UCLA

From Love is Blind to every iteration of Love Island, Finding Love reality television is a ubiquitous and ever-expanding genre of televisual entertainment in a post-2020 world. None is more polarizing and captivating than the hit reality show Love Island USA. Love Island USA presents a veneer of a color-blind multiculturalist paradise that promises to be a free market for love, uninhabited by the social order of the world which it mimics. However, the presence of dark-skinned Black women presents a foil to this ruse. Audiences witness how dark-skinned Black women—who are seeking partnership and/or notoriety on these shows—face sanctioned and stylized embarrassment, degradation, or harassment. This maltreatment is then utilized as entertainment, thus increasing the show’s popularity and profitability. This project analyzes seasons 6 and 7 of Love Island USA to question how misogynoir and anti-blackness influence how production constructs narratives about these dark-skinned Black women. Furthermore, this inquiry attempts to connect the rise of the show to US nationalist and imperialist aims that signal an instructive portrayal of how "good citizens" engage in mating rituals. Relying on Black feminist, queer, and critical scholarship to ground the work, I utilize pop culture analysis and personal narrative to help us better search for that REAL love.