Women, anger and emotion management in Love Island

ABSTRACT

This paper uses Hochschild’s theory of emotion management as a theoretical framework to interrogate women’s expressions of anger on Love Island. Using both critical discourse and textual analysis, we provide a comprehensive analytical investigation of how anger is shaped across the intersections of gender, race and class, and how it is mediated through the genre of Reality TV.

Our findings demonstrate moments in which women on Love Island do not conform to gendered, classed and racialised “rules of emotion”. Rather, we argue that they embody an abject femininity by latently expressing their anger in order to negotiate relational issues of power and subjectivity. We further understand these expressions of anger as demonstrations of female solidarity within Love Island’s strictly heteronormative power structures, which reinforces the notion that anger is a potentially productive entity, and is one that women can mobilise in order to fight oppression (Audre Lorde, 1981). However, our findings also demonstrate that women who express anger continue to be subject to provocation, sanctions and belittlement, both within production and among fellow participants. For women who are Black, and women who are working class, these processes of emotion management have intensified.

KEYWORDS:

• Reality TV
• femininity
• class
• emotion management
• anger
• authenticity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Olivia Cossey

Olivia Cossey has recently completed an MSc in Social Research Methods at London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. She also holds a BA (Hons) in History and Sociology from the University of Leeds, UK. Her research interests include examining the intersection between gender and class within the study of emotion, as well as contemporary celebrity culture and cosmetic surgery.

Jessica Martin

Jessica Martin is a feminist academic and a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Leeds, UK. She is assistant editor for the European Journal of Cultural Studies and her research interests include gender and inequality, nostalgia, celebrity culture and politicised mediations of feminism in popular culture.