Commodifying and Gendering Food in Films and Television

1
Commodifying and Gendering Food in Films and
Television

• Prepared by Mariam Bedraoui
• and Rachid Elaasri

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Core Material

• A Domestic Divo Televised Treatments of
  Masculinity, Femininity and Food by
• Author Rebecca Swenson
• Source Critical Studies in Media Communication,
  Issue 1, March 2009.

• Slow Food, slow Films
• Author Dennis Rothermel
• Source Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Issue
  4, July 2009.

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Outline

• Part One
• Food, Television/Cinema Zones of Cultural
  Intersections
• Methodological Notes
• Part Two
• Commodifying Food Slow Food, Slow Films
• Gendering Food A Domestic Divo Televised
  Treatment Of Masculinity, Femininity and Food
• Part Three
• An Overall Evaluation

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Food, Cinema/ Television Zones of Cultural
Intersections
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Some Notes on Methodology

• What is food?
• Food stuff and cooking
• The space where cooking takes place
• The values related to food and cooking
• What contexts for food?
• Food genre films
• Cookery shows
• How will the articles be discussed?

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Slow Food, Slow Film

• Commodifying Food in Films

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Slow Food, Slow Film Main Thesis

• The cultural load of food and films
• Manipulation and commodification
• Resistance to this dominant mainstream
  productions
• Artistic creations

• Food and film inherit traditions with a broad
  range of values. Large- scale industry
  proliferation of social pabulum has come to
  dominate in both. Perennially renewed resistance
  to this domination, however, thrives in both food
  culture and film culture. The hallmark in either
  case is dedication to exquisite creations within
  the dedicated practice of an art. P. 265
• What slow films has in common with slow food is
  the prevailing presence of care, care for the
  making of food, care for the making of the
  films, but foremost for the one for whom it is
  meant, who will in turn will be ready for the
  receipt of the gift. In stark contrast,
  industrial food and industrial film find value
  strictly in terms of the exchange of price for
  commodity. P275

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Slow Food, Slow Film Key Concepts1- Slow Food
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Slow Food, Slow Film Key Concepts2- Slow Film
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Slow Food, Slow Film Key Concepts3-
Commodification
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Slow Food, Slow Film A Review of the Case Study
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A Review of the Case Study An adaptation to
Meet Conditioned Tastes

• Film making style
• Long elaborate shots
• Contemplative protagonists
• Food culture
• Simple dishes using fresh ingredients
• Cooking is the process of designing a gift
• Small servings

• Film making style
• Conventional analytical montage
• Conventional female protagonists
• Food culture
• Cooking grants power and control
• Mainstream food Pizza, overcooked pasta with
  tomato sauce
• Large servings

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Evaluation

• The use of fast food in a movie is not
  necessarily a sign of complicity and
  consolidation of the dominant consumptive habits
• Not all Hollywood adaptations are by necessity
  driven by an intentional marketing for the
  capitalist values.
• The construct of slow food may not keep the same
  defining boundaries across different cultures.