FEATS
convincing my friends and family that I unironically believe in the show’s genius. The premise pits cynicism and belief against each other in the most entertaining way possible: On Too Hot to Handle, the battle manifests in the opposition between meaningless sex and meaningful relationships. A group of sexed-up singles is sent to an island retreat, all thinking they’re in for an endless slew of hot beach hookups. Instead, they’re forbidden from any form of sexual contact, and told that each breach of the rules will deduct money from a prize fund ($100,000 in seasons one and two, and $200,000 in season three, rapidly drained regardless of season). The ultimate goal, as purported by the show’s coneshaped, Alexa-esque, bluetooth-speaker-overseer Lana, is to teach these horny hotties how to function in emotional, communicative, real relationships. This description sets off multiple alarms in our inner cynic’s battle command center. First of all: false opposition alert! Sex and meaningful connection aren’t mutually exclusive. Second of all, talk about a disingenuous premise… The show claims that the purpose of Lana’s sex ban is to promote emotional growth, but obviously
ILLUSTRATION SOPHIE FOULKES
To watch a steamy, sensational, catfight-filled, tear-saturated reality TV show—the kind of show my dad says “makes you dumber”—is to enact a cosmic battle between cynicism and belief, a battle between jaded disdain and naive openness. Are you the friend who refuses to come to the weekly Bachelorette viewing party because hearing someone say the phrase “my journey” makes you want to vomit? Or are you the friend who sobs when Zac proposes to Tayshia in season 16 and sobs again when they break up not too long after that? Maybe, though, you drift suspended somewhere in that sweet, sweet cosmic battlefield, the mysterious terrain that lies between throwing up in scorn and crying in devotion. Picking a side is more consequential than just picking a show to watch; it’s picking who you are. Are you a cynic or a sucker? This conflict is embodied, with what I think is philosophical elegance, in Netflix’s reality competition show Too Hot to Handle—my go-to choice for “makes you dumber” TV. My problem with that categorization, however, is that I don’t think Too Hot to Handle is dumb at all. In fact, I think it’s brilliant, and it’s been an uphill battle
DESIGN BRIAANNA CHIU
the battlefield of belief in reality TV
TEXT ANNIE STEIN
RABBITS, DUCKS, AND TOO HOT TO HANDLE
it’s meant to make inevitable sexy rule-breaks even SEXIER—for the sake of our mindless entertainment! Third of all, REAL relationships? Let’s not kid ourselves. Every exchange is contrived to the point of scriptedness, or, if not, edited to the point of straight-up manipulation. Nathan and Holly claiming to be in love, the full L-word, after making out in a pool for two weeks and exchanging nary a complete sentence? (Season three spoilers, sorry.)? If love doesn’t find a way, a producer obviously will. Across the battlefield, our inner believer, wallowing in the murky depths of hookup culture, waiting for a noble, illusory savior to lift us out and kiss us tenderly on the forehead— which would deduct no money from the prize fund!—thinks maybe there’s something to it. If we watch Harry finally ask Beaux to be his girlfriend (season three spoilers again, sorry) and feel an all-consuming euphoria mixed with a deep longing in the pit of our stomach, who’s to say that’s not real? In the summer 1977 issue of the journal Shakespeare Quarterly—to orient yourself, that’s forty-three years before the first episode of Too Hot to Handle aired—the late scholar Norman Rabkin published an essay called “Rabbits, Ducks, and Henry V.” In the essay, Rabkin describes a classic optical illusion: a drawing that looks like either a duck or a rabbit, depending on how you look at it. You can see the duck or you can see the rabbit, but you can’t see both at the same time, even if you know the other one is there. Rabkin uses this rabbit-duck illusion as a way to read Shakespeare’s play Henry V: In one reading, Henry is a Machiavellian tyrant; in another reading, he’s a noble leader. You can only understand the play one way at a time, even when you know the other way is there. That, Rabkin argues, is the genius of the play: “In Henry V, Shakespeare creates a work whose ultimate power is precisely the fact that it points us in two opposite directions, virtually daring us to choose one of the two opposed interpretations it requires of us.” Maybe the ultimate power of reality shows that make you dumber, reality shows like Too Hot to Handle, is precisely the fact that they point us in two opposite directions, virtually daring us to choose between two opposed interpretations of ourselves. You can watch an episode and hold the opposite poles of your personality in each hand, flipping back and forth from rabbit to duck, cynic to believer. Rabbit: Scoff at bodies that are sculpted to the point of absurdity and faces that are clearly botoxed. Duck: Marvel at their beauty. Rabbit: Laugh at contestants’ sheer, stupid ineloquence. Duck: Lovingly adopt their lingo. Rabbit: Call every relationship fake. Duck: When the season ends, watch newfound friends say goodbye and cry along with them. Google whether Harry and Beaux are still together. Read that they aren’t, and feel something quietly real, something like heartache. ANNIE STEIN B’24 hopes to someday be a bird with top banter.
VOLUME 44 ISSUE 08
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