Emily Nussbaum writes about culture for the New Yorker. Nussbaum is quickly becoming one of the most influential voices discussing the roles and representations of gender on TV. This article, published in April 2013, focuses on subgenres of cooking shows and gives readers a glimpse of Nussbaum’s critical thinking.
Reading the Genre
1. Following the two main genres of cooking shows suggested by Nussbaum, list as many “stand-
2. Nussbaum uses vivid similes and metaphors in her evaluation. Find as many metaphors and similes as you can, and think about what they each add to this essay. What work can figurative language do for an author trying to capture a visual medium like TV in a written essay?
3. Throughout the essay, Nussbaum alludes to the economics of cooking shows: Stand-
4. WRITING: Write your own evaluation of a television show, paying attention to how it fits into a popular “genre” or type of TV show. How does the show follow specific genre rules, how does it break them, and what is the intended impact on the audience? Are there any genre rules that the show has created and other shows now follow?
5. MULTIMODALITY — STILL IMAGE ANALYSIS: Nussbaum writes about the “visual rhetoric” of these cooking shows — the dominant settings, camera shots, and images. Choose one cooking show to watch, and look for opportunities to pause the video (whether on TV or online) in a key moment of “visual rhetoric.” Choose just one still, describe it in detail, and evaluate what this one visual moment can teach us about the show. (See “Present evaluations visually.”)