When semi-professional footballer Tyrique Hyde and gas engineer Mitchel Taylor were placed in the spotlight on Tuesday night’s episode of ITV’s Love Island, their reactions were similar; to dismiss the women around them. They told female contestants Abi Moores and Whitney Adebayo to “shut up,” while chastising the men that surround them. “Lochan be pillow-talking with his girl too much,” Hyde smiled with intent to the room. Viewers posted about the segment in weary, yet unsurprised, tones. “tyrique always constantly beefs whitney bcs (sic) he’s threatened by someone who doesnt (sic) give into his alpha male gimmick and also has a mind of their own,” one Twitter user wrote. “I would be horrified if my partner spoke to women the way Tyrique does, especially my so-called friend,” another posted.
“The way tyrique speaks to women is alarming,” one viewer posted on Reddit. “But you guys will ignore it and give Catherine, Whitney, Molly, and Abi ten times more hate. and we all know why!!”
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We’ve all witnessed this type of misogyny, both on our screens and in real life, and it requires some context. It happens with men – who exist and have always existed in a patriarchy – feel threatened. Some arguments have arisen over the past 10 years that feminism has gone too far, and that we should turn our attention to men. That men have been displaced by progression and that the detoxification of masculinity is proving detrimental to the male identity. The events of the past decade – the rise of Trump, Johnson and Putin, the #MeToo movement, and a recurring debate over female bodily autonomy – have further threatened masculinity.
This manifests itself in what we’ve seen in this week’s episodes of Love Island, which showcases the fear and aggression such masculinity triggers when provoked by a woman. “Ella B is fake,” Taylor said at the end of Wednesday’s episode, pre-flattening the potential rejection that he fears will come when the show ends. “I think Ella B is fake.”
However, it’s important to caveat that reality television is prone to cruel editing; sharing one clip of someone is hardly a contextualised view; placing anyone under a spotlight is bound to showcase flaws; and the issues posed in this piece are targeted towards masculinity, in lieu of simply men. (As many more articulate writers than I have shared, it’s #NotAllMen, but women don’t know which ones, so all must be treated as suspects.) That said, reality television regularly acts under the guise of a microcosm, and in this particular series, where the liberation of women is arguably more evident than previous seasons, these men’s masculine tendencies appear to be flailing.