Brutal spoons and cheesy gloves
The formal, the informal and the spoof cooking show on web stage
In its long presence on television and the internet, the genre of the cooking show has changed and diversified significantly. The initial principally instructional character has given way to more entertaining sub-genres, including parodic ones, that is, ‘spoof cooking shows’ on the internet. The presentation of self (
Goffman 1959) takes on many forms in everyday life, but the possibilities of publicly managing one’s own impression have enormously increased on the largest stage in the world, the internet (cf.
Shulman 2017). The blurring of the Goffmanian concepts ‘front-’ and ‘backstage’ are important here in the presentation of self as ‘fake’ or ‘real’ person on the web. This article looks at the diversification of the genre of the cooking show in its transition to the internet, first by investigating strategies of formality or informality (
Irvine 1979,
2001), then by exploring a particular spoof show,
Cooking with Paris, as an example of how genre conventions are manifested by undermining.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction: Cooking with Paris
- 2.Cooking shows as genre(s): Definitions and diversifications
- 3.Formality and informality in cooking shows: Performances on backstage and/as frontstage
- 4.Spoof cooking shows on the web stage: Mimicry, parody, and the real person behind the fake person
- 4.1Exaggeration
- 4.2Contradiction and failure
- 4.3Speech acts and evaluations
- 4.4Meta-comments and subversive hints
- 5.Conclusion
- Notes
-
References
References (27)
References
Androutsopoulos, Jannis. 2015. “Negotiating authenticities in mediatized times.” Discourse, Context & Media 81: 74–77. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 1984. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (ed. and trans. by Caryl Emerson). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bradbury, Malcolm. 1989. “An age of parody: Style in the modern arts.” In No, Not Bloomsbury: Collected Writings on British Fiction since 1945, ed. by Malcolm Bradbury, 46–57. London: Arena.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cambridge English Dictionary Online. n.d. [URL]
Collins, Kathleen. 2009. Watching What We Eat: The Evolution of Television Cooking Shows. New York: Continuum. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Duan, Bingqing. 2019. “Genre diversification of American cooking shows.” Unpublished MA thesis, University of Bayreuth.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Heritage, Stuart. 2020. “‘Spoons are so brutal!’ Paris Hilton’s cooking show is a rare work of comic genius.” The Guardian, 20 January. [URL] (accessed 20 March 2020).
Hoëm, Ingjerd. 2001. “Theater.” In Key Terms in Language and Culture, ed. by Alessandro Duranti, 244–247. Malden: Blackwell.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hutcheon, Linda. 2000. A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms (2nd edn.). Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Irvine, Judith. 1979. “Formality and informality in communicative events.” American Anthropologist 81(4): 773–790. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Irvine, Judith. 2001. “Formality and informality in communicative events.” In Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader, ed. by Alessandro Duranti, 189–207. Oxford: Blackwell.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Johnson, Thomas. 2019. “You Suck at Cooking won’t make you hungry, but it will make you laugh.” The Washington Post, 18 March. [URL] (accessed 15 September 2020).
Ketchum, Cheri. 2005. “The essence of cooking shows: How the Food Network constructs consumer fantasies.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 29(3): 217–234. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Labov, William, and Joshua Waletzky. 1967. “Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience.” In Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts, ed. by June Helm, 12–44. Seattle: University of Washington Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lacey, Nick. 2000. Narrative and Genre: Key Concepts in Media Studies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lai-Yeung, Theresa Wai, and Simon Wing Wah So. 2010. “TV as a multimedia synchronous communication for cooking and eating activities: Analysis of TV cooking shows in Hong Kong.” In ISM 2010: The IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia, 302–307. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Marwick, Alice, and danah boyd. 2011. “To see and be seen: Celebrity practice on Twitter.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17(2): 139–158. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Matwick, Keri, and Kelsi Matwick. 2019. “Bloopers and backstage talk on TV cooking shows.” Text & Talk 40(1): 49–74. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Meng, Bingchun. 2011. “From Steamed Bun to Grass Mud Horse: E Gao as alternative political discourse on the Chinese internet.” Global Media and Communication 7(1): 33–51. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Mittell, Jason. 2004. Genre and Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture. New York: Routledge. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Naccarato, Peter, and Kathleen Lebesco. 2012. Culinary Capital. London: Berg. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Rea, Christopher. 2013. “Spoofing (e’gao) culture on the Chinese internet.” In Humour in Chinese Life and Culture: Resistance and Control in Modern Times, ed. by Jessica Milner Davis, and Jocelyn Chey, 149–172. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Shifman, Limor. 2013. “Memes in a digital world: Reconciling with a conceptual troublemaker.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 181: 362–377. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Shulman, David. 2017. The Presentation of Self in Contemporary Social Life. Los Angeles: Sage. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Swales, John. M. 1990. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Setting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
FIEDLER, Sabine
2022.
“Mit dem Topping bin ich auch fein”–Anglicisms in a German TV cooking show.
Espaces Linguistiques :4
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.