Are we surprised? No. With the current state of America, I expect nothing less (the US has always been violently racist towards Black people, but I digress).
Production has a serious knack for making the black girls on this show seem almost off-putting- in a sense of that whole "mean girl" troupe and pushing the narrative that black women (espcially darkskin black women) aren't desirable. A perfect example of this is the portrayal of Chelley and Olandria from season 7.
The editors of Love Island seem to love creating drama around the islanders, and while that's fun, they are steadily leaning into these negative stereotypes that society (and the world) has already put onto black women.
And here's the thing, some people may not notice this instantly while watching the show. But, you can see how people are portrayed by the producers the more you tune in. Yes, they do this to non-blacks, too, and yes, you can most definitely say that this is how reality TV works.
That's the problem.
Black fans have been calling out the show's editing for a while now. Others will counterattack those claims with the same sorry-ass excuses as I've mentioned before, but they do not understand how incredibly harmful this is. Fans are already easily moved by what they see when they watch the show, creating their own thinkpieces and opinions about the islanders, but AGAIN, THIS IS THE PROBLEM.
The discourse around this show can easily turn into a toxic, racist shit-show (as seen most often on X/Twitter). Fans watch the show, get online, and write long essays about how islander xyz is a "mean girl," and it's almost always a black woman 90% of the time.
This ultimately leads to a chain reaction: the show's editing -> thinkpiece on Twitter -> thousands of more thinkpieces -> racist comments.
Last year's discourse around Chelley and Olandria was AWFUL. Calling them mean, ugly, the little racist comments here and there...the list goes on. I'm now starting to see similar discourse around Aniya from this year's cast. It's the same shit all over again- saying that she can't pull anyone else besides KC because of her looks (more or so because she's darkskin). These are real people, mind you. And these claims are untrue. We do not know these people, but I will call out bullshit when I see it. You're targeting them because of their skin color and not because of their actions.
Besides the fans, however, I'm also beginning to notice how...racist and colorist the people that they are bringing on the show are. This season, you have Kenzie, a white woman who fetishizes black men (Corbin) and constantly code-switches around black people (mainly Corbin), and only hangs out with the only other white girl, or no, excuse me- blonde, to talk shit about the other women of color on the show. The show has also been bringing in an influx of men who only prefer lightskin women or just...white. What the genuine fuck is going on? If this is going to be an all-white or hell, off-white party, then why are we bringing in dark skin women? To make them look bad? To push the narrative that darkskin women aren't desirable?
All I will say is this: I don’t expect anything to change anytime soon. This is unfortunately how shit goes. No one wants to listen to black voices, even when it’s about something that is harmful to us. However, I’m glad that more people are starting to notice these things and are actively calling it out. It’s important that we hold the producers and fans accountable.
ann
