It’s called LOVE ISLAND. It’s a British reality-competition show that’s in its 5th or 6th season. Hulu carries it. That’s where I saw it.
LOVE ISLAND is one of those singles-pairing-up shows with beautiful people in a beautiful setting. Ten people couple up but then new players are added and it’s musical chairs. The couples sleep together at night, but all five sleep in the same room. Couples can earn private room privileges and you know a lot of sex goes on. The winning couple gets lots of money or condoms. I’m sketchy on the details.
It’s not even on an island. It’s a big house.
There’s also occasional nudity, but in this day and age, so what? Nudity is not hard to find on the internet (I'm told).
I was advised that season two was good so started watching that. And again, the cheesier the better.
By the end of episode one I was done forever.
Why?
I sooooo hated every fucking one of those contestants. I have never seen such self-absorbed vacuous bitches and assholes in my life. One girl was crying because one of the muscle-bound lunkheads snubbed her in the slightest possible almost unperceivable way. I wanted to throw her down a well.
They spend all day in bikinis and shorts picking apart each other and drinking. The girls devote half the day to putting on make up. I kept wondering, "Why am I watching this SHIT?"
By the time the show was over I had the same rage Spike Lee would like me to have after watching BLACKKKANSMAN.
I guess this show runs an hour a night for five or six weeks each year – similar to our BIG BROTHER. And I know it’s a smash hit in the UK. But the only way you’ll ever get me to watch again is if storm troopers barge in and move them all to a labor camp. (Actually, that series I would watch every night.)
I've had people hold guns on me, hit me with their car, and was once even thrown off a cliff, but the memory that always gives me a particular shudder is thinking of the woman who insisted I watch THE BATCHELOR with her every week.
ReplyDeleteI found myself staring at my watch, trying to focus on the second hand as it made a single round of a minute. When that proved too slow, I tried to see if I could take thirty seconds at a time, or at least fifteen. Nothing managed to break the dread eternity of those hours.
I tried to create a safe space in my head, mentally comparing different translations of THE TALE OF GENJI or trying to match a quote from Montaigne with the proper essay, but if I accidentally looked up for even a moment, that screen and those people were still there.
Afterward, all she wanted to do was TALK about it for the rest of the night, as though my still-bleeding soul hadn't already been flayed raw enough.
Someone told me later that she ended up marrying an agent.
"I sooooo hated every fucking one of those contestants. I have never seen such self-absorbed vacuous bitches and assholes in my life."
ReplyDeleteYep! And that is why I never watch it. The popularity of this garbage here in the UK is a great embarrassment. It's watched by morons, particularly a subset of morons we call chavs. That's our equivalent of your trailer trash.
It's a disgrace that the show is still on, because two former contestants committed suicide last year. Questions were raised about what kind of aftercare, if any, ITV provide contestants once they're off the show. But it hasn't stopped ITV continuing with this shit because it gets big ratings.
Reality TV as a genre is utterly despicable. Love Island, Big Brother, Jersey Shore, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills/Miami/Atlanta/Delaware, etc. Thousands of hours of brain melting, moronic, vapid crap made by the soulless and watched by the mindless.
In some circles, it is known as S.T.D. ISLAND.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that another question about audience taste has come up today, because while I wasn't dreading an audience experience last night, I wasn't at all sure how it would go.
ReplyDeleteFor some time now, I’ve worried that my taste in comedy is becoming out of touch. I grew up with actual comedy, starting with Laurel and Hardy and continuing through classic sitcoms like “The Phil Silvers Show” and “The Honeymooners.” Then on to “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” and Mel Brooks & Woody Allen movies in the 70s. Now, if I see a modern movie or a sitcom, nine times out of ten, it’s just *not funny.* They track all the rhythms, but there are no actual jokes. I watched the first five minutes of an episode of “Superior Donuts,” and turned it off because not ONE thing funny was said. Their studio audience disagreed with me.
Recently, I directed a show called “Silent Laughter,” which may have been one of the best things I’ve ever done. It’s a silent movie onstage, brilliantly written by Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore, and I had an expert cast. We played to houses that were 1/3 to 1/2 full. We got the laughs, but the houses didn’t really increase.
Last night, we opened a show I directed called “My Three Angels.” It’s a chestnut – a former community theater staple that has been neglected for about thirty years. The popular film version was “We’re No Angels,” with comedy legends Humphrey Bogart and Basil Rathbone. I signed on to direct the show because the movie was a favorite when I was a teen. And I knew I liked what we had accomplished, but had no notion if a modern audience would agree.
Holy crap.
The 200 seat house was nearly full and they laughed at *everything*. The script by Samuel and Bella Spewack (“Boy Meets Girl,” “Kiss Me, Kate”) played like a dream. The audience laughed at the characters, but they also loved the characters and were rooting for them. When the villain said something incredibly vulgar (by 1950s standards; not so much now), the audience frickin’ *growled*. There was applause during Act III. Twice. It’s been a long time since an audience made my jaw drop in a good way.
My faith in comedy is restored.
I've seen promos for LOVE ISLAND while watching THE AMAZING RACE on CBS. I'm not sure if it's also the UK series or an original series for US TV. I haven't watched it yet, and now I have no plans even to sample it.
ReplyDelete(I'm told) LOL. Wow, what a drop for the great British Empire. How did this happen? I think I've nailed it, folks.
ReplyDeleteFrom Shakepeare to Noel Coward to George Bernard Shaw to Agatha Christie, then a slight wobble with Monty Python. Don't get me wrong, I love Python, but it was a bit of a drop in class. Then came "On The Buses", another step-down, followed by Benny Hill. But the biggest drop, yes the most precipitous fall came without a doubt with.........Sid James. The King of tits and ass comedy movies. Those "Carry On" films took England culture crashing into the wall faster than Lady Di's chauffeur. How many did they make? 31! Plus 3 Xmas specials.
This was a franchise that kept on giving, there was no stopping it. It steamrolled its way into the British psyche and didn't stop until Sid died with his face buried in the tits of a young blonde woman while on the set of "Carry On Down The Shithole."
Next came Punk Rock, Roger Moore as the worst "Bond" and, shockingly, Richard Harris and Peter O'Toole giving up drinking on the same day, and it was finished. There was nothing left but the Americanization of British culture with bad game shows, reality TV, no help with a dental plan and, TODAY, yes folks, as I'm typing this, the Yankees are playing the Red Sox in England! There is the real "Love Island." The USA forcing it's love of baseball onto your island. "Theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Yankeeeeeeeees win"!!!!!!!!!
Craig,
ReplyDeleteDo one of my plays. Laughs for all ages. :)
“I wanted to throw her down a well” would make for a nice promotional quote on the slick full-color ad in People Magazine.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to throw gasoline on this particular fire, but I just have to point out that Britons and Americans have always had gripes about who is worse, and who is destroying culture and morality, balanced with a lot of similarity and affection. Sort of like Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers pointing fingers at each other over who ruined society.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, our generation of Americans has to take responsibility for shitty, amoral reality TV to a large extent. It's a revolting thing, and we have seen where it has taken us. Let's regroup and fight our real problems.
FOX has a similar show called, "Paradise Hotel." It's of the "hook up or get out" genre. I've never watched it.
ReplyDeleteBut, one of the few things that makes European TV better than American TV is NUDITY. No matter how hot or raunchy or explicit an American reality show promises to be they'll never show any of the good stuff. (Cable and/or streaming excepted)
I remember reading about one of the Euro versions of "Big Brother," Dutch or Swedish, etc. It was essentially softcore-porn. Nudity abounded and the live, webcam stream was even better.
Not that I watch TV specifically for nudity, but if it's there I'm not going to turn it down. That's the main reason I watched the first season of "NYPD Blue."
Oh well...maybe someday.
M.B.
This is why I never apologize for watching "Gilligan's Island" growing up.
ReplyDeleteI have no illusions about my ancestors- from what I've read it appears their favorite form of entertainment was to go to the tavern, drink a lot of rotgut New England rum, then sit back and enjoy some bear baiting. That or go to the town square to see if anyone was going to be humiliated.
I wish there was a way to block annoying people that post here.
ReplyDeleteStephen Marks - Sid James' raised eyebrows were funnier than anything that you have ever posted. Tosser.
ReplyDeleteBritannia still rules the airwaves (or cable equivalent) in the peculiar genre of comedy panel shows. We have nothing like it here. A group of comedians (and occasionally actors, writers or politicians) jokes about current events, popular culture, sports, anything -- it's really a pretext for improvised and occasionally scripted material. The best I've seen on YouTube are HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU, Q.I., MOCK THE WEEK, WOULD I LIE TO YOU?, and COUNTDOWN. If you dislike the left-liberal point of view you probably won't enjoy them, though Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage have been featured on HAVE I GOT NEWS. British TV still has a place for the brainy Oxbridge type, with plenty of dick and fart jokes.
ReplyDeleteChuck Jones once said that he didn't really like Who Framed Roger Rabbit because the lead characters aren't likable. Granting some exceptions, shows and movies without a lead character who we can actually imagine ourselves wanting to hang around with don't do all that well.
ReplyDeleteYou re always looking for cheesy reality shows? What the fuck did you expect? No sympathy here.
ReplyDeleteReading the comments section got me thinking about characters who are likeable vs those who wallow in self pity. I remember someone observed that the characters that Chaplin and Keaton played never bemoaned their fate. So we rooted for them. Then you have comedies like the ones Woody Allen made where whining was standard but we liked him. I remember an episode of Frasier where Niles was edging toward self pity. When he is offered 'wine'
ReplyDeletehe hears it as 'whine' and says something like 'wouldn't you', and that brings the audience to his side. I never warmed up to '2 and a half men'because of the constant woe is me self pitying of the brother. There has to be a line between likable and self pity. That's why I think I loved the wine/whine line so much.
You'll be happy to know that the American version of "Love Island" will start airing 5 nights a week (!) on CBS, starting on July 9.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how CBS always seems to be scrambling to air something in the summer. In the past, it's been weird sci-fi shows ("Braindead," "Under the Dome"), plus the hate-watchable reality show "Big Brother" (still hosted by Julie Chen). So I'm guessing this is just another experiment in cheap programming to fill up the warmer months. (Meanwhile, the other networks seem to have agreed on nighttime game shows, so it's back to Netflix -- or maybe even books -- for me.)
I'm with Chuck Jones on not liking Who Framed Roger Rabbit at all. The "please Eddie" nonsense got old really fast. It was also sad to see the mighty Bob Hoskins reduced to a stooge.
ReplyDeleteTwo suicides so far, and counting.
ReplyDeleteThere's only so much of manipulated "reality TV" that can possibly be justified.
COUNTDOWN is a game show, but a very erudite one. It's not comic, though. It's for smart people. I always enjoyed playing along when I watched COUNTDOWN on visits to the UK.
ReplyDelete"Of course Chuck Jones felt that way, he didn't direct it himself" says,
ReplyDeleteWe should be so lucky to experience something so ambitious, offbeat and expensively risky like Who Framed Roger Rabbit in movie theaters or on TV screens today.
Here in Britland it fills our fucking newspapers too. Anyone would think there was nothing happening in the world. Maybe its all a massive distraction masterminded by the Illuminati to mask their devilish plans.
ReplyDeleteI'll get me coat and (tin foil) hat. Taxi!
The contestants sound like a bunch of Randy Scouse Gits.
ReplyDeleteJust another fake reality show where the producers think that characters who argue and are obnoxious are entertaining. They're not. I stopped watching the Emmys the year the theme was "a salute to reality shows" in front of an audience filled with actors and writers whose careers have been negatively impacted by these so called reality shows. The climax was a contest to vote for the "best" reality show host (which lasted ten minutes or more) and when the show ran long they tried to blame Howie Mandel who was the first act on the show two hours before! I would have thought that reality shows would have died after one season of Kid Nation which violated various child labor laws in the state where it was filmed and pretended that the two adults on screen were the only ones around (there were 40 behind the camera crew). Watching it you could see how scenes were edited to create fake conflict and later one of the children on the show revealed that right before cameras rolled a producer would feed them odd lines of dialogue to say. This is the show where the parents of the children had to sign contracts stating that the producers could not be held responsible if the child was eaten by a shark even though the show was not filmed anywhere near an ocean.
ReplyDeleteConsidering that in the US we have demented donnie as a "leader" and back in the UK it looks like you are going to get boris the slob. A couple of "reality" stars.Syphiltic don brags about assaulting women and boris has the bobbies called out after midnight for what neighbors feared was him assaulting a woman.
ReplyDeleteBetween the two the arguement is who has the worst hairstyle known to man, who is cruder, who is more detached from reality and who lies more it seems oddly appropiate that cheesy tv is ruling the roost.
Anonymous, you left out the fact that the official opposition party in Britain is led by a rancid anti-Semite who calls terrorists and Holocaust deniers his friends.
DeleteYou have demented Donnie at the moment, but at least you have some sane people in the Democrats who could hopefully win against him next year. No such sanity exists here in the Labour party.
Therealshell, of course you realise why guys watch Countdown - for the delightful Ms Riley and her skill with numebers, and of course the possibilty she may get the letters to "felatio".
ReplyDeleteTherealshell -
ReplyDeleteAlso Stephen Marks' timeline is totally out of kilter.
Benny Hill was doing his thing a long time before Monty Python & On The Buses..
And the Carry Ons were before that.
Decadence. :shrug: Whatcha gonna do? It's a free country.
ReplyDeleteRecalling the series-finale holiday special of "Extras". It's unexpectedly bleak, and presents "Big Brother" as a depth so low even Gervais's pathetic fame-seeker is repelled (amazingly, several real personalities and "Big Brother" itself allow themselves to be used). Now that world looks benign next to what's currently offered.
ReplyDeleteThere is at least one late interview with Chuck Jones in which he states pretty bluntly that his real problem with "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" is that they hired Richard Williams to direct the animation when they could have hired someone like, oh, well...him.
ReplyDeleteThe only reality show I ever watched was the X-Files. No nudity
ReplyDeleteI'm not a robot
Glad you didn't encourage us to watch it, it would be like people tasting food/drink. Ewwwww, this is awful, here, try it....
ReplyDelete