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Rachael Ray, like fast food, pleases crowd
Mon, 13 Nov 2006 19:06:49 -0600 rec.arts.tv
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By Karen Heller
Inquirer Columnist People like Rachael Ray because she's cute and perky - boy, is she perky - and, if you're into this sort of thing, always happy. She's nonthreatening, too, and every dish she's ever eaten is deelish, an asset in a dinner guest but questionable in a tastemaker. On the Food Network's $40 a Day, she's perpetually overjoyed at the establishments she visits as long as they fit her budget and host her camera crew. This is an absurd format for a television show when bad food lurks potentially behind any counter. What we're looking for is an expert with the authority to edit and select, not the ability to bless every heap of mush. The point of food shows since the great Julia Child was to learn something from the masters, to be educated and enlightened by a skilled and genial host, although clearly here I'm wrong, too. People would rather watch someone who seems just like them - although perkier and with better hair - and whose knowledge isn't vastly greater than their own. It's another example of the dumb-down effect, to say nothing of the dull-down, even with all the attendant perkitude, that says much about viewers' resistance to challenge or growth. tbsamsel...
Sandra Lee has baked a whole Semi-Homemade® kitchen industry based on, and we quote here, a "70/30 philosophy - 70% store-bought/ready-made products accompanied by 30% fresh and creative touches - allows anyone to take 100% of the credit for something that looks, feels or tastes homemade." Right. This is a return to 1960s canned-soup cuisine, a counterintuitive regression when fresh ingredients abound. And her math is as questionable as her ingredients. Lee's mac-and-cheese, an easy dish to make on your own, is 100 percent ready-made. At this point, why bother turning on the stove? It's homemade takeout. Paula Deen's recipes resemble Reader's Digest versions of cookbooks, but at least she seems like some fun, the wacky Southern aunt you wish you had. Still, when she's suggesting something as lame as "Hogs in a Sleeping Bag," maybe it's time to call it quits. This is more likely fodder for sitcom or fiction than memorable cuisine, a menu of cooking shows hosted by people who can't cook. It's the gastronomic version of Anne Tyler's novel The Accidental Tourist, about a travel writer who rarely left his home. Ray's ascension reminds me of people who select candidates based not on their talents but on the convoluted logic of whom they would most likely share a beer. (Laugh, but well-paid pollsters do research on this.) The problem with this is, one, the candidate probably doesn't drink beer - not in these sanctimonious times - and, two, if he did, he wouldn't share one with you unless you had a very fat checkbook. Ray has a way of making one nostalgic for Martha Stewart's steely perfectionism. At least Martha knows what she doesn't like. Here's the problem with the dumb-down effect: You dumb down things to the point where they may be popular, because they don't challenge or offend, but are largely useless. I love Julia, and the soothing Jacques Pepin, to say nothing of saucy Nigella Lawson (if only I could come over to her London home for one of those long, rowdy dinners) and the naughty, sometimes dangerous perigrinations of Anthony Bourdain. Their programs work because they clearly know more, they've eaten better, and they're not like everyone else. The triumph of Rachael Ray is yet another example of Just Like My Neighbor Programming. Nice neighbors are good to have - you wouldn't want the difficult kind - but don't necessarily make for lively entertainment. As my good friend always says, nice is not enough, although for Ray, Sandra and Paula and their many fans, it apparently is. |