‘Spill your guts or fill your guts’: Performative celebrity masochism and audience sadism in food challenge media

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article argues for the consideration of food challenge media as a mode in which the audience’s sadistic desire for the levelling of celebrities ‘through personal humiliation’ is captured and repurposed through the performative masochism of the celebrities themselves. Celebrity food challenge media, a term which I use to refer to programming such as a The Late Late Show with James Corden segment called ‘Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts’ and the YouTube show Hot Ones, exists as a space in which celebrities (who tend to typify ostentatious wealth) allow for controlled humiliation in order to diffuse legitimate anger and critique from the audience in an era of soaring inequality. This article posits that in exchange for light humiliation, such as the consumption of an ostensibly disgusting food or the pain of an incredibly spicy hot sauce, the celebrity retains the power, privilege, and income afforded to them by their celebrity status.