{"id":3028,"date":"2008-10-03T23:47:57","date_gmt":"2008-10-04T04:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=3028"},"modified":"2010-11-24T02:10:36","modified_gmt":"2010-11-24T07:10:36","slug":"race-class-and-gender-in-tv-dinners-what-else","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2008\/10\/03\/race-class-and-gender-in-tv-dinners-what-else\/","title":{"rendered":"Race, Class, and Gender in TV Dinners"},"content":{"rendered":"

I use TV dinners to show my students that nearly everything, even things they’d never expect, are awash in race, gender, and class meaning.<\/p>\n

Hungry-Man is probably the most obviously meaning-laden of the TV dinners.\u00a0 It is aimed directly at men, of course, with one and a half pounds of food, an excellent blue box, and a strong font in all capital letters.\u00a0\u00a0But it also\u00a0advertises a\u00a0particularly working-class masculinity.\u00a0 In these two boxes, notice the references to “backyard barbeque” and “sports” (XXL).\u00a0 The food itself, barbeque chicken and pork, mashed potatoes, and beer battered chicken, reinforces this class message.\u00a0 But this is also about race, as the working-class masculinity is implicitly white.<\/p>\n

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Stouffer’s, in contrast, is more moderate.\u00a0 The font for the brand is cursive, for the meal in lower-case.\u00a0\u00a0Without being over the top, it still passes as masculine.<\/p>\n

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Stouffer’s bistro, in contrast, is a feminine version.\u00a0 References to a “bistro” makes you think of France (a notoriously feminized country) and the meal here is a “crustini” (something a “real” man would never eat).<\/p>\n

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Healthy Choice seems to go further towards neutralizing its brand.\u00a0 The green color is neutral and using the term “healthy,” instead of “diet” or a similar word, keeps the brand from being too feminine.\u00a0 Plus, there’s a running MAN in the logo.\u00a0 Still, there’s a feminine feel to the food choices.\u00a0 The first meal is “Roasted Chicken Marsala… in Wine Sauce with Penne Pasta [and] Green Bean and Red Pepper Medley.”\u00a0 The second includes “Caramel Apple Crisp” and “Broccoli Florets.”\u00a0 Descriptions of truly manly food would not include “wine,” “medley,” “crisp,” or “florets.”<\/p>\n

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The Cafe Steamers sub-brand further feminizes Healthy Choice.\u00a0 Notice the cursive font and the double reference to “merlot.”<\/p>\n

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Lean Cuisine is the most feminized brand.\u00a0 Between the turqoise and orange color scheme, the reference to slimness with the word “lean,” and\u00a0the delicate all lower-case font on the boxes, the fact that the product is aimed at women is clear.\u00a0 There is also a class message.\u00a0 Who eats “Szechuan Style Stir Fry with Shrimp”?\u00a0 Not the same guy that eats “Backyard Barbeque.”<\/p>\n

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I use TV dinners to show my students that nearly everything, even things they’d never expect, are awash in race, gender, and class meaning. Hungry-Man is probably the most obviously meaning-laden of the TV dinners.\u00a0 It is aimed directly at men, of course, with one and a half pounds of food, an excellent blue box, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,2124,55,2096,2087,778,23703,285,1757],"class_list":["post-3028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class","tag-foodagriculture","tag-gender","tag-gender-femininity","tag-gender-masculinity","tag-intersectionality","tag-marketing","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3028"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29784,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3028\/revisions\/29784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}