In Cathy Park Hong’s autobiographical collection of essays “Minor Feelings,” she explains that “patiently educating a clueless white person about race is draining. It takes all your powers of persuasion. Because it’s more than a chat about race. It’s ontological. It’s like explaining to a person why you exist, or why you feel pain, or why your reality is distinct from their reality.”
With Season 7 of “Love Island USA” wrapped, we’ve seen a number of painful truths about the prejudices and problematic views in our society reflected on the reality TV stage — including, but not limited to, these contrasting perspectives between white people and Asian people that was so apparent in the many reactions to contestant Cierra Ortega’s use of an anti-Asian slur in a 2015 Instagram caption.
We’ve seen a number of painful truths about the prejudices and problematic views in our society reflected on the reality TV stage.
As Hong elicits, Asian people have often had their feelings diminished and made to accept that racism against them is normalized, so when Ortega was removed from the show following the resurfacing of her Instagram posts with the slur, I admit I was surprised. The move seemed to indicate a shift in the normative culture, that what has historically been accepted in the past, would no longer be tolerated.
For once, the Asian community was validated in their experiences of racism, the kind that is often reduced to a “casual form”: the pulling back of eyelids, the mocking of a native language, and of course, getting called a slur that has its origin in targeting Chinese people during the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first U.S. law to restrict immigration based on nationality.
Which is why the irony speaks for itself, as Ortega, who is of Puerto Rican and Mexican descent, claimed in her apology video that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had been called on her family in the backlash of her being bumped from the show.
“I had no idea that the word held as much pain, as much harm, and came with the history that it did or I never would have used it,” Ortega said. “I had no ill intention when I was using it.”
Turns out, some of the people calling her out for using the slur didn’t know the origins of it either. Calling ICE on a Hispanic and Latino household and sending death threats to a person who used a slur is not productive nor will it encourage growth. Both cases, the use of an ethnic slur and the threat of deportation, are anti-immigrant sentiments that feed into the same type of hate and racism that plagues so much of our society.
Throughout this season of “Love Island,” other contestants’ problematic views have surfaced, too. After the first episode, contestant Yulissa Escobar was abruptly removed from the villa, with no official explanation from the show, after clips surfaced of her using racial slurs on a podcast.
Another contestant, Austin Shepard, was called out online for his pro-Trump TikTok reposts and bombshell TJ Palma was found to be following Andrew Tate on Instagram.
On the island, the contestants live in a bubble, an alternate reality where the goal is to focus on one thing and one thing only: finding love without the usual distractions of everyday life and society. All the typical aspects of life such as work and school are removed with the intention to create an “ideal” atmosphere — but what happens when the “outside world” leaks through the cracks?
This season, more so than in seasons past, has shown some major flaws in the imagined utopia. After contestant Hannah Fields was voted off in episode 18, she was asked on a podcast why she didn’t explore a connection with TJ, to which she responded, “I can kind of clock when me and somebody have different opinions on things that I just don’t waver on… and I knew there was multiple people that were like that.” Many fans interpreted this to mean that they differed in political views. While there is no official rule that contestants are not allowed to talk about politics, if these conversations are happening, they are certainly not being aired. There was another, more subtle instance in which the complexities of politics presented themselves in the show. During the “Stand on Business” challenge, Amaya Espinal, one of this season’s winners, was verbally berated by Shepard and two other male contestants, before contestant Bryan Arenales stood up for her. Shepard, a 26-year-old pool technician, said, “Do you not understand what a chance to air stuff out is?” — a moment that any minority can identify as a microaggression from a mile away. Reality shows are often perceived to be a form of mindless entertainment, which usually includes a passive agreement to avoid politics. It was her future partner, Arenales, who ended up defending her. “Coming from a Hispanic household, calling someone ‘babe,’ ‘mi amor,’ that’s just how we talk.” The Boston (more specifically, Everett) native demonstrated a level of cultural humility that was previously missing on the show. This was a defining moment in the season, in which viewers finally saw two contestants connect on more than just a physical level for once. Reality shows are often perceived to be a form of mindless entertainment, which usually includes a passive agreement to avoid politics. People like to consume shows like “Love Island” because they aren’t intellectually demanding. But as it becomes more evident how deeply ingrained politics is in society and identity, it becomes harder to avoid it. The truth is, everything is political, and even on a show as heavily sanitized as “Love Island,” the underlying cultural and political factors may have complicated the dynamics — but they also made the watching experience more interesting. And somehow along the way, this example of lowbrow media has became an anthropological study in human interactions in our politically charged reality that we viewers can’t escape, even if we want to.
Julie Huynh
Julie Huynh is an MSNBC digital platforms intern and student journalist at Boston College. 
