The year 2016 marked a huge change for the world. Britain voted to leave the EU, America voted an orange into office, and David Bowie died. Also, ITV broadcast the second season of their Love Island revival series, before it became a global phenomenon. But one night catapulted the show into super stardom, bringing about an entire renaissance of TV shows in which hot people hook up on the beach – the night when former Miss Great Britain Zara Holland gave Alex Bowen a BJ, and lost her title as a result.
The removal of Zara’s title was an obvious case of unreasonable sexism and slut shaming, which you’d obviously never expect from a national beauty pageant. But it also marked a dark day for the Love Island franchise, because even though it increased the visibility of the show and led to the golden age of seasons three to five, it also warned future contestants that yeah, not everyone would be down with them shagging on TV. Night-vision hideaway scenes ever since have been rather tamer affairs, with some lacklustre rolling under the sheets and maybe a lingering shot of a foot. A vanilla snog now solicits a round of applause in the villa – how are the mighty fallen.
As reality TV dating shows have become as ubiquitous as football in the new age of streaming, so too have the participants become increasingly cautious of revealing too much on-screen. Married At First Sight and Love Is Blind have even trad-washed TV hook-ups under the guise of “marriage”.
But then La Isla De Las Tentaciones came along, and all caution was thrown to the wind. Montoya really let it rip emotionally, and Twitter users learned just how much looser Spanish broadcasting censorship rules are than those in the UK and US. Like, Anita and that other dude were doing it, ya know. So much so that the now viral clip of Montoya running to his beloved while she shagged someone else would not have been able to live on any other mainstream social media platform. Hey, sometimes Twitter’s lack of community guidelines can really bring people together!
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, the viral ‘MONTOYA, POR FAVOR’ video, now seen on Twitter 224m times, goes a little like this: In the Spanish version of Temptation Island, a guy called Montoya watches as his girlfriend hooks up with another man. He hitches his shorts around his groin, hands on hips, staring into the TV like he’s emitting laser beams from his eyes. He paces up and down as his voice gets louder and louder with anguish. His arms are outstretched in disbelief. He then drops to his knees and screams in front of the TV, gets up, looks around, and starts sprinting across the beach to the neighbouring villa where his girlfriend is having sex-so-powerful-you-can-hear-the-skin-slaps. A couple, who appear naked, emerge from a jacuzzi to see what the hell is going on. The host runs after him shouting “Montoya, POR FAVOR! MONTOYA!” Lightning, like his girlfriend’s ass cheeks, claps across the sky.
It’s a moment of high drama so rarely seen in modern reality TV. The girlfriend, Anita, and her new love interest Manuel, are not even trying to hide from the night vision under crisp white sheets. Montoya is shouting, despairing, begging, expressing himself with his whole body in the way only a Mediterranean man can. In a follow-up clip, he lies on the sand, shouting “POR QUEEEEEEEEE” into the night, his soul in torment. In another, he rips his shirt clean off while Manuel plays Anita’s ass cheeks like the bongos. It is unbelievable TV.
In a genre which is now so heavily reliant on creating drama out of wilful misreadings of a co-star’s minor indiscretions, blowing arguments way out of proportion to the point of meaninglessness, Montoya vs Anita stands out. They both have legitimate reasons to act up, and react in an unhinged way (although you’d struggle to find a soul who isn’t on Montoya’s side as it stands). They did not come to play – they came to make a damn TV show. Such antics are a far cry from MAFS 2023, in which the greatest drama came from Porscha rejecting Terrence’s spoon (although that was class).
We got a whiff of such reality madness in 2023 jaw-dropper, The Ultimatum: Queer Love, but that’s because Lesbians were in charge. Those who watched will of course remember Xander and Yoly’s own night vision performance. In this show too we saw couples test their “strength” by partner swapping with other hotties. But nothing much happens in the straight equivalent, where large parts of the reunion are spent working out who initiated a peck on who (snore). To the cast I say: you’re on a show where you’re expected to “try out” other people, so surely you’ve had a conversation with each other where you’ve agreed to do that??? What are you testing??? We need to bottle Anita and Yoly’s energy. We need more Montoya’s rolling around on the floor. Give us the TV show we want to see!
Obviously I’m not trying to encourage the mistreatment of reality TV participants by producers or the general public, or suggest we should push these individuals to harm their mental health for our entertainment. But I am saying that if you’re going on a TV show with a controversial premise, and you have the mental fortitude to accept the consequences, go with it! Give us fireworks! Summon thunder and lightning! Wail into the sand! Shag bolt upright! Don’t let the prudes win!
**No jokes though I obviously hope everyone on Temptation Island Spain is actually doing ok right now.**
