FBoy Island was far better than it had any right to be

TIME

"As much a work of satire as a reality TV show, the cheeky reality series begins with three women, stranded on an island of men, half of whom are self-proclaimed 'Nice Guys' and the other half of whom are certified 'FBoys,'" explain Judy Berman and Eliana Dockterman. "In theory, the women are trying to suss out the good men from the bad ones. Except, the show is smarter than that makes it sound. And funnier. And, dare we say, more feminist?" Dockterman adds: "FBoy Island was so clearly born from the mind of an ex-Bachelor producer. It delights in upending dating-show tropes and deflating the self-seriousness of the genre. Its feminism is fun, which is not something you can say about really any other reality dating show." And Berman adds: "I have been in the pop-culture feminist trenches for long enough—probably too long, honestly—to know that to proclaim any celebrity or product feminist is to preemptively play yourself. But I do think FBoy Island takes a lot of its cues from the past two decades’ worth of feminist-minded criticism of reality dating series."

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