daily life. 'More real than the real', says the philosopher who speaks of hyperreality, Jean Baudrillard; or as Guy Debord put it in Society of the Specta- cle, reality is replaced by a mere representation of it. "So 'real' participants become actors in a 'reality' that is per- formance, for us, the consuming audience. Precisely because they act, there is no clear distinction between the 'real/ordinary' self and the 'acting/performing' self. The reality is distorted. "And to use Baudrillard again, it is both a constructed image of reality and of its understand- ing – a 'simulacrum'. Whether we like it or not, reality shows control the way people live, be- have and interact. And like any 'idol', they are subject to scru- tiny. There is no such as thing as mere entertainment – enter- taining is always, in some way, controlling." Here is a prediction: Love Is- land's audiences will be healthy, will dip slightly, then soar for the finale. A second season will beckon. But as viewers get used to the formula, satisifed with what they have learnt, they will gradually fizzle out. But will any wholesomeness from this first season of love sur- vive into the next editions? As fu- ture participants learn the ways of Love Island's match-making, expect more cruel twists and backstabbing turns as love gets gameified, commercialised, and more ruthless. And oh... do be kind, big broth- ers. mvella@mediatoday.com.mt costumes, six-packs and unbridled sex hook up? Softcore TV gold. moral outrage about Love Island to on youths, sex, and pretty much us, entertainment panopticon about that stupid, thing called love "They're fully aware of the cameras, and the audience that follows and judges them... they perform to entertain this audience-consumer. It is what literally keeps them going"