Core Post #3

This week I watched the penultimate episode of this year’s season of Top Chef, a cooking competition that airs weekly on Bravo. Top Chef is really the only reality show I can handle and watch on a regular basis. After trying out several different cooking competitions (most of them on the Food Network) with my wife, we found that Top Chef is one of the only shows that focuses on actual cooking, and not some sort of fabricated drama. As far as I can tell, the producers do not vet contestants that have tragic backstories, like they do in McCarthy’s example with Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The contestants on Top Chef are all accomplished chefs and the show is ostensibly only concerned with their professional cooking.

Thus, I’m a little upset at Ouelette for ruining my last watchable reality show. By thinking about Top Chef as a form of education or “citizenship training,” it becomes clear that the show preserves a political imbalance in the culinary world and beyond. As each week the contestants must perform up to a fine dining standard, there arise clear divisions between the social statuses of the chefs and judges. Under the guise of a “culinary art contest,” the entire competition is structured around serving food for members of the upper class. In other words, the chefs, hailed as creative geniuses, compete by fulfilling typical working-class roles. While this is apparent in many cooking shows, it is particularly relevant to the way this show is structured around space and different settings. For example, whereas a show like Chopped always takes place in the same kitchen where judges sit for the entirety of the show only a few feet away from the contestants, Top Chef makes a point to separate the cooking space from the judges’ table. In each episode, the judges receive the complete dining experience. We watch as they talk and socialize in expensive restaurants, while the contestants hand deliver their plates. The editing can even be unintentionally comical, by frequently cutting between the judges’ casual conversations and the chefs running around the kitchen, fighting the clock.

While the main judges of the show are at least subtle when it comes to their wealth, the guest judges are often less so. The familiar faces range from celebrity chefs, to internet stars, to politicians. One of the most dramatic examples this season is an episode shot entirely in the Colorado governor’s mansion. As the governor and the first lady participate in the judging of the food, the episode proudly aligns food criticism with power and wealth.

According to Ouelette’s chapter, these structures in the show instruct us to emulate a certain type of citizen, or specifically in this case, a member of the culinary world/working class. I find it particularly alarming considering the fact that the show is probably a major source of inspiration for aspiring chefs. By situating the mark of success in relation to the service of not only upper-class food critics, but celebrities and politicians, the show undoubtedly propagates a damaging ideology.

I SURvived - Vanderpump Rules (non-core post)

In preparation for a trip to Real Housewife Lisa Vanderpump’s West Hollywood SUR (Sexy Unique Restaurant) last weekend, I watched the three-part season 5 reunion special of Vanderpump Rules, the reality show that follows the inevitably drama-ridden lives of the restaurant’s employees. Prior to last week, I knew next to nothing about the show, so I thought the reunion special would catch me up on the various alliances, grudges, and quotable moments with Cliffsnotes-style concision. On a set made to look like a swanky bar, bathed in the same pink-purple light that pervades SUR, the cast flanks Andy Cohen, roughly divided into two vague cliques, as though the groups might throw down without Andy there to keep the peace. In the 135-minute special, a few “surprise” guests make appearances – Lala, the departed (now returned) actress/singer/entrepreneur, Scheana’s ex-husband Mike, and Stassi’s 12 year-old brother Nikolai, who offers sage advice to the cast members. In the special’s worst (best?) moment, Andy asks the SUR chefs in clumsy Spanish what they think of each cast member. The reunion did its job – I felt prepared to head to SUR with a base-level knowledge of the cast, none of whom were present during our dinner. I drank the overpriced drinks and ate the infamous pasta, and enjoyed myself as much as a novice #PumpRules fan possibly could.

A Dose of Reality TV - noncore post

I don't watch reality TV, so I decided to just sample a bit of everything. My thoughts on the genre seem to align with McCarthy's neoliberal theater of suffering, where unresolvable pain always threatens to boil over. In lieu of a longwinded post, however, here are my two-sentence reviews:

Queer Eye (new version) - Gay guardians of culture teach straight men how to perform self love and authenticity. This involves buying a lot of stuff.

Weekend Aristocrat - Middle class people rent the castles of the landed gentry, who have discovered that castles are expensive to heat. Basically, the nobility put their estates on AirBnB.

The Traffickers - A docuseries where a young journalist traces the global trade routes of black market goods. When asked whether it was right for him to buy an organ from a poor Pakistani man, a Canadian man commented "You could say I actually gave him an opportunity to save his wife and child."

Undercover Boss - A CEO goes undercover at his own company and is shocked to learn that his employees are exploited. The solution is to make work more fun!

Floribama Shore - Probably my favorite of the day. Young Southerners move into a house in Panama City Beach for a summer of self discovery (read: binge drinking). Highlight quote: "Being a Southern boy, I have to be a gentleman and a douchebag at the same time, because I feel like that’s what women look for."

Perusing Reality (T.V.) - Josh Foley, Non-Core Post

It's hard to grasp exactly what counts as "reality T.V." After perusing some of the offerings listed under that title on Netflix, some choices include Lucha Underground, a show in which lucha libre wrestlers "compete" for $100,000; Buy Herself, an HGTV style house hunting show about single women looking to buy property; and Can't Pay? We'll Take it Away!, whose title pretty much says it all: it's a show about debt collection and evictions in the U.K. The variety of reality T.V. on Netflix is striking, but also worth noting is how they each depend on competition in varying degrees, which cleaves closely to Anna McCarthy's reading of the affective and actuarial modes in reality T.V. Reality in these shows is heightened, given a narrative form, and there's ultimately something to be won or lost.

Non-Core Post #1: Dipping into ~REaLitY~ with Carver Kings

To prepare for next week, I've been sampling different reality shows on various streaming services since there are very very few I've ever watched for an entire season. For those who didn't already see this on my Instagram story recently, Carver Kings is the reality show I never knew no one needed. I still haven't seen enough (just the first episode) to tell if it's a competition or just some drama-infused documentation of an elite service, but it is truly something to behold--people commission these carving masters to create huge and elaborate pieces for their personal whims and needs and all kinds of bizarre hilarity ensues. In the first episode, Mark and Ryan are tasked with carving a custom totem pole for some couple's fancy front porch; Mark is concerned that baby Ryan won't be able to handle it, and tbh, rightly so. Ryan is pretty good as a carver, but is characterized as lacking the foresight and instincts to remember things like the fact that eagles have tails, or that Mark will be super pissed to find that Ryan tried to "help" by finishing his part of the totem while Mark was at lunch. It's honestly really crazy and I intended to just watch that one episode before moving onto another pilot but I might just have to keep going. (Worth a glimpse at least--on Netflix :D)

Scattered Thoughts on the Male Gaze and Lesbian Erotica in "The L Word"

I started watching The L Word just before its penultimate season. I was 14 and while I had some concept of the themes and intrigues, I missed a lot of the nuances in the content. Once the final season rolled around, I dutifully watched it week by week (remember those days?!) and was incredibly disappointed with the story direction. Amid rumors and then confirmation that The L Word, like every other television show in TV history these days, is coming back, I have started to re-watch the series (which is infinitely more entertaining now that I live in LA and understand the jokes that are based on neighborhoods). While at times the content really draws attention to very real issues facing women, transgenders, and the lesbian community, the show can be absolutely cringey in terms of the actual sex that takes place. Often, my bemused roommate will interject with "that's now how it's done!"

Watching The L Word, I just wonder for whom the rampant sex scenes are staged for? Are they working for the male gaze or are they attempting to undermine it? I can't help but think of a typical male erotic fantasy of seeing two women have sex before his very eyes. The L Word seems to oblige them that, but I am not sure whether or not the sex scenes are meant to empower the lesbian female gaze and the lecherous male gaze simply functions as an unintended byproduct? Most of the episodes are written and directed by women (contrast this, to say, the particularly vivid and gratuitous sex scenes of Blue is the Warmest Color) and as a subscription service show that doesn't rely on across-the-board appeasement of the masses, my question still remains a bit open.

Anywho, just as another random tangent, The L Word was pretty damn progressive in terms of social issues, holy moly. It deals with transgender issues, racial issues, sexuality issues, the Iraq War, drug problems, etc. It's truly overwhelming at times how many things this show juggles.

Watching Reality TV non-core post

So a friend had talked me into watching the first two episodes of The Bachelor Winter Games before being assigned to watch some reality television. So I figured since I don't normally watch a ton of reality TV on a regular basis I'll just finish this.

This show is very weird. Not only did they have a high school girl sing some sort of anthem for the show, the show attempted to foster international relationships from the rest of the globe and create "Bachelor World." Every person on this show had been on a previous Bachelor/Bachelorette in their home country. This is problematic in a couple of ways. America of course is the most represented country with the most contestants, but then you have the one woman from China or the one woman from Japan--who does not speak much English. Both of these women were clearly at a disadvantage. The latter had a language barrier issue preventing her from connecting with anyone and the former's version of the Bachelor does not involve much if any physical relations with contestants--at most there will be a kiss between the Bachelor and the final contestant. Watching the first episode where everyone is introduced the viewer knows that these two ladies do not have a chance of making it to the end. The show is mostly dominated by countries from English-speaking countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand which makes sense.

One thing that I do have to mention is that towards the end of the season they have the contestants make out in front of two previous Bachelorettes and the current Bachelor to determine who was going home. This is really bizarre and uncomfortable for the couples because a lot of the Americans were on the seasons of the guest judges.

The song created for the show is treated like a national anthem. They make everyone stand and you see some people place their hands over their hearts. Seeing this made me a little angry because in no way is this patriotic and clearly they take this way too seriously.