Diganta Bhattacharya
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Sundarvan Mahavidyalaya, West Bengal & Research Scholar, Presidency University. Email: diganta.bhat@gmail.com
Volume 12, Number 1, January-March, 2020 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n1.37
Abstract
The notion of ‘capital’ being fluid, it comfortably lends itself to a multiplicity of interpretive-analytical frameworks that involve anything that can be ‘cashed in’. The significance of food in its myriad manifestations and reimagining-s can barely be overstated as it not only is irreplaceable due to biological-gustatory function but also due to the way people connect with it culturally, domestically, ethnically and personally. A 1990 show created by Franc Roddam in UK was essentially resuscitated, reconceived and re-developed in Australia in 2009 and the rest, literally, is history. Masterchef has become a culinary phenomenon like no other, has got its iterations across several continents and has essentially reimagined how ‘food’ is approached as well as conceptualized. A steep competitive framework and the time-tested format of a reality show can be argued to be two of the most significant reasons of its immense success which is apparent from its extensive viewership. This essay seeks to interrogate a format that, admittedly competitive and eclectic, has successfully found out a method of manipulating consumer choices through a sort of strategic representation. By no means a straightforward Marxist critique of capital-flows as operative in such sites that are determined by different modalities of choice-based resource-utilization in an age of unprecedented interpenetration of the public and the private life, this study also strives to be a close ‘reading’ of the reality show ‘Masterchef Australia’ and the subtle ways it has continued to impact food culture around the world including India since 2009.
Keywords: Food, MasterChef, Australia, Culture, Capital, Pluralistic Democracy, Transnational, Body, Individual, choice, Economy, Reality show, Digital Behaviour
