Topic #2 – Television as a Cultural Mirror

The television show that I picked to do my second blog topic is “Master Chef”.  The particular episode aired Tuesday August 2^nd 2011, and was called “Top 7 Compete”.  Full episodes can be found at  http://www.fox.com/masterchef/full-episodes/ This show is about the best of amateur chefs competing to win the title of “Master Chef”, and a quarter of a million dollars. This television show is a reality show that is ran by three major chefs.  First there is Chef Gordon Ramsey who is the leader of the trio followed by two other chefs, Greg and Joe who also participate in the show as the judges.  Then there are the contestants that competing for the quarter of a million dollars, they are; Ben, Lindsey, Jennifer, Kristen, Christen, Adrian, Derek, and Suzie.

            The television show starts off with a “box” contest with a surf and turf theme, where they have secret ingredients under a box and the contestants have 45 minutes to create the best dish they can using the secret ingredients, which are; jumbo shrimp, crawfish, short ribs, king crab, buffalo rib eye, and porterhouse steaks.  The contestants then cook what they think would be the best dish possible and Chef Ramsey, Joe, and Greg pick the best three looking dishes that they would like to taste, and from there they then pick the winner of the competition.  The top three contestants were Jennifer with her Risotto, Adrian with his short ribs, and Suzie with her Prawn bisque and Bison with pan gravy sauce. Then right before Gordon declares the winner they go to commercial to hold the viewers in suspense.

            The winner of the first competition is Jennifer with her risotto, and she is given a big advantage going forward into the next competition.  Jennifer is then taken back into the pantry where she is shown three pictures of kids, that turn out to be childhood pictures of Gordon, Greg, and Joe.  She is then told that she is going to have a choice to cook one of their favorite childhood meals.  Greg’s favorite childhood meal was mac and cheese, while Joe’s favorite was pizza, and finally Gordon’s favorite was tomato soup and grilled cheese.  Right before Jennifer gets to pick her choice they go to commercial.

            Jennifer then picks Gordon’s favorite childhood meal of tomato soup and grilled cheese.  All the contestants now have to make an adult version of tomato soup and grilled cheese.  They are then given five minutes to shop in the pantry for ingredients and forty five minutes to prepare their meal.  When they return from the pantry they find pictures of themselves as children at their cooking stations.  The contestants then start to cook their meal while the trio of chefs observe and comment about their meals that they are cooking.  Suzy cuts herself as she is cooking then they go to commercial.

            When they get back from commercial it shows Suzy running to clean up and start over because she bled on everything.  After a few more minutes the contest comes to an end and everyone has their plate served and they are now subjected to the judges’ comments both good and bad. They get to Ben Star’s meal and he is upset with his dish and the judges agree that the dish is bad, they then go to commercial.

            After the commercial the rest of the dishes are tasted and the bottom three are chosen; Kristen, Derek, and Ben Star.  They then go back to commercial, after they return from the commercial they tell Ben to step forward and after a dramatic pause Gordon tells him to go back to his station. Leaving only Kristen and Derek up for elimination, then Gordon says, “The next person leaving master chef is” a brief pause again “Kristen.”  Before anyone knew it Gordon then says, “Were not done yet.”  He then kicks Derek out of the competition.

            I do believe that this reality show is popular because of the stress and surprises that the competitors face on a daily basis.  Also Chef Gordon Ramsey is also a person with charisma and knowledge, and lets us not forget that he loves to yell and put down the contestants that produce horrible or below par food.  This show is tended for family audiences and differs from other shows with Gordon’s character (of course played by himself) and the two other judges.  Although they do try to sell items on their website http://foxshop.seenon.com/index.php?v=fox_shows_family-guy&AID=10710187&PID=2203897&afsrc=1&ecid=AFF-7975437&pa=affcj.  There is however on show that is relatively the same with a different twist that is advertised during commercials and you should watch if you liked “Master Chef”, this show is called "Hells Kitchen" which can be found at http://www.fox.com/hellskitchen/. "Hells Kitchen" is also ran by Chef Gordon Ramsey, but instead of a quarter million dollars as the prize, it is a job at his restraunt as head chef.

            The commercials during the showing of this program was family based commercials that included: Walmart, Verizon, Aflac, Red Lobster, Mountain Dew, At &t, Target, Ikea, Allegra, Fred Myers, State Farm and the list goes on and on.  Altogether there were five commercial sets with seven to eleven commercials in each set. I would end with saying that this is one of the few better reality shows that I have watched and would recommend this show to others to watch and enjoy as well.  Not only do you get to see people squirm, but you get to learn how to cook great food as well.
        You can find further reviews of this show at http://www.fox.com/hellskitchen/.

Commercials and Media are changing

For this project I picked a commercial that won the fans approval.  This commercial first aired during the Super Bowl in 2011, The Force: Volkswagen Commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R55e-uHQna0. It was highly talked about in the media for some time after it aired. This commercial did not focus on the car at all though. Volkswagen instead, decided to focus on a kid wearing a Darth Vader costume. Come to think of it they did show one thing, the automatic start button at the very end, and that is what made the commercial great. Instead of showing how fast their car is or what it could do, Volkswagen instead decided to show it as a family car.
    They accomplished this act very well by instead of having the car as the main character of the commercial; it was the small child who was wearing the costume. Of course the music choice was that of “Star Wars” to keep in theme with the whole thing.  The commercial showed the child playing in costume trying to use “the force” and failing at every try. Only at the end did the vehicle that Volkswagen was trying to advertise even showed up in the commercial after the child’s dad arrived home. This is where the commercial actually showed its product. The last few seconds of the commercial is the only few that mattered. Showing the child’s story, and playing around got people’s attention, because there was nothing being sold, and at the last second they show you in a way that keeps with the story and allowing the child to achieve what he could not do otherwise, use the force.

     I would say that somebody has finally been listening to the people finally, or at least Jeff Jarvis. This is exactly what he described in his book “What Would Google Do?” you don’t try to force your product to the masses or even try to tell them why to try your product. If you have something new, just tell the people what is new or show them. This is exactly what Volkswagen did when they made this commercial. They didn’t try to tell us that we needed their product or tell us why theirs is better than any other automobile. They just showed us what was new while they told us a very cute story. In my opinion it was almost product placement in a short movie rather than an actual commercial.  
     The fact that they picked a Super Bowel spot to first show this commercial shows that they believe not only in their product but the intelligence of their customer. In addition they got even more media afterwards than they did during the first initial airing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyJUshK35o0. This commercial even prompted news coverage about how media is changing and how commercials and companies like Volkswagen are changing with it. Commercials that are cheaper to make seem to have more of an effect than the expensive high tech commercials, show that it is not what they show us it is how they show us. They were tuned into what people were saying what they want, they want to be informed and entertained, not told what to do, and was talked about in many blogs as well http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/05/congratulations-to-volkswagens-commercial-the-force/. Media is changing, and the companies that change with it are sure to survive while others will fade away.