There is an annual “moral panic” about Love Island that “does women absolutely no favours”, according to columnist and author Ella Whelan.
It comes after some viewers accused some of the show’s male contestants of “misogyny and controlling behaviour.”
Meanwhile, Women’s Aid said it was in talks with ITV about the show after it was tagged in a “stream of Twitter posts” from viewers worried about the way female islanders were being treated by their partners.
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On Newstalk Breakfast this morning, political journalist and author Ella Whelan said people are taking the show far too seriously.
“The fact is, all the women I know watch it, it has a huge number of viewers every evening and something in me tells me they’re not tuning in to be misogynistically abused and hoodwinked into thinking that bad behaviour from men is a great thing,” she said.
“They’re tuning in because it is trash telly and it's good fun.
“I think we’ve completely lost sight of the fact that, in the same way we don’t expect people to take their moral and social cues from Fair City, we don’t expect them to take them from Love Island.
“This is a highly scripted, very weird show. The kind of contestant that goes on this is not your average person. I mean there is no sum of money you could pay me to spend my time in a bikini on TV. You have to be a, kind of, confident oddball and I think most people understand that.
“There’s a real moral panic around Love Island that does women no favours.”
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She said it is dangerous to accuse people of misogyny for “bad behaviour or even being mean or sexist”.
“Misogyny means something very important and specific,” she said.
“It is hatred of women. It is a real visceral thing. It is far up on the extreme scale. It is something people do if they have a vendetta against women in some sort of perverse way. Sexism and misogyny are two different things.”
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Ms Whelan said the earlier versions of the show were far wilder.
“It was far more about the drama and the fun of the show,” she said. “There was a lot more sex in it, there was a lot more drinking, there was lot less rules.
“It was sort of like the early years of Big Brother. It was just, tune in to watch this, sort of, human zoo and it was actually more real and people reacted in a more genuine way.
“At the moment, everybody, including the producers, is so careful as to the kind of political commentary around it that, rather than it being a stupid television show that’s kind of entertaining, it’s turned into this moral moment.
“Every single year, Women’s Aid comes out with a statement and every year, 27 columnists come out and write articles about why this is dangerous to women and it’s just so tiresome.
“I just want to say to people, give women some credit. We’re not so daft as to be tuning into television every night to find out how men behave and then replicating that in our normal, everyday lives.
“We’re not doing that. We’re not children that simply soak up stuff we watch on the television.”
Earlier this month, Love Island presenter Laura Whitmore spoke to Pat Kenny about her experiences on the show.
