TV
Groundbreaking: This 'Love Island' Contestant's Face Moves
People have become so accustomed to seeing Botox and fillers on TV, they've forgotten what faces actually look like.
Love Island USA’s Kenzie Annis has all the makings of a reality sweetheart: Barbie-esque looks, a bubbly personality, a healthy social media following, and all the one-liners and theatrics that America loves. But, fans of the show have had just one qualm: her face moves when she speaks.
When the usual maelstrom of tweets and memes hit the internet after the Season 8 premiere of Love Island on June 2, Kenzie was the subject of many of them. Beyond her quick attachment to co-star Zach Georgiou, viewers were quick to point out her facial expressions, wide eyes and ear-to-ear smiles. It’s this look that drew comparisons to Cassie from Euphoria’s “crazy eyes”, the evil smiling character from The Emoji Movie, and accusations of “clip farming” (exaggerating her reactions in the hopes of being turned into memes, GIFs, and stickers).
As one put it plainly, "Kenzie's facial expressions give me the ick.”
But in reality, these are normal facial expressions of an animated, excited person. They’re also particularly normal given the context of being dropped in the middle of the country’s most talked-about reality show and being instructed to mingle with five smokeshow eligible bachelors with an audience of 3.7 million viewers.
Fillers, Botox, and surgical enhancements have become so synonymous with the show that since the UK version’s premiere in 2015, outlets have reported on the “Love Island effect,” a spike in young women seeking out cosmetic procedures while the show airs. And given the quick turnaround from casting to production, procedures done in preparation for the show often look more intense on screen than work that's had time to settle.
Plastic surgery and enhancements have always been a part of the Hollywood ecosystem. Celebrities have been receiving facelifts and nose jobs since the early 1930s, and Marilyn Monroe herself likely had a chin implant and a small adjustment to her nose. But over the last few decades, enhancements and injectables have gone from something hush hush and whispered about in tabloids to something that’s essentially expected from people on reality TV.
Recently, the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives cast casually broke down each of their surgeries on Entertainment Tonight. In 2019, Selling Sunset’s Christine Quinn hosted a Burgers & Botox event. In this world, it would be stranger to abstain from injections than to not.
That said, audiences have been practically begging for more “normal people” on Love Island. Last season, when 21-year-old golf influencer Vanna Einerson entered the villa as a bombshell in a green two-piece, viewers immediately fixated on her lip filler and breast augmentation, criticizing what they called her “iPhone face” — asking producers to stop casting influencers who they perceive are there for clout instead of genuine connections. But the messaging is clear: people want to see people who look like themselves find love on TV.
People are free to do what they want with their bodies be it filler, Botox, or abstaining, But when audiences criticize contestants for normal parts of the human experience — expressing joy and letting time do its work on us — we’ve lost the plot.
If viewers are hoping to see “normal people” on their screens, from diversity in backgrounds, body types, or ages, they might start by not tearing down a girl for the forehead she was born with.
