Serving up Gender: An Analysis of Gender Representations on Food Television

This book is a scholarly study examining gender portrayals on food television shows. We begin with a brief history of food television and a survey of how the genre has grown from a single show into what can now be considered a food empire. This is followed by an examination of current media theories that are relevant to the analysis of these programs. Then, definitions of gender and a look at gender roles in modern society are discussed, laying a foundation for the research to be presented. Research includes analysis of three channels programming schedules (Food Network, Travel Channel and Cooking Channel), their associated content, and a single season of two popular food programs (Season 6 of Top Chef and Season 3 of Kitchen Nightmares). A thematic analysis examines the visual and verbal rhetoric of the gendered messages, including the use of language, displays of emotion, professionalism and physical attributes. The words, visual cues and actions identified in this study were analyzed to highlight the underlying ideologies about gender prevalent in the content of these shows. The study assessed to what extent the presentations of gender are hegemonic, counter-hegemonic or some combination of both. Findings indicate that food television programs present primarily traditionally stereotypical viewpoints, although there is overall a contradictory mix of ideas about gender that blends traditional and modern views. Women are largely confined to the realm of the domestic kitchen and instructional type programs. They are primarily depicted as mothers, homemakers and as having traditionally feminine qualities. The shows suggest an incompatibility between motherhood and maintaining a career. Women are presented as cooks and not professional chefs. When placed in competition with men, the women who have adopted characteristics conventionally associated with males often fare better than those who have not. When a woman is placed in a position of power, she is often presented as unable to handle her position either by acting in an incompetent manner or by exerting an unreasonably abrasive attitude. Men have entered the kitchen, but are presented as professional chefs, travelers, and food experts. They are depicted as being able to balance their families with work and to be good fathers while achieving professional success with their careers. Men are presented as effective leaders who act appropriately in positions of power. They reinforce their masculinity by cooking meat on the BBQ, wearing chefs’ coats to show they are accomplished professionals, traveling the world, and using language coded as masculine to differentiate themselves from the women. Overall, food programs tend to commend characteristics associated with masculinity and denigrate those associated with femininity. The instances of convergence found in these programs for both males and females occur when traditional gender lines are crossed. Male instances of convergence, for example, find men in the domestic kitchen, without their chef’s coats that are used as visual rhetoric to protect their masculinity. They are shown preparing food for their families and not paying customers, and limiting their verbal rhetoric about their professional experience. Female instances of convergence feature females in non-traditional settings such as travel and educational genres where they are able to show more signs of authority and self-reliance. These instances of convergence were minimal, indicating gender roles presented on these shows are more traditional and have not been updated to reflect the realities of modern gender roles. These findings are compared to modern gender roles and other genres of television programming to determine if these are ubiquitous portrayals.