Is it really “just a game”
Love Island’s obsession with toxic masculinity and emotionally abusive relationships
When bad behaviour is good for ratings. Love Islander producers know exactly what they are doing when they cast men who manipulate, gaslight and resolve their conflicts with empty apologies. Year after year the girls are wrapped into toxic relationships which beat them down as the season goes on. But the real impact is in the audience. Young girls aged 16-34 make up the majority of their viewership. Young impressionable women and girls are tuning in to every episode to see toxic relationships branded as normal.
If you have lost count of the sheer quantity of scandals Love Island has faced let me remind you of Woman’s Aid has made 3 statements calling out Love Island for not recognising coercive behaviours and using abuse as a form of entertainment. In season 7 Danny Bibby was accused of being possessive and manipulative to Lucinda Strafford after she spoke to another boy on the show. He described his tactic of getting girls as “treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen” when telling her “I’m not the type to chase you like a little dog. I’d rather take you down a peg and have banter with you”. These are serious red flags and signs of an abusive relationship yet producers consistently bring on more boys with similar red flags and more girls who have pasts with these kind of boys and will be easier manipulated.
Woman’s Aid has since called out two others fellow contestants Joe Garrett and Adam Collard for their gaslighting and manipulative behaviour to other female contestants. ITV2 maintains that they take emotional well being very seriously in the Villa. Yet this is hard to believe when Adam Collard was brought back for season 8 as a bombshell. Which you can imagine caused an uproar on all social media platforms.
Twitter (X) is flooded ever summer with Love Island content being updated by the second. The Daily Mail, Mirror, Guardian etc all report on these controversy and the behaviour of the boys but if you’re not exposed to these media outlets you are watching blind without an external influence telling you THIS IS ABUSE. Young girls and women seeing relationships like their own and seeing zero repercussions for the boys, re solidifies their view that their relationship is normal. That when their boyfriend question’s their memory of events, this isn’t gaslighting its their fault for messing up the details. Which allows the manipulator to introduce the notion that everything is their fault, the whole relationship. The cycle of abuse continues and its why the Woman’s Aid charity works so hard to campaign for healthy relationships in the media. Healthy relationships where each other are treated with love, respect and honesty. Then when mistakes are made, which can happen, apologies are made. Properly.
It would be impossible to give you a list of all the times the girls on the show have taken the boys back after worthless apologies. Most recently Ronnie Vint, coupled up with Elma Pazar received significant backlash after having his first kiss with Elma to then 5 minutes later go kiss Kaz Crossley in a hidden part of the villa. Mortified, hurt and embarrassed Elma distanced herself from Ronnie till he chose her, not Kaz to couple up with the following day and all was forgiven after a half hearted apology. The list goes on, girls taking back boys, then the boys going on to repeat their bad behaviours over and over again. But they apologise? That makes it fine right? I mean surely they meant it? Wrong.
People make mistakes but it’s about recognising if that person is willing to change and understand’s their actions. Whether that person really cares that they hurt you. All too often the boys avoid saying “I feel horrible for hurting her, I don’t want to make her feel that way” instead they said “oh well its never a nice feeling to make girls cry”. They are bothered because they’re made to feel bad for making someone cry, not that they’re bothered because that person is hurt and upset because of their actions. The problems are rooted in a lack of care about the girls, a disregard for their emotional well-being because “it’s just a game”. Well it’s not just a game, 25% of women report having experienced partner emotional abuse and those are just the women who managed to escape and understood their relationship was abusive.
Love Island producers are using abuse as entertainment. They’re allowing toxic masculinity and manipulative relationships to be broadcasted to the nation as “normal relationships” which an ITV2 spokesperson was quoted saying. This contributes to the severe issues of domestic abuse by not highlighting what these boys are doing is toxic and abusive. If ITV2 continue to cast boys bubbling with red flags and toxic masculinity millions of women will continue to stay in abusive relationships, seeing nothing wrong with their treatment. Because well Joe treats Lucie like how my partner treats me, and she forgave him, maybe I should be more forgiving like Lucie.
No you shouldn’t. Always call out bad behaviour and always speak to someone, sometimes it needs an outsider looking in to remove those rose coloured glasses to see the painful red flags. Always reach out to family and friends or to domestic abuse helplines or women’s charities, I’ll attach a few below.
Click your country to be taken to your domestic abuse help websites
And if your country isn’t listed here a link to a range of different domestic abuse websites and hotlines globally, alternatively search on any search browser “domestic abuse help” and your local website and hotlines will be shown
You will be believed, always talk to someone
This is an excellent piece, Holly. The glorification of these men genuinely repulses me, I had to stop watching a few years ago because it was making me so anxious seeing the way people are treated on the show, and actually put me off relationships because so many men (and women) see this behaviour as the ideal and copy.
When you were talking about the ‘it’s never a nice feeling to make girls cry’, what bothers me so much about this is that they must have done it before, like they don’t enjoy doing it, but it’s just something that happens. However, if they changed their behaviour, it wouldn’t happen. I actually think this behaviour is embarrassing more than anything, and it’s an incredible shame that it’s what we show impressionable teens and how they’re taught to behave in relationships.
Thank you for writing this Holly, it’s such an important thing to talk about. This behaviour is not normal, and the more we talk about it, hopefully more young people will learn how to identify it before it goes too far.
Holly, this is amazing. I've watched Love Island on and off for years but truly "gave up" after Millie and Liam's year - it pissed me off so much that this man could treat Millie in such a way and she then went back to him... and they WON?! Not only are Millie and Liam telling people this is all okay, but so is the British public. I was returning to the show after a hiatus since 2017 with the hopes it had improved. The whole thing infuriated me beyond belief.
I watched a little of the 2022 (I think?) series with Jacques, but again the behaviour of the boys was so outrageous that I just couldn't stomach it. Not only are these people demonstrating to women how they "should" be treated, they're also role models to impressionable young boys who will assume this is the norm in relationships.
It's such a shame that this sort of behaviour is seen as "better" entertainment than actual, healthy relationships. It's awful education and makes for very uncomfortable viewing, too.