Love Island’s newest bombshells have exposed a disappointing, but not surprising, prejudice in this year’s islanders.
The ITV reality contest is two weeks into its 10th series, which follows a group of single men and women competing to get the public’s vote for favourite couple and win the £50,000 prize.
Monday (12 June) night’s episode saw the arrival of two new contestants looking to shake things up in the Mallorca villa: 27-year-old business owner Leah, and 30-year-old dental nurse Charlotte.
The girls picked which three guys they wanted to go on dates with from the currently coupled-up islanders, before settling in for an evening of awkward flirting and terrible cooking, all while their soon-to-be housemates shot daggers at them from the balcony.
Among the basic small talk, the topic of age was raised on all the dates, with Charlotte’s age prompting bleak, yet predictable responses.
When Charlotte told Mitchel she was 30, he replied: “Are you actually? You look amazing.” From Tyrique, she received a charming: “You don’t look 30”, while Zachariah gave her: “You look good, though,” he replied, the word “though” doing all the heavy lifting.
If you don’t think too deeply about it (which, given we’re talking about Love Island, it’s easier not to), these can be simply read as well-meaning compliments. But consciously or not, they’re a way of putting down Charlotte and other women in the process. It’s a clear act of negging (a pick-up artist technique where a person deliberately gives a backhanded compliment to undermine another’s confidence): “You look good for 30, unlike those other wizened old hags your age.”
Sexism also underpins these comments. Charlotte is a beautiful and accomplished woman, but she can’t be allowed to get big-headed about it, can she? No, there has to be an “actually” or a “though”, putting her in her place. In a culture obsessed with women looking young, a woman who doesn’t look her age, whether through good genetics, surgery, or a rigorous retinol-focused skincare routine, is seen as a winner, her accomplishment to be praised. Were a guy in his thirties to enter the villa, the girls would be all over him, praising him for his emotional maturity without scanning his face for crows feet.
However, it becomes obvious these comments are pure, childish silliness when we realise that Leah, also falls into the “older women” category for these islanders, with Mitchel asking her if their age gap was going to be a problem. Mitchel, for the record, is 26. Leah is 27.
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It’s only when you realise this that you realise you can’t take anything on Love Island too seriously. Yes, it’s depressing hearing these comments, but Love Island has always pushed a certain kind of beauty: one of glossy hair, rippling abs, and, yes, youth.
When you’ve watched every series as I have, there comes a point when you realise you’re suddenly older than all the islanders and learn to let go. These are not your peers, but babies. Their negging comments about the new “older” islanders are idiotic, but they’re in their early twenties, in a world that tells women they lose all value the older they get!
In my second year of university, I distinctly remember seeing a friend who had recently graduated on the dance floor and thinking that if I was still going to nightclubs two years after uni, I should be put out to pasture. I was an immature idiot who couldn’t imagine life getting better post-22, and neither can these islanders. Are we really to expect a nuanced take on ageism from a group lacking fully developed prefrontal cortexes? Of course not.
Love Island airs Sunday to Friday at 9pm on ITV2.
