BLOG #24: INCEL BASKIN AND ROBBINS
Yeah ok I’m really writing this at 2:48am on a (technical) Monday morning aka really late Sunday night because I feel like real life is Idiocracy (2006) and I’m scared. And invested. And scared that I am invested. In Love Island.
This is about gender roles and reality TV and some other stuff keeping me up. I started thinking about this when I was on the phone with Gigi the other day and he told me about this post he saw. “It’s, like, cringe, but it’s true. It said ‘people are focusing too much on women good and not gender bad.’” And it is cringe, and it is very cringe 2018-post-woke1.0, and it is…correct. Women good is akin to “believe women,” an aphorism that emerged in the wake of #MeToo. “Believe women” is important, because of the statistics that show how women do not report sex crimes or other assaults/abuses because both a social and judicial system that tries to minimize their experiences, make them out to be liars, etc. “Believe women” did, however, also become a weapon online during this time; it was bastardized from its original context to demand equity, to “are you going to challenge me because I’m a woman? I’m right,” at all costs, no questions asked. I want to pause here for a second to talk about how in no way do I conflate the demands from women during the #MeToo movement to the purely social interactions that overtook conversation at that time. As a woman, to be misunderstood participating in that conflation is to be the worst kind of “pick me,” an apologist of men because these things “should go both ways.” Instead, the reality that I share with so many other women is that when we take “believe women” out of its original context—helping women seek justice within a flawed system—and place it in in-group out-group social rules, of “don’t question me,” we are not only trivializing this movement, but playing into a hand that can crush any momentum that may have been gained. In the search for equity within a flawed system, socially we inadvertently created a culture of fear of social judgement, saying the wrong thing (even when done in earnest), where those who can win a game of hegemonic oppression Olympics are to be considered infallible.
This is the basis of the manosphere. The façade from creators like Andrew Tate, Jeremy Clarkson, et al (not linking because I am not platforming these fools) is that they are merely calling out a double standard that, as they purport, has been wielded against them. Why? Well, because of some bizarre notion that society is trying to do away with men which, makes no sense. And, there is also no proof of this that manosphere people have, other than their own fear of becoming obsolete (I think of the “fear of a Black planet” ideology; the whole “they’re trying to replace us” thing is perhaps one of the most deep-seeded fears for those in power). Men are not disenfranchised. There is a shift, at least a social one, in gender power dynamics that is currently being defined, however, that clearly makes them feel this way. And I believe the best way to see it is in this season of Love Island US. And also UK, but I’m gonna focus on US.
Firstly: there are two kinds of people I’ve seen who watch the show. 1. The college-educated person who performs the masochism-monologue of “it’s like so dumb and I know it’s making me dumber but I have to watch,” where each episode reads like a case study from a sociology text. And 2. The normal person who engages with all the media tricks used in the reality program—drama, sex, violence, humor—at face value, understanding the people they see on TV are characters that do ultimately represent real life. The fact that I’m writing this means I’m the first one (yawn ew gross) but I also like to remind myself that just because the show and its plot points feel like case studies from texts I read in undergrad, that doesn’t mean that what I’m watching isn’t real. In fact, it’s more real because its (it being the narrative) has been tampered with so clearly. Ok enough set-up. Let’s read the KC-Aniya situation with both respect for them as people, as well as critically. (“KC” also stands for Kuman-Chandler. Which I just find so fucking funny.)
I got tired after writing this part and am continuing at 1:09am on Tuesday morning aka really late on Monday night. My friend Ashlin DM’d me saying that watching this show feels like clocking into work at this point and I agree.
On the first day of Love Island, there was a challenge built to gauge mutual interests using closed doors right after the first initial impressions coupling. It felt like some Flowers for Algernon rat maze type sociology shit. One side of the doors was all the boys, the other, the girls. First, the doorways represented things like pets: dog people behind one door, cat people behind another, plant people behind a third. Then they represented favorite sex positions. KC and Aniya shared few like interests compared to the other islanders, who shared many. KC also was the only person to stand behind the “plants” door when asked about pets, because he was “tryna be different,” to quote his confessional. The challenge ended with the girls and boys on either sides of their doors, either standing on a red circle, to no longer be in a couple with the person on the other side, or a green circle, to move forward with the connection. Aniya didn’t choose KC based on that first impressions challenge because, well, she just wasn’t feeling it.
Here’s how their story, as people and as characters, went/ Later, they ended up in a couple through circumstance, where they started getting to know each other. Among their chats, one earlier episode this season ends with KC bringing up the fact that Aniya is a dark skinned Black woman, and that she represents the idea of thee pinnacle Black woman is someone that looks like her because it reminds her of the women in his life that raised him, like his mom. Aniya takes this moment to be like “yeah thank you for seeing me,” they kiss, and it’s a heartfelt moment where the islanders do break that fourth wall of the dating vacuum they’re in, implicating the realities of life outside the villa in how it would affect their burgeoning connection in the future. Intimacy-wise, other couples are already at a consistent heavy petting and making out consensus, to which Aniya is not open to; she communicates this, he receives it. During challenges, other male islanders identify KC and Aniya as an unsteady couple, partly because (what we can assume from the edit, at least) KC is telling the boys one thing, telling Aniya another even when she directly communicates with him. There are two major instances of doubt: one with Sol, where KC again fails to communicate the fact that he wants to chat to her to Aniya (which only comes out after Sol gets dumped from the island, and Trinity tells her that he wanted to save Sol so he could shoot his shot), and another in two challenges where fellow islanders and the public rate their couple low compatibility-wise compared to other couples. All seems to be made well in the love letters challenge where they both actively choose one another, sharing heartfelt love letters that signify a sort of squashing-beef between them. Then immediately after, KC has a conversation with Aniya about exploring future bombshells, to which she shuts down a bit telling him to do “whatever he wants” dismissively, confused by the fact that one moment they’re sharing love letters about choosing one another, the next moment he’s almost asking permission to explore. Then Casa Amor hits, and we all know how that went down.
KC is a man who is afraid to disagree, and because of that, deflects his own decision making as a fault of Aniya’s for not “filling his cup,” a phrase he uses frequently. Fundamentally, he is scared if doing the wrong thing with girls, so he makes it their problem for not hearing him, respecting his needs as a man, or perpetuating the reverse double standard that women can get away with murder while men are supposed to be left simpering after them. He makes himself a victim, because socially, he conflates “believe women” with “women good.” KC feels oppressed by this because he’s not been taught, nor has any experience in his live ever modeled anything other than “women good.” And it’s not anyone’s responsibility to explain this difference to him, only to model it in reciprocity. Which, all evidence shows Aniya was trying to do on her own time; KC never had the balls to share his insecurities or vulnerabilities with her, so that became her problem, her world, her “woman good” emasculating him, so now he gets to get his lick back and stunt on her with Titi at the Casa Amor recoupling. It’s not about his feelings being overlooked, like he says in is dookie ass recoupling speech. It’s about stunting on Aniya, because again, back to that first sociology experiment (“challenge”) with the doors: he felt humiliated that no one chose him, so he has to wield power where he can find it.
Women are not the problem, yet KC defenders point out that one moment where Aniya shuts down and says “do whatever you want” to paint her as an evil domineering woman who wants to have her cake and eat it to, because, you know. Bitches, bro. The problem, in its nuance, is “woman good.” The men like KC who turn to humiliation rituals as payback against the women they feel wronged by are fundamentally insecure, and because of gender roles in heterosexual relationships, do not have any other outlet to process that insecurity other than violence. That’s what the post Gigi mentioned to me means; it’s not “women good,” it’s “gender bad,” because these expectations ultimately stem from the same system designed to treat women as objects, men their stoic keepers. Men are trying to say “we have feelings too!”, but without fundamental respect to inequity between men and women as an infrastructure built into society (being paid less, all those other statistics), begets the manosphere. It creates infinite KCs who go out of their way to be cruel to infinite Aniyas.
To this day, I have never in my life heard locker room talk (and I have a significant amount of straight white male friends) like that between KC and Corbin. In a Casa conversation, they talk about the Casa girls as “so much better” than the villa girls, saying that the Casa girls are like college girls while the villa girls are just high school girls. During the heart rate challenge (essentially a striptease), Corbin sacked Kenzie off (his standing couple while in Casa Amor) saying “she’s thrown out the window.” When preparing for the recoupling, KC tells the boys about how he “breathed life” into Aniya, excited to bring Titi into the villa. Even after the recoupling when everyone joins one another at the original villa, KC and company laugh while Aniya cries hysterically. The morning after, KC makes fun of the “fake ass omelette” Gal makes for Aniya since she no longer is in a couple where a boy could bring her breakfast. I…yeah. I bring up the manosphere because KC has literally liked and reposted Jeremy Clarkson content before he entered the villa. Aniya, get behind me. Put me in a room with KC. I just want to talk.
—
At the end of the day though, “women good” mainly hurts women, because it reduces our capacity to hold one another accountable. And I must say, the only woman who I think was going to be able to do that this season was Beatriz. One of my favorite moments early on is when Bea very bluntly called Melanie out for being dramatic, Melanie freaked out and cried, Bea was confused about how sensitive she was being, and then Trinity stepped in to both comfort Melanie and tell Bea that it’s not about what she said, it’s how she said it. The next morning Bea and Melanie had a conversation about what happened where they listened to each other, shared their insecurities and how its influences their communication, and hugged it out. Accountability. See, Sincere and Melanie aren’t working out because when Melanie expresses her emotions, Sincere can’t do what Bea did, and confront it head on. Sincere acts insincere, tells Melanie exactly what she wants to hear, fucks around on her, lies to her about it, gets caught, Melanie yells at him to be better, he tells her what she wants to hear, rinse, repeat. Sincere is operating within “women good,” because he conflates that with “respecting women.” But respecting women really means having the sack to tell a woman how you feel, and make an effort to meet her where she’s at. At least he’s not going full incel like KC, but they are two sides of the same coin.
—
So, the Megan Thee Stallion cake episode. Obviously, all the islanders had to buss it down for Meg in musical cakes challenge, likely a silly repudiation from producers to make sure no one gets jumped, because the core 4 (Melanie, Kayda, Aniya, and Trinity) were about to slide Titi for how she came up in that villa calling T a little girl. But the challenge afterwards where both the boys and girls get to express their feelings of revenge in a controlled setting that both keeps everyone in the villa safe and also provides good TV for us at home. The boys got to “cake” the girls as a way to get a bit of anger off their chests, but when the roles reversed and the girls got to “cream” the boys…they get the power of revenge via an oversized pastry cream tube that spews butter-yellow frosting in the boys’ faces as a punishment. Like getting pissed on, or being bukkaked. That is power and punishment and “gender equalizing” by giving the girls the dick? I…yeah okay on the nose. And a little woke moment: this challenge is a punitive justice example versus a street-logic-get-your-lick-back because the revenge was executed in a challenge, through the institutional sanctioned-behavior of the show. To “level the playing field” in a way, by giving the girls power via dicks and letting them cum on the boys’ faces as an act of humiliation. This sanctioned leveling is allowed, while the unsanctioned (aka, those “good TV” moments where Trinity and Titi yell at each other authentically at the Casa recoupling) are NOT allowed. There are clips circling showing that production cut Kenzie and Melanie’s mics because they were threatening Titi after she popped off on Trinity; you can hear Trinity’s mic pick up Mela screaming “wassup then? Wassup?!” in the background, which, like…yeah step up. Period.
I bring up the power reversal cake thing because it’s a very clear way to see how these shows, in their aim to promote dating in mass culture and directly profit on viewers’ libidinal urges (to watch each other fuck and fight), actually end up representing how gender roles fail us. So much so that they have to imply cisheteronormativity and power by letting the girls frosting-bukkake the boys as (literally) sweet revenge. Again; it’s not “women good.” Inadvertently, these shows are showing “gender bad.”
And another character who we can see this in clearly is Zach, the pot-stirrer of the season. His insecurities, unlike KCs, are masked by judgements-as-jokes (he told Kayda “I love you” during sex and then literally told her the next day that he was “just kidding”) and competitiveness. The former highlights his deep-seeded insecurity, like all the comments he made about Kayda “probably talking about me” to another guy while he was in Casa, and the latter shows how he clearly prioritized the homosocial camaraderie that comes with dating women more than the actual women themselves. Examples: his weird bromance with Bryce, how calculated he is in trying to win every challenge and prove his masculinity, his hyperawareness of the strength of other couples in comparison to his own, and most importantly, his consistent negging-as-charm strategy of talking to Kayda. There are plenty of videos calling Zach an evil gay guy, which, while funny to me personally, I worry carry an air of homophobia that could lead to a backslide in culture. (Although we all love a sinister bisexual trope.) Really, Zach comes off as someone who, like KC, hates women, but not because he’s built a narrative that they’ve kept him down, but because they’re currency; a way to form closer bonds with other men, rather than a potential romantic partner. Again, as someone who’s friends with a lot of straight cis white men, there’s no action that’s really “gay” unless you go public with the rainbow flag and a label. But with Zach, regardless of what may or may not be his sexual orientation (his business!!!), he does not view women as people, moreso as common ground with other men, whose friendships he clearly prioritizes.
—
Love Island is an end times ass show. There’s this scene in Idiocracy (2006) where Luke Wilson, still exploring the future America he’s in, wanders into a movie theater where they’re screening a popular film. The film shows a man and woman fuck and then kill each other. I ask you, is that not Love Island? Every heart rate challenge, or temperatures rising challenge, reminds me of that scene, and how it’s just kind of what media is today, for better or worse. Is Love Island as much a show where libidinal release is disguised as sex positivity or even an honest glimpse into dating for young people today, as it is an indicator of our social decline?
More than that, I think shows like Love Island are actually just like all the others. If The Bachelor is Fox News (like 2002 normal-stupid Fox News, not the psychobabble it is today), Love Island is MSNBC. They’re both the news with different angles toward the same end, owned by the same company (Love Island US used to be on ABC until Peacock acquired the rights and re-shaped it as a Peacock Original). For The Bachelor, multiple people compete for the love of one man, or woman, in the case of The Bachelorette, where the end of the show results in (ideally) a marriage between a final couple. For Love Island, multiple people couple up, the trials and tribulations of which teach the public about what social decorum looks like for dating today, where the end of the show results in (ideally) one happy couple that go on to live their days in love. The content in between may be different, but ultimately these are two dating shows steeped in the monogamous Judeo-Christian values that mass culture is based on: find someone, get married, have babies, make as much money as you can, and maybe have some fun along the way.
And this is not a new idea! This is how pop culture works. Look at the way “lustful” has become a common term in the villa for the current season 8 islanders. It’s literally biblical for implied sin. Everyone’s choices condition one another, and by proxy our own as the viewers. We are learning rules for society even though we bemoan media like this for our brains liquified and dripping out of our ears. Anyways.
Fuck KC. Till its backwards.
Comments
Post a Comment