Masterchef; a conclusion.

Throughout our research we have found that lifestyle television has become increasingly popular within the Australian market as it merges entertainment with information and promotes a certain lifestyle and set of  behaviours that ensure self improvement. We have also found that it is lifestyle based programming that tends to display the highest amount of diversity. Shows such as Go Back to where you Came From, though ground breaking, are not likely to succeed on commercial television, or attract the same audiences as popular reality television. We propose that MasterChef is a digestible format which encompasses diversity in both ethnicity and gender in a constructive as positive way.

On commercial screens, multicultural Australia bursts into focus only on reality TV even more so than in scripted drama. The X Factor finalists, for instance, included R&B trio Three Wishez who are Tongan-New Caledonian, full Greek and African-British. This year's Masterchef contestants included Sri Lankan-born Kumar Pereira and Malaysian-Australian Billy Law. On The Amazing Race Australia, Melbourne Muslims Mohammed El-leissy and Mostafa Haroun became much loved characters.

This kind of display of diversity has opened an entirely new narrative within the public sphere, and reality television now acts as a site of political discussion between an entirely new class of people. In fact, the discussions and debates that emerge from reality television are generally based around race and pose questions often dodged by politicians as we enter an increasingly neoliberal society.

We can take a recent example from the latest series of My Kitchen Rules which saw Channel 7 accused of provoking racism after promoting two new Asian contestants as ‘gate crashing villains’ in order to replace the eliminated Jessie and Biswa, popularly known as ‘the spice girls’ due to their Indian heritage.

Following the programs promos was an onslaught of social media activity and coverage on the potentially racist notion of having only non-caucasian contestants as interrupting the peace maintained by the ‘ordinary, Australian contestants’.

"Are the producers of MKR a bit racist? 1st the Indian spice girls were the baddies. Now we have Asian gate crashers to the be baddies stereotype," Cambo 96 tweeted. (Twitter, 2013).

This kind of engagement surrounding representations in the media, and concern for ethics and equality coming from regular viewers is perhaps definitely to be celebrated.

Seven denied any racial undercurrent in it’s selection of participants stating that “…the selection of the contestants is a reflection of our multi-national community.'' (News.com.au)

It is interesting to note that these kinds of critical comments are emerging from the Australian public sphere, and most likely from a lower to middle class viewing populace.

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My Kitchen Rules certainly displays a diversity in ethnicity that is accurate to our context as modern Australians. Almost half Australia's population was born overseas or has one parent born elsewhere. While British and New Zealanders are still the two biggest migrant groups, they are followed by Chinese and Indians. Our Vietnamese-born community is almost as big as our Italian one and recent new settlers have come from Iraq, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and the Philippines. We argue that MasterChef does better at celebrating these cultures by basing merit of the contestants on being able to cook a range of cuisines. By basing challenges on certain cuisines, they expand the culture of the program and also include all members of the audience into a united Australia.

Professor Ian Lang, head of film and television at the Victorian College of the Arts champions MasterChef as a success across multiple aspects of the Australian lifestyle and psyche.

"It provides a genuine social service in helping people look after themselves better," he says. He sees other virtues in the show. "It reflects a sense of a contemporary Australia that is multicultural, not bogan. It doesn't humiliate people in the way that more calculated reality shows such as Big Brother do. It's one of the few shows that families can not only watch together, but will also discuss. It gives those who are not footy fans something to talk about at work." (Quinn, 2010)

MasterChef Australia was more popular than Big Brother (2001–8) and Australian Idol (2003–9), both major successes in Australia, the show has had extraordinary appeal across a wide audience.  The premiere in 2009 attracted 1.42 and is third-highest-rating program in Australia (the other two highest-rating programmes were sporting events) since OzTAM began collecting ratings figures in 2001, it was watched at least once by over 11 million Australians – 75 per cent of people in the five mainland cities (Meade 2010)

Adapted from it’s British father, MasterChef Australia been strongly indigenised in regards to the level of cultural content and rebranded to fit our identity and class structure. The contestants were fun, friendly and represented the multiculturalism of Australia.

“Drawn from a variety of backgrounds, the top twenty- four contestants on the show stand in for a kind of idealised, cross-class multicultural Australia. Various iconic markers of Australian national identity are also a feature, from ‘classic’ Aussie foods such as the ‘chiko roll’ to the frequent insertion of panoramic shots of Sydney, the location of the MasterChef house and kitchen. The format has also been tailored to reflect Australian national myths of social egalitarianism with the competitive aspects relatively downplayed and rather more emphasis given to the social bonds that have developed between contestants”(Lewis 2011, p9)

In her research paper You’ve put yourselves on a plate’: The Labours of Selfhood on MasterChef Australia Tania Lewis points out that notions of class are negotiated on the show via ethnicity, and that Masterchef in fact speaks to a range of classed identities. MasterChef’s ratings tell it’s story with a peak audience of 4.11 million, beating The Block and the first series of Australian Idol. MasterChef also attracted between 75 and 80 per cent of every demographic, from kids to middle-aged parents and seniors

With its relatively bourgeois cultural focus and high production values, MasterChef has attracted not only audiences, but contestants from all walks of life. It has also sought a roughly equal balance of men and women, and as the series have progressed the show has featured contestants across a wide range of age brackets. MasterChef champions multiculturalism and embraces it’s diverse range of contestants and judges in a cosmopolitan, modern fashion through the shared love of food and cooking. Tania Lewis (2011) calls this ‘safe multiculturalism which she says is “heightened by the fact that the ‘ethnically’ marked contestants (particularly those who make it to the final twenty-four) are largely second- or third-generation migrants complete with Australian accents and habitus. It is fair to say that cultural difference is celebrated on the show but only to the point where it adds a degree of cultural colour or gives a contestant that extra edge in terms of personal branding or culinary know-how, with the performance of ethnic skills or knowledge often conflated with ‘inventiveness”

As Graeme Turner suggests (2009), successful reality TV shows work not just as textual mediations of the social but rather produce active interventions into social space, shaping normative conceptions of identity and, perhaps more importantly, framing people’s social expectations and their imagined life trajectories.

Perhaps it is this type of ‘safe multiculturalism’ that could give rise to progressive reality television and increasingly complex discussions in society.

Freeman-Greene, S. 2011, Too-white TV must tune in to the real team Australia. The Age. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/905983157?accountid=13552



Lewis, T 2011, You've put yourselves on a plate': the labours of selfhood on MasterChef Australia, in Beverley Skeggs and Helen Wood (ed.) Reality Television and Class, Palgrave-Macmillan, London, UK, pp. 104-116.



Lewis, T, 2013,  How do certain Reality Television shows reflect popular myths in Australia, Interviewed by Zoe Annabel Davies and Katrina Varey [in person] RMIT University , 07/05/2013.

Mead  A, 2010, ‘Wildly popular MasterChef goes live’, Weekend Australian, 12 June, p. 3.



OzTAM , OzTAM Home. [online] Available at: http://www.oztam.com.au/ [Accessed: 13 May 2013].



NewsComAu (2013) My Kitchen Rules is not racist, says Channel Seven. [online] Available at: http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/television/my-kitchen-rules-is-not-racist-says-channel-seven/story-e6frfmyi-1226580346334#ixzz2T9m1vd9H [Accessed: 27th April 2013].



Twitter.com (2013) Twitter. [online] Available at: http://www.twitter.com/Cambo96 [Accessed: 20th April 2013].

Quinn, K, 2010, How MasterChef recruited us without us even knowing. The Age. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/612670854?accountid=13552

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Turner, G. 2009, Ordinary People and the Media:The Demotic Turn (London: Sage).