MasterChef Australia: Educating and Empowering Through Entertainment

Abstract

MasterChef Australia’s 2009 debut marked a watershed moment for Australian television. The reality cooking show broke ratings records and transformed food and cooking into a mainstream lifestyle interest. In this chapter, Kirkwood analyses a 24-episode sample of MasterChef Australia using Strange’s framework for analysing cooking shows. The four elements of this framework are the Cookery-Educative, Personality, Tour-Educative, and Raw Educative. McKee’s Aesthetic System of Entertainment is applied alongside Strange’s framework. This examination of MasterChef Australia highlights how the show democratises and popularises highbrow food culture through combining elements of the cooking show genre and entertainment.