Neoliberal exploitation in reality television: youth, health and the spectacle of celebrity ‘concern’

Abstract

Discourses about risk and responsibility are evident in the recent social panics surrounding childhood obesity that construct youth as necessary targets for saving. The public is not only asked to accept the problem of obesity but, often we are also asked to believe that only a highly sensationalized intervention can counter it. In this essay we argue that the obesity industry uses media to represent the ‘problem’ of obesity in ways that ultimately serve corporate interests and in ways that are antithetical to the well-being of youth. This phenomenon is made possible by the colonization of neoliberal ideologies in the social and cultural milieu of the USA. We argue that neoliberalism is a system of cruelty that gets theatrically enacted through reality television – a television subgenre that increasingly casts youth as its subjects. This paper analyzes the show Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution in an attempt to capture one manifestation of the exploitative damages of neoliberalism as well as to highlight its contradictory and harmful messages, especially as they relate to youthful bodies and their regulation.