Host of nightly show The Program
An Iranian remake of Love Island has exploded online, sparking fierce debate about taboos, personal freedom and the responsibilities of new media.
Marketed as Eternal Love, the show gathers young contestants in a luxury villa, reshuffles their romantic ties and pits them in staged challenges—following a formula that has proved commercially irresistible from Britain to Netflix.
But in Iran’s fraught cultural landscape, its rise is about more than entertainment: it reflects social shifts, strained relationships and the clash between audience demand and media censorship.
Global lessons
Reality shows worldwide have long faced serious criticism.
In the 2025 season of Love Island alone, Ofcom—the UK’s media regulator—received over 14,000 complaints.
Social pressure led to protective protocols: restricting contestants’ social-media use during broadcast, offering psychological support before and after filming and mandating training for television appearances.
In the US, lawsuits against Love Is Blind producers raised the question of whether contestants were mere “entertainment tools” or employees entitled to rights. The outcome was costly settlements and the entry of labor organizations into the fray.
The message is clear: reality TV is never “just entertainment”—mental health, labor rights and human dignity are at stake.
Added sensitivities
Eternal Love reproduces the same criticisms: commodifying emotions, privileging appearance over character, crafting heroes and villains and fueling collective judgment.
The main difference lies in its platform.
YouTube, unlike television, lacks a regulatory body and binding standards. That absence can intensify psychological and social pressure on participants—especially when their intimate relationships are laid bare to millions of viewers, including teenagers.
Supporters counter that a weary, anxious Iranian society deserves entertainment. They argue taboos must be broken and media should serve as a “mirror” to new realities of relationships.
There is some truth to this. Yet global experience shows that a mirror that sells also carries responsibility—for participants’ well-being and for the younger audiences exposed to such content.
Need for standards
This responsibility raises urgent questions for the makers of Eternal Love: is there a public care protocol, do contestants have access to counseling, are contracts fair and allow withdrawal without penalty, and has an age rating been defined?
Most of all, where is the line between reality and scripted drama, and don’t audiences have the right to know?
Eternal Love embodies two realities at once: society’s right to entertainment and taboo-breaking, and the dangers of crossing into unregulated territory.
If this genre is to persist in Persian-language media—and it likely will—clear standards are essential: transparent care protocols, contractual protections for participants, anti-harassment policies, social-media management during broadcast, age guidance and stronger media literacy.
Global precedents exist. It only takes the will to adopt and enforce them.
Iran submitted Cause of Death: Unknown by Ali Zarnegar after a selection process that excluded films by independent and dissident filmmakers.
Among those left out was the critics’ favorite It Was Just an Accident, secretly filmed by internationally acclaimed director Jafar Panahi, who is banned from filmmaking.
Panahi's drama was in turn submitted to the Oscars by France while fellow dissident filmmaker Alireza Khatami’s The Things You Kill will represent Canada.
Shahram Mokri’s Black Rabbit, White Rabbit has also been selected by Tajikistan.
Panahi’s film, which won the Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, was selected as France’s submission from a shortlist that also included Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague and Rebecca Zlotowski’s A Private Life.
Oscars rules allow submissions in the category for productions "largely in the hands of citizens or residents of the submitting country."
The plethora of films by Iranian filmmakers has stoked some criticism, however, as LA Times columnist Glenn Whip wrote in an article titled, "The Oscars’ international feature category is broken. But there’s no easy fix".
"All this leads to a question raised annually: Isn’t there a better way to choose movies for the Oscars’ international feature category, one that sidesteps the politics of repressive regimes and produces a list of films that are the best the world has to offer?" he wrote.
The global presence of Iranian directors highlights both the richness of Iran’s cinema and the challenges artists face under domestic repression.
Earlier this month, an association of independent Iranian filmmakers called on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to overhaul how it accepts films from countries under authoritarian rule, warning that the current system legitimizes state-controlled cinema bodies.
In a letter to the Academy, the Iranian Independent Filmmakers Association (IIFMA) said the Farabi Cinema Foundation, which oversees Oscar submissions from Iran, enforces censorship and sidelines independent voices at home and abroad.
Many Iranian talents, facing censorship and restrictions at home, have fled abroad. Panahi remains in Iran under travel and work restrictions, but his French residence gives him the chance to participate in the Oscar submission process.
Mohammad Rasoulof, whose The Seed of the Sacred Fig was Germany's Oscars submission last year, was previously sentenced to prison and now lives and works in Germany.
While Iranian cinema has global reputation for its exploration of social themes, independent filmmakers operate under a system of strict censorship at home.
The government requires script approval and screening permits by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, punishing those who challenge political or social taboos with bans, imprisonment or exile.
