Last night, the much-hyped Winners and Losers screened on Channel 7. The story of four chums, reunited at their surprise ten-year high school reunion, replaced the spot left vacant by the incomplete season of the hit family show, Packed to the Rafters. The idea behind taking Rafters off air and replacing it with a new show was to give Winners and Losers a chance in a time-slot that not only carries a sizeable audience over from My Kitchen Rules, but already had a dedicated fan base. But, of course, reasoning like that only works if you replace an apple with an apple. That Winners and Losers is also created by the same team that gives us Rafters makes that sort of strategising and assumption a safer bet than usual.
But does that mean it will work?
I was looking forward to giving this show a chance, despite the fact the ads made it look superficial and simplistic in its treatment of women and thus men. Featuring Melanie Vallejo (who did a guest spot on Packed to the Rafters) who plays Sophie Wong, Virginia Gay (Rebecca) from All Saints, and newcomers, Zoe Tuckwell-Smith (Frances) and Melissa Bergland (Jenny), the female ensemble appeared strong and interesting, though I noted the politically correct blend of body sizes and shapes, ethnicity and hair colour. I guess the producers have to tick certain boxes.
The show commences by establishing a context for each of the four girls: Sophie is a former med student and now a personal trainer who seems very comfortable in her heterosexuality. By my count, at the end of one hour of screening, she’d slept with at least four different men. Fine, if that’s your schtick, only what really annoyed me was that the only person she wasn’t sleeping with was her best mate, the lovely Doctor who, is not only her conscience (as she introduces him to her other friends), but pays her bills as well. Jiminy Cricket with cash. Unless the tragedy in her past is that this Doctor is gay, it makes no sense. In fact, it’s So Wong (Sophie’s cruel nickname at school), it’s stupid. Oh, and did I mention that she used to be obese? Well, she was but now she is gorgeous. Of course. The ugly duckling becomes swan – never heard or seen that before. Vallejo played her very well, which was a saving grace, and she did have some good lines.
Then, there’s the career chick, Rebecca. Thought to be lesbian by her school mates (because she’s tall and smart and good at netball?), Rebecca is someone who wins a Fulbright scholarship, runs her own business or is a partner or… whatever… and has a gay PA who adores her. Of course, this woman, like all the others, goes to pieces when confronted with the high school bitch (who I will get to in a minute) or has netball violence fantasies – I think Kath and Kim or Shazza will want copyright on some of that. WTF? This also made no sense.
Now we get to the final two – Frances and Jenny - who are best mates. Frances is engaged to Blair Donaghue – remember him? Not only was he in Neighbours, but he’s the guy who was runner-up in Big Brother years ago and who, it has to be said, has crazy eyes. If he looked at me the way he looked at his fiancee, Frances, I’d not sleep and be anxious as well. Frances thinks that’s happening because of the pressure to attend or not attend the high school reunion. No, it’s because of her fiancee. Him or her best friend, the needy, overweight Jenny who has bright red (dyed) hair and who lifts her sense of style straight from the IT geek in Criminal Minds – Penelope whatsherface. In fact, I swear she was channelling her. When I realised that Jenny is also an IT geek, I groaned. My husband wanted to commit hari-kari.
You getting the picture? These four women, the leads in a new show that showcases contemporary womanhood, are drawn using a series of tired cliches and stereotypes. So much so, that when we get to the reunion, the girl running it, Tiffany, is sad and old – not the actor, just the lines she’s given and her manner. It’s been done, it’s been dusted and, for a moment, I thought we’d stumbled onto the set of an American cheerleader movie or Mean Girls. Who speaks like that? Who dresses like that? OK, yes, I know some women do, but it was so demeaning and embarrassing in terms of the show itself. Aren’t there other ways of portraying friendship, the frenemy, and femaleness than competitive dressing, bitch-speak and poor acting? Queen bees and wannabees in their late 20s? it was just boring, bland and predictable. I also disliked the idea that, the the first show was predicated on the notion that we all revert back to simpering 16 year olds the minute we’re confronted with our high school pasts. When Jenny climbs on stage and gives Tiffany the serve, we all saw it coming the moment her dad pulled up to the reunion or Sophie stumbled into the toilet, or Rebecca’s heel caught in the pavement. Again, it didn’t offer anything dramatic, funny or revelatory in terms of script, character or women. Winners? I think it made us all look like losers. End of story.
Similarly, when Jenny refused to be a part of the lotto ticket purchase (puhleez? For two dollars she doesn’t join into this symbol of cementing the bond that had just been formed between the friends, especially after they’d all uttered how much it meant to them, and she felt alienated from her friend Frances?), we knew what the outcome would be the moment she declined. Of course they would win lotto – and an amount neatly divisible by 4. Of course. I already know how next week’s episode will play out and probably the one after that.
I suspect others will too. That’s why, despite winning its timeslot with a respectable 1.6 million this week, I’m not convinced these figures will continue, not unless the story improves and the characters develop into something more than two-dimensional female stereotypes with nothing new or interesting to offer.
I’m all for a bit of stereotyping, but not when it’s so boring, you roll your eyes or worse, wince in embarrassment. And another point, I’m not sure that this is the type of family viewing the Rafters was either. For young teenage girls, there’s not much hope or heart in seeing four lovely women, each with no doubt a great deal to offer, fret over a reunion, collapse at one look from the former school bully or parade their insecurities like Lady Gaga does her underwear.
I will give this show another chance, but at the moment, it’s not winning much but criticism and a great deal of disappointment from me.
Does My Kitchen Rule in “Foodie” World?
Feb 09, 2012
This is the unedited version of my column that appeared in the Courier Mail, 8th Februrary 2012 (I took the mistake out!).
Glancing at the major commercial networks prime-time offerings Monday through to Thursday you could be forgiven for thinking we’re a nation obsessed with food.
From 7pm nightly, viewers get to choose between My Kitchen Rules (MKR) on 7, the celebrity weight-loss show, Excess Baggage on 9, or The Biggest Loser (singles) on Ten. Whether we’re concerned about quality or quantity, we’ve a growi
ng appetite for cuisine-related TV.
According to the OzTAM figures, we’re more interested in cooking and eating than we are shedding weight with MKR out-rating the diet and exercise fly-on-the-wall programs by a wide margin.
While Excess Baggage and The Biggest Loser are not directly about food, they are about nutrition, diet and the fact that having an unhealthy relationship with the latter and non-existent understanding of the former lead contestants to a very public battle of the bulge.
MKR is all about gastronomy and providing, initially within the contestants’ home, a fine-dining experience. Yet, this reasonable aspiration was undermined from the outset this series when judge, Pete Evans, described Greek siblings, Steve and Helen’s first efforts as “home-cooked”, as if it were a pejorative.
If it’s not a great home-cooked meal prepared by laypeople they’ve craving, what is it exactly they’re after?
As Indian journalist Vanita Kohl-Khandekar asks, “does anyone watch food shows for the food anymore?”
Evolving from instructional step-by step shows last century that demonstrated in detail how to cook a dish, fronted by Gabriel Gate, Iain Hewitson, and Peter Russell-Clarke, cooking shows have transformed into culinary and cultural adventures or cut-throat battlegrounds known as “foodtainment”: the place where food porn meets competition.
It’s a type of “Hunger Games” replete with sacrificial victims who are burned by the experience or emerge, phoenix-like, to triumph.
Sourcing, preparing, cooking and serving food become metaphors for the transformation and inner growth or the lack of either in contestants, but also for the way shows are assembled. Participants are sourced, auditioned, chosen, filmed, edited, screened and devoured (by fans). Forget what’s served on the plate, it’s the side dishes of emotions, how the contestants look and interact, that’s the icing on the viewing cake.
In his book, Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched, cultural theorist Mark Anrejevic’s discusses how RTV turns social activities into professional ones. The act of cooking for others, the entire dining experience, is altered into a specialised competitive arena, stripping the warmth and meaning out of sharing food.
Encouraging fellow contestants (and viewers) to critique what they’re served, the joy of food and its function as a human social activity – as a necessity and as a bonding experience – is also elided.
The attention MKRs’ Adelaide contestant, Jennifer “princess” Evans, has received in the cyberverse with her negative comments about the other competitors’ efforts is a case in point. Running a close second to Jennifer in the unpopularity stakes is Victorian, podiatrist Thomas, whose foot-in-mouth invective sees him stand out for all the wrong reasons.
Contrary to turning the collective stomach, all this bile and snarkiness has done is turn, as Anooska Tucker-Evans notes in The Sunday Mail, “hating into ratings.”
Please sir, we want some more…
When villains emerge over the dining room table, in someone’s home, in what’s supposed to be a spirited atmosphere founded on goodwill, the kitchen mitts are off.
While there have been some objectionable comments in cyberspace about the contestants, especially Jennifer, viewers are mostly enjoying the bitter-sweet experience of watching participants cook, serve, score and be scorched.
This is partly because we know what’s on the menu when it comes to foodtainment. These types of show cater to an increasingly sophisticated audience with educated palates who relish being known as “foodies”.
Ask anyone and you’ll be told about their favourite restaurant, farmers’ market and chef. Cookbooks replace or stand by literature in bookshelves, and stylish kitchen utensils are displayed like works of art.
Instead of turning us into a nation of gastronomes with an appreciation for fine food and the effort that accompanies it, we’ve becom
e more selfish, mean-spirited and, frankly, a bit wanky around dining.
As if we’re also contestants on a food reality show, we evaluate with abandon and feel qualified and entitled to demand more – not of the paid dining experience alone, but even of our friends.
Still, we can choose whether we want to be a villain or a hero in the food-stakes and what we want on our menus.
I firmly believe what while haters may be raters in TV land, most of us want heart, not heat in our kitchens.
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