Love Island Australia is definitely heating up, but fans have one big problem with the show: a clear lack of diversity. It’s an issue that has caught the audience’s attention, but it’s also been felt by Love Island contestant, Tea Fraser.
Fraser was part of the ‘bomb squad’ – five female intruders who entered the Love Island house last week in an attempt to find love and seriously shake things up with existing couples. Sadly, Fraser and fellow bomb squad member Angel were booted from the island when her housemates chose to save Jessie and newcomer Biannca instead.
Speaking to HuffPost about the show’s less-than-diverse casting decisions following her elimination from the show last night, Fraser said, “I think there definitely could’ve been, it definitely would’ve been good…but a the same time it’s people who do apply.”
There’s been plenty of chatter on social media about Love Island Australia’s “vanilla” lineup, and it comes just over a week after fellow evictee Phoebe Thompson revealed the racism she’s faced in both her professional and personal life.
“I can tell you that when I started modelling, I struggled a lot because you walk into an agency and they’re like, ‘We’ve already got a black girl,” she told HuffPost. “It’s like, well you’ve 100 white girls with blonde hair, why can’t you have a diverse range of black women as well?”
Phoebe’s got a point, and it’s a sentiment shared across the pond by Love Island UK winner, Dani Dyer who told Digital Spy she thinks it’s time for reality shows to open themselves up to more diverse couplings.
There has been some movement in the right direction, with shows like MTV’s True Love or True Lies? and Are You The One? adding same-sex relationships and sexually fluid contestants to the mix.
However, it sounds like there’s a fair way to go here in Australia. Here’s hoping reality TV shows like Love Island Australia catch up and future series will present a more diverse range of contestants and cast members.