I've not seen the article yet, but Fred Kaufmann wrote an article in the latest Harper's Magazine about food television, and how it shares an astonishing number of parallels with the production techniques in pornographic films.
As a dedicated journalist, he bought Mexican Food, sat down with a photographer who was experienced in filming porn, and sat down to watch 6 hours of the Food Network. Interviewed on
On the Media.
Money quotes:
- You know, in the old days of food television, if you talked to the producers, if you talked to the people who were involved, they were already making jokes about "it's food porn." The difference today is that the porniness has become more pervasive. Nobody would confuse Julia herself with a porn star. However, that leg of lamb, that big chunk of steak, that was the star, and the fetishized focus on it was clearly a pornographic focus.
On the production value:
- [The photographer] really gave me an education in terms of not only of the shots but in terms of the wacky, strange soundtracks - [SOUNDTRACK UP AND UNDER] - this kind of caressing camera going over the food, back and forth and up and down. One of the things that makes it extremely porny is the repetition. You'll see the peach, and the camera going over those peaches again, then Giada, then the peach, then Giada, then the peach. And so this is very similar to how porn works.
On
Iron Chef:
- Iron Chef is the classic fetish porn film. Welcome to the Dungeon, with this billowing smoke. ... And then you have this great dominator character who's in this kind of wild brocaded outfit with the black leather glove. And then comes the strange ingredient from the ceiling. It's squid. It's living squid. And you have the dominators taking this submissive food and transforming it into something beautiful. In other words, the classic plot in a dom-sub fetish porn film is you have a transformation of a character from a meek little thing or an ugly little thing into a gorgeous, beautiful, wrapped-up, zipped-up thing. And here what you have in food is you have this disgusting thing, like living, writhing squid, that's turned into this highly refined and highly mediated squid risotto.
And on those sadsacks watching in the bar, painfully searching for the inconguous goals of intimacy, cold beer, and a good third period:
- A predominantly male demographic is much more popular with advertisers. And many people who I've spoken to call it "The Emeril Network" because Emeril was the man responsible for bringing a male demographic to The Food Network. He brought in the hockey fans. ... Now, in fact, you're seeing men in bars watching Giada; they're watching Rachael next to the football game. And it's almost this kind of strange surreal experience of having somebody cook for you while you're sitting there drinking beer alone in a bar, crunching a potato chip. It's this kind of outrageous sense of happiness and perfection given to you in this completely virtual manner.
Not Bob, it sounds like you've got another new source of guilt beyond complimenting the waitress' hair.
Gattigap
