Opinion

Anita Robinson: As I watch Love Island I realise my generation gap is showing

Eleven contestants have moved into the Love Island villa.
Eleven contestants have moved into the Love Island villa. Eleven contestants have moved into the Love Island villa.

Unless you’ve been living in a hole in the ground lately, it’s been impossible to avoid media coverage and avid social commentary on ITV’s ‘Love Island’.

Even the venerable London Times and the rather po-faced Guardian have weighed in with features analysing it.

Speaking as one who, many moons ago, saw the very first episode of ‘Big Brother’ and recognising it for the vulgar, meretricious, exploitative rubbish it was, never watched it again – purely for the purposes of social research and with a sense of obligation dictating I keep abreast of popular culture, on Wednesday last I put down my classic novel and watched ‘Love Island’.

O…M…G, I don’t know where to start. The programme’s premise seems suspiciously like an experiment previously only popular for breeding purposes in zoos. Take a dozen physically attractive, seriously underclothed and vacuous young people of both sexes, all tanned to a uniform shade of oompa-loompa orange and well-fuelled by alcohol, maroon them in a sunny, secluded spot under 24 hour camera surveillance and let nature take its course.

It helps if they are all naturally egotistical, uninhibited exhibitionists. There would appear to be no intellectual criteria necessary for selection.

The boys are fine physical specimens, showing off muscle-toned bodies in studied poses. They’re vain as Narcissus, spending as much time in front of mirrors as the girls do, primping, preening and smiling at themselves with dazzling American-style teeth. Though a faux-fellowship exists between them, there’s a palpable atmosphere of competition. Privately they’re riddled with self-doubt, seeking approval and affection, fearful of rejection.

The girls, a hair-flicking, eyelash-batting, bikini-clad posse who wear four-inch heels and sleep in their make-up, are very attractive – until they open their mouths and release a stream of often unintelligible estuary English that would need subtitles.

Their conversation is banal, clichéd and exclusively about themselves, measuring their own degree of personal allure against their peers, veiled jealousy inadvertently revealing quaking insecurities and dreading rebuff. Friendships among them are fragile and liable to be rapidly sacrificed in a climate of fluctuating pairings.

There’s always one having an emotional meltdown. Ice-breaking games and activities with an overtly sexual flavour create a conducive atmosphere and to further facilitate rapid romance, they all sleep together in a luxurious dormitory handily furnished with king size beds. The whole set-up is a kind of human pick’n’mix or ‘try before you buy’.

And just when you think it can’t get any more tasteless, the Machiavellian element of ‘Love Island’ is the occasional introduction of new candidates to upset the tenuously established emotional apple cart. Talk about setting a cat amongst the pigeons!

What is supposed to be the viewers’ perception of the series? I was uncomfortably reminded of 18th century Londoners who used to walk to Bedlam on Sunday to gawp at the lunatics. Anyway, ‘Love Island’s an hour of my life I won’t get back.

It’s just occurred to me that my generation-gap is showing. This series was cynically designed for young singletons to watch others of their ilk foolish enough to sacrifice their dignity and risk emotional damage for money and brief notoriety. That it has caught the attention of a prurient wider audience is a bonus.

I remember Auntie Mollie’s weekly apoplectic fit when Pan’s People in their scanty shreds of chiffon took centre stage on Top of the Pops in the seventies. “Lookit them,” she’d sputter, “cypherin’ about with not on them what would dust a fiddle!” We’d have had to call a cardiac ambulance had she survived to see ‘Love Island’.

Each generation laments the manners and morals of the upcoming one. I read somewhere recently that, as one ages, it’s necessary to exercise not just the muscles of the body, but the muscles of the mind, otherwise one’s thoughts and opinions atrophy into prejudice. Arteries and attitudes harden with age.

Mind you, I wouldn’t object to being treated by that dishy young doctor contestant with the beautifully rounded vowels – though his participation in the programme would make one question his judgment.