Love Island USA

In a roller coaster year of dizzying highs and terrifying lows, I’m going to point the finger at ITV2 for being both the cause of and the solution to a large number of these peaks and troughs.  As we all know, the calendar year is built around Love Island.  Normally those wonderful weeks of coupling up each night with an hour of guaranteed good telly (apart from the oddly unengaging Saturday night highlights/unseen shows) synchronise with our British summers of torrential downpours and sticky sticky heatwaves (both of which give everyone a first-hand experience of our climate crisis future), but 2020 got off to a great start with an absolute glut of Majorcan madness thanks to the inaugural series of winter Love Island.

But then, as we all know, pandemic pandemonium took hold and nobody knew how to make a show about cracking on if contestants had to remain two metres apart, not to mention the indecipherable lottery that foreign travel had become.  With a shrug, the whole series was cancelled and my life was ruined.  Then, it was divulged there would be no further winter edition in 2021, meaning it was over a year till the next UK series.  I can cope with supermarket queues and remote working under the threat of redundancy, but this was a major gut punch.  Naturally, I blamed Boris.  Naturally, he blamed immigration.  Surely Love Island 2020 could go ahead if everyone claimed they were testing their eyesight?

ITV redeemed themselves by screening Love Island Australia and, even though it was an old series, it was the vape to the cigarette of my Love Island addiction.  But then someone had the bright idea of taking Love Island USA and giving it to us in real time, allowing a glorious watch-along with our American brethren – it turns out our special relationship extends beyond a catastrophic covid response and being led by privileged petulant blonde fatties.  Of course, I stopped for half a second to wonder how on earth the States were going to run a reality dating show which involves the liberal exchanging of bodily fluids (orally, mostly) in the midst of a world health emergency.

Apparently, the islanders quarantined before entering the villa, ensuring a negative test for the virus.  More importantly, while a luxury island was out of the question, the perfect solution was found in a Las Vegas rooftop.  Offering hot weather and the constant background hum of downtown traffic (interspersed with sirens), the producers had struck gold.  In fact, so much of Love Island’s much-needed escapism comes from its almost complete refusal to engage with the outside world.  There were some initial comments about lockdown, but our couples soon became the truly insular islanders we would expect.  Sure, we’re all sick of corona, but the absence of a single mention of Black Lives Matter among a group of diverse young people seems like a missed opportunity.  Even Justine opening up about her family’s time in a Kenyan refugee camp barely warranted more than a few seconds of screen time when I could happily have watched a one-hour special on the subject.

But, if to Love-Island is to act as if the outside world doesn’t matter, then this series of Love Island USA is serving up pure escapism with our perception of reality deliberately removed.  The pandemic doesn’t matter.  The centuries of racial oppression don’t matter.  The climate crisis doesn’t matter.  All that matters is finding a boyfriend or a girlfriend, as being single is the greatest travesty of all.  But, whereas 2019’s season of Love Island USA made the competition to couple up all too obvious, taking the more American approach to reality TV (ruthless game-planning), this new version has realised that a lot of the format’s charm lies in sticking closely to the silliness of the UK original.  At last, we have an irreverent voiceover, mocking every single thing our island young folk get up to.  A glamorous host wonders in on the odd occasion with bad news.  People shout out “got a text!”  The ridiculous challenges have been shipped over and acted out blow by blow (literally), while Casa Amor was a resounding triumph, descending quickly into explosive orgiastic debauchery and creating great telly.  I shall hand it to the Americans – they are TV naturals.  Unlike the Brits, they take themselves a touch more seriously and are better at articulating their emotions, and they will never shy away from a cheesy Hollywood moment with no sense of irony, but the senses of humour are there, alongside the budding friendships you want to join in with.  Of particular note this season is the island girls’ predilection for slipping suddenly into outrageous British accents to ask each other: “Are you alriiiight?”  This contrasts delightfully with their otherwise as-apple-pie American accents and is a healthy reminder of how stupid British people must sound abroad.  And at home.

Of course, the teeth are whiter, but the bikinis and trunks are no tighter.  Some bits are different, some are the same, but it’s enough to tide me over in my lockdown (will we, won’t we) viewing.  Sometimes it’s nice not to hear the T word (Trump) or to see human beings experience social contact without a curtain-twitching neighbour tutting.  And if you’re looking for pure joy, I recommend Cely from this year’s cohort.  Her constant ray of positivity starts every morning when she jumps out of bed with glee while her co-islander squint and groan, before she goes on to tackle every challenge and tribulation with laughter and good humour.  As the final approaches it will be interesting to see what American viewers make of her relationship with Johnny and whether they rate it over the slower and steadier Justine and Caleb.  All I know is I’ll be sorry again when it’s all over, but maybe there’s another international version of Love Island I can distract myself with.

 

Keeping Up With The Kardashians

After last week, we’re continuing the theme of keeping up with various things.  Whereas my last post was about the very British pastime of projecting the behaviour of a superior class on one’s friends and neighbours, revealed through sitcom chaos to be as exhausting as it is hilarious (Keeping Up Appearances), this week I’ll be linking that nineties sitcom with the very LA pastime of being a Kardashian, this time projecting the behaviour of a superior class not just on one’s own friends and neighbours, but on the whole world.

Now, you may have asked yourself at various points who or what a Kardashian is.  I have to admit I don’t really recall how and when they came into my consciousness, let alone that of the planet’s.  In isolation, a Kardashian sounds like some sort of medical mishap named after an obscure gynaecologist: “Oh dear, she’s got Kardashians again.”  In fact, for those that don’t know, the Kardashians are a family that is also a series of products.  I’ve paused here to see how I can succinctly explain how they all fit together, but I’m going to have to do it in long form.  We come to know these products, sorry, family members over something like forty-two series of their reality TV show, plus an array of spin-offs.  I’m not actually a willing viewer of any of this.  Sure, it ticks a lot of my boxes.  Trashy?  Yes.  Reality TV?  Most definitely.  The real world filtered to look better than it actually is?  Absolutely.  But there’s a hollow ringing to its message that makes each minute seem like time that could be better spent doing something else: watching You’ve Been Framed, for example, or thinking fondly of childhood memories.  So, let’s meet the Kardashians we are trying to keep up with:

Kris Jenner

Our matriarch styles herself as the momager, a title that’s as apt as it is sinister.  Her shrewd skills at self-promotion have seen her many progeny foisted into the spotlight for their earning potential.  It feels a bit wrong, but she’s very good at it, so we have at least unearthed some semblance of talent behind the worldwide fame.  She’s a loose cannon who thrills at embarrassing her children – you can’t miss her fun-loving attitude, even beneath several strata of expensive make up.

Kourtney Kardashian

The eldest sister, but the second-best wit.  She wins for being first to reproduce, with her most scathing stare reserved for ex-husband Scott Disick, who enjoys himself far too much throughout the whole show.

Kim Kardashian West

The internet requires nothing further to be said about this person.

Khloé Kardashian

The wittiest sister: Khloé has the best personality and is therefore the most attractive within a family that is already inordinately appearance conscious.  Her lines alone almost make the show worth watching, but you can actually scroll through endless gifs of them in various Buzzfeed listicles instead.

Kendall and/or Kylie Jenner

There are some younger half-sisters whose names also begin with K.  I have trouble distinguishing them but it doesn’t matter as both/either are wildly more successful than I will ever be.

Rob Kardashian

Yes, there’s a brother as well, but they couldn’t think of a name beginning with K for him, so this has caused him to spiral into obesity and obscurity.

Caitlyn Jenner

Before transitioning to live as a woman, this was Kris’s husband and the father of the two youngest daughters, with the elder siblings’ father, Robert Kardashian (the lawyer off the OJ trials) having passed away.  Divorcing Kris with mixed results, Caitlyn can now hair-flick with the rest of the Kardashians, though has faced as much criticism as praise since coming out as trans.  I’ve always found this individual wooden and boring, regardless of gender, so if that doesn’t make me a trans ally, I don’t know what does.

Anyway, that’s enough slagging off of real people.  There are also various babies and hangers on.  One pal, Jonathan Cheban, only got his spot on UK Celebrity Big Brother purely through dint of being Kim’s friend.  What an achievement.  Though I suppose Kim only got famous in the first place for being a chum of Paris Hilton.  Allegedly the whole concept of the show was conceived in partnership with Ryan Seacrest, but I can’t hear that name anymore without thinking of the Bojack Horseman character of A Ryan Seacrest Type so we’ll get straight into my other reasons for finding life too short to watch Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

While there is humour and drama, and plenty of escapism in this guilty pleasure, it’s their self-obsession that sees me itching to switch the station.  It’s hard to identify with people so privileged who still find so much to moan about, either in their soft-focus, flatteringly lit pieces to camera, or during the constant staged conversations in various expensive kitchens where everyone stands between the units pretending to eat food while never letting their smartphones out of their clutches, probably because another family member is on speakerphone.  While watching them jetting around the world, enjoying sumptuous meals out, splurging on jewellery, clothes and skin creams, the girls harp on about their anxieties and the resentment they harbour for each other.  They complain about their lack of privacy, which is delicious when you consider the camera crew has been invited into their private life (and I won’t even dignify Kim’s sex tape with a mention.  Oh.  Whoops.)  Rarely does the outside world get a mention, or do they prioritise using their platform for greater social good.

This was perfectly encapsulated by the 2017 fallout of Kendall Jenner’s appearance in a controversial Pepsi ad that indicated a carbonated sugary beverage could solve America’s entrenched racial inequality.  The episode was filled with Kardashians sympathising with their billionaire sibling, lamenting how hard she had worked only for people to be nasty about her on social media.  The real issue of a society that seems culturally prejudiced against people of colour was not mentioned.

So what is this show’s appeal?  An old flatmate used to watch it religiously, and it was only after a few viewings that I realised this wasn’t ironic consumption: she really did love the girls.  They sell, through their show and their social platforms, a lifestyle that is aspirational.  By being voyeurs to their TV-produced storylines, that lifestyle becomes tantalisingly close to reach.  This is what drives the capitalist minion in all of us.  Skipping down the street with a takeaway blended might make you feel like some Hollywood A-lister, but you’re really just a few quid worse off, consuming calories you don’t need and generating plastic waste that will end up in Our Planet.  And you still live in Leatherhead.

As a family, the Kardashians are winning at sweating their assets and their asses to make cash.  They are swept up in their own hype, but we needn’t be.  There’s not much to keep up with besides a lot of spending, some drama and only thinking about yourself.  I don’t know why I feel so aggrieved that they don’t use their fame for more good – they’re not the only celebrities setting questionable examples.  Just look at British right-wing politicians.  I think it’s because I am so aware of their influence on a generation of girls needing more support and sustenance than unrealistic expectations and unfair comparisons.  I have a way to prevent the Kardashians ever getting a hold of me: I just think of the Big Fat Gypsy Kardashians from the Keith Lemon Sketch Show.  They’ve got the biggest caravan on the site, so they do.