Food as porn?
I'm re-posting this as Valentine's Day food for thought.
I recently watched an amazing Japanese movie- Tampopo.
It's a food movie, which deliberately pays homage to most of the genres including Spaghetti Western, mobster, samurai and chic flicks. The main story of the search to create the perfect bowl of ramen is interwoven with vignettes of a/typical Japanese life and the role food plays. Food is used in an overtly pornographic role, yet the movie itself is not overtly sexual. I enjoyed it tremendously and recommend it without reservation.
Let me know your thoughts.
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This issue of "Food as porn" came up in a conversation at a party over the new year 2006 with a couple of friends and we continued it via email. It came up in another conversation just a couple of days ago with my new room mates so I thought I'd post the old debate. Feel free to chime in with opinions.
Originally we were talking about the food network demographic. Where they are targeting the statistically significant group of 15-35 year old males who make up approximately 50% of their viewing public. I cited this statistic as interesting, since this group traditionally doesn't do much cooking.
here's the primary article I was referencing altho there have been
subsequent follow up interviews.
http://www.barbaranitke.com/harpersmag.html
Here's Les' response:
"It's not that I disagree. But I would venture that shooting porn or food/cooking doesn't have nearly the degree of difficulty as a feature movie, or even a music video. Meaning that it would be easier to replicate, reproduce, imitate.
The analogy can be titillating, and food is obviously very seductive. But the same parallels can be drawn with car shows, animal (wildlife) shows, fashion, certain sports such as figure skating and gymnastics, beauty pageants (which are not actually porn), swimsuit related shows (such as the annual SI issue), and a host of others.
Camera work, comments, close ups and angles, seductive curves, lighting, zoom, etc - all that is part of film making, right? Story arcs, characterization, climax, etc. - all part of storytelling.
I would be more convinced if they persuaded me that food = porn to the exclusion of other subjects. For instance why banana = plantain, but not other fruits. But I understand their argument is meant to be provocative, not complete.
Interesting though. "
My response:
"My overall impression from the article was that these
shows are not trying for true story telling with plot lines arcs etc.
Rather they're appealing largely to a group that isn't especially well
known for their interest in cooking. One could argue that
this demographic may simply watch the most tv. Certainly they're also
the major audience for some of the other shows you listed- car shows,
swimsuit episodes etc."