Culinary Entertainment, Creative Labor, and the Reterritorialization of White Masculinity

This article explores popular cultural themes of masculinity and mobility in the context of postracial and "end of men" discourses. Our attention is focused on sites of everyday culture, taking note of the tropes by which white male authority is fantastically recuperated through culinary entertainment. We read films such as Chef (Jon Favreau, 2014) and television reality series such as Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives (Food Network, 2007–present) as sites of a reterritorialization of white masculinity, exploring the nostalgic resonance of the road trip and fantasies of mobility and plenty in a sociocultural context of privation and inequality.