The phrase “dude food” likely brings to mind a range of very specific images: burgers stacked impossibly high with an assortment of toppings that were themselves once considered a meal, crazed sports fans demolishing radioactively hot wings, barbecued or bacon wrapped…anything. But there is SO much more to the phenomenon of dude food than how outrageous the plate looks.
My guest this week, Dr. Emily Contois, is an Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the University of Tulsa. Dr. Contois is here to explore dude food and chat about her fresh out this week book, Diners, Dudes, and Diets: How Gender and Power Collide in Food Media and Culture. Her book begins with the dude himself – the man who retains masculine privileges but doesn’t meet traditional standards of economic and social success.
Dr. Contois explores how the Great Recession’s aftermath contributed to this collision of dude masculinity and food producers and markets, and the lasting impact this gendering of food has had on food production, consumption, and informs the way we carry out our personal identity contests and media lives.
She is truly one of my absolute favourite food researchers out there – I mean she has papers out that explore Guy Fieri’s Flavourtown, and she’s got these accessible syllabi and reading lists for food media studies that really get the weird ways social media and Instagram have interacted with our own identities, so suffice to say I’ve been very excited to share this interview!
Learn More about Dr. Contois
Get a copy of her book, Diners, Dudes, and Diets!
Website: https://emilycontois.com
Twitter: @EmilyContois