Trash TV Show 'Love Island' Brings Up Some Deep Thoughts

 I watched a trashy show called Love Island with friends today. I'm 25 and I definitely feel too old to watch such a thing, even though the contestants are my age and older. 

When watching this kind of thing, I always have the filter of 'what would a feminist Emily do' when I analyze how the girls act and what they say. With this show, I can see how women would act if the male gaze ran amok and dictated our entire lives. 

For example, Cely is a lovable girl who laughs loudly and has a guy Johnny who has been loyal to her throughout the show, and vice versa. Her charm is in how confident she is with her actions and silliness and good vibes. 

I see her and want to emulate some of her behavior. Yet in the back of my mind I know that as a well-rounded person, I have deep thoughts, and I take the concerns of the world on my shoulders sometimes because I want to do something about them, and neither of those habits help me simultaneously be a bubbly Emily who is finding joy in everything. Sometimes to be a powerful person is to find problems and solve them.

So then there are two women I could be, a woman who laughs and pulls everyone in with her energy, or a woman who solves problems and helps everyone live better. Because there are opposite traits required to be these two ways, I cannot be both women.

A dating show like Love Island shows women with catty and superficial tendencies, but it also shows multiple women who embody both feminine and masculine traits that are worth admiring. But when one is chosen over the other, it is hard to not make a note in my own head that 'that girl "won" so her traits are superior'.

Being a woman means bouncing between different definitions of what a woman can be, never quite committing to one. 

In the same vein, the episode I watched showed me the contrast between living in the joy of being single and relishing in the attention, and finding happiness in commitment and having a relationship grow over time. 

From one scene to the next, it can feel like the triumphant woman is at first the one with five pairs of eyes on her, and then it is the woman who has continued to attract the same man for several episodes in a row. We find ourselves pitying old Cely for only getting the attention of her Johnny one second, and reveling in her playful affection for him the next.

Or maybe it is just me, and I have somehow landed on a sour truth about myself: that I cannot tell whether I value attention or commitment more. And it took a trashy show for me to see the light.

Much of what I am saying could likely be applied to men as well. Everyone in some way wars with themselves internally about which self they are on the current day. But women's options often feel dictated by the observer, men, rather than the actor.

No one needs to be told to avoid running their life like a fantasy dating show. That wisdom is innate. But when watching said show, I must remember that the actions of the ten people on the screen are not a reflection of me or my dating history or my existence as a woman in this world.