Document Type
Article
Abstract
[First paragraph]
John Rodden, in his analysis of the rhetoric of narrative in 1984, argues that the characters in the story are secondary to the narrative, which itself participates in and provides support for larger cultural myths (155). Though Rodden discusses overtly fictive literature, the same can be said for the simulacra of reality TV: a genre of television in which each episode follows a formula that obscures the individual contestants. The Fox reality television show Kitchen Nightmares is such a formula-driven show, one with rhetorical narrative structure. The show, which portrays a struggling restaurant owner saved by a professional chef, simulates reality, but mediates the simulation through the traditional Puritan conversion narrative, a tradition that utilizes the Christian salvation myth. The use of the traditional narrative and its supporting myths, however, transforms the narrative of Kitchen Nightmares into a rhetorical performance that enforces the value system of a capitalist ideology.
Repository Citation
Bowling, Joseph. "Making over Myth: The Rhetorical Use of the Puritan Conversion Narrative in Kitchen Nightmares." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 10, no. 4, 2010, pp. 1–20. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol10/iss4/12