In/authenticity and food-celebrity relationships in Michael Pollan’s In Defence of Food and Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Food Revolution

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on the role of the famous chefs Michael Pollan and Jamie Oliver as celebrity food activists. Oliver’s and Pollan’s authority and legitimacy as food activists, it is argued, is crucial to the maintenance of their celebrity as such. I examine the basis of this legitimacy by investigating Pollan’s and Oliver’s concern with ‘fake’ or inauthentic foods, and how this concern ties back into and supports their own celebrity positions. Two texts that showcase their activism – Oliver’s TV show Jamie’s Food Revolution and Pollan’s book In Defence of Food – are analysed with a specific focus on the object of food itself, examining how this object works to establish social hierarchies in each text. My analysis, guided by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s work on the simulacrum with specific attention toward relationships between human and nonhuman objects inspired by New Materialism and related scholarship, focuses on the relationship between food and social hierarchies in each text, as well as how the food-celebrity relationships here are intimately related to questions of authenticity. Finally, it is argued that this in turn reveals novel nuances in the relationship between suffering Others and celebrities in celebrity activism.