{"id":475,"date":"2019-04-23T01:53:35","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T01:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stacycacciatore.com\/?p=475"},"modified":"2019-04-23T01:54:27","modified_gmt":"2019-04-23T01:54:27","slug":"literature-review-analyzing-food-rhetoric-in-the-sopranos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stacycacciatore.com\/index.php\/2019\/04\/23\/literature-review-analyzing-food-rhetoric-in-the-sopranos\/","title":{"rendered":"Literature Review \u2013 Analyzing food rhetoric in The Sopranos"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Assignment: Find out what is already known about your subject and communicate that knowledge concisely in 1,500 words or less. The form of this portion of the project could be an annotated bibliography, a bibliographic or informative essay (i.e., a review of the literature), or some other format conducive to conveying information. Your purpose at this stage will be to inform, not to take a critical stance. (Suggested length: 1,500-2,000 words). Please submit your work as a PDF file.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Literature Review \u2013 Analyzing food rhetoric in The Sopranos<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Barthes, Roland. Empire of Signs<\/em>. Cape, 1983.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Barthes (1983) writes, \u201cfood is never anything but a collection of fragments, none of which appears privileged by an order of ingestion; to eat is not to respect a menu (an itinerary of dishes), but to select\u201d (Empire of Signs 22). By correlating food to fragments and \u2018selection\u2019 we see the intention of choosing food and intention correlates to meaning.<\/p>\n

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Barthes states that food is an experience in touch. He provides an example of rice, stating that the substance is a fragment, both cohesive and detachable, what floats contrasts with what sinks, what\u2019s dense vs. what is stuck together. He compares and contrasts food in France vs. in Japan and how the interpreter views the food, for example, in France a clear soup is a poor soup, but in Japan, fluid as clear as water with only a few shreds floating gives the idea of density, nutritive without grease and a comforting elixir demonstrating that \u201cfood becomes no longer a prey to which one does violence (meat, flesh over which one does battle), but a substance harmoniously transferred.<\/p>\n

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bell hooks, \u201cEating the Other: Desire and Resistance,\u201d in Eating Culture, <\/em>ed. Ron Scapp and Brian Seitz (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 181. <\/strong><\/p>\n

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In Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance<\/em>, bell hooks speak about the \u2018Other\u2019 and how race and ethnicity become commodified as resources for pleasure. Hooks speaks about how on the college campus at Yale, she overheard young, white college men speaking of their conquests in terms of race, shopping for sexual partners based on their ethnicity the same way they shop for their courses. These young males, sexual encounters with those of another race was their way of confronting the \u201cOther\u201d. bell hooks wrote about a film Heart Condition, in which a white racist cop has a heart transplant, receiving a new heart from a black man. Transformed by his \u201cblack heart\u201d he learns to transform his attitudes towards race. In this film, there was a dramatization of \u201ceating the Other\u201d. In ancient times, there were practices among primitive people to rip the heart out of someone else and eat it so they can embody that person\u2019s spirit or characteristics.<\/p>\n

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DeVault, Marjorie L.\u00a0Feeding the Family: The Social Organization of Caring as Gendered Work<\/em>. University of Chicago Press, 1994.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Marjorie DeVault (1994) argues that \u201cfeeding work has become one of the primary ways that women \u2018do\u2019 gender\u201d.\u00a0 Performing the roles of cooking and feeding thus often serves as a reaffirmation of gender roles, so that for many women this work \u201chas become an apparently \u2018natural\u2019 part of the gendered self.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Goldthwaite, Melissa.Food, Feminisms, Rhetorics.<\/em>Southern Illinois University Press, 2017.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Food, Feminisms, Rhetorics<\/em>contains essays written by a variety of feminist scholars with varying viewpoints. Tammie M. Kennedy discusses the rhetoric of wine in Boxed Wine Feminisms: The Rhetoric of Women\u2019s Wine Drinking <\/em>in The Good Wife<\/em>to discuss how wine and drinking have become commonplace rhetoric in today\u2019s society. Kennedy specifically uses The Good Wife to exemplify how \u201cdrinking practices are inflected by gender ideologies that shape representations in popular culture\u201d (171). Over the past ten years, wine has been portrayed as a substance that enables women to deal with the stress of balancing motherhood with a career and the pressures of everyday life. Kennedy makes the tie of this wine-drinking culture to feminism, stating that it is a form of female assertion. However, she recognizes there are contrary views on wine-drinking and feminism. Gloria Steinem is quoted as saying, \u201cAlcohol is not a women\u2019s issue\u201d, while other feminists have touted how alcohol is an antidote to managing modern motherhood.<\/p>\n

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Grynbaum , M. \u201cMangia Mafia! Food, Punishment, and Cultural Identity in The Sopranos.\u201d\u00a0The Essential Sopranos Reader<\/em>, 2001, p. 183.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Food and dining play an important role in the series The Sopranos<\/em>. Grynbaum (2001) pointed out that \u201cevery episode of the series is saturated in sumptuous Italian fare. The central locale of the Soprano household is its kitchen; Tony\u2019s mob hangout is Satriale\u2019s Pork Store and Meat Market, a butcher\u2019s shop; and many of Tony\u2019s family dinners, with blood relatives or blood brothers, occur in the upscale setting of Nuovo Vesuvio, the mob\u2019s local restaurant of choice. Names of Italian dishes fly as often as bullets: pasta \u201cfazool,\u201d veal parm\u2019, tiramisu, clam originator. The characters fetishize certain dishes and the camera follows suit, hovering on steaming heaps of fresh semolina spaghetti\u201d (184). The Sopranos uses the \u2018language of food\u2019 throughout the series to portray Italian-Americans, culture, personalities, and religion.<\/p>\n

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Lindenfeld, Laura. \u201cWomen Who Eat Too Much: Femininity and Food in Fried Green Tomatoes.\u201d\u00a0From Betty Crocker to Feminist Food Studies: Critical Perspectives on Women and Food<\/em>, (Editors: Avakian, Arlene Voski and Barbara Haber), University of Massachusetts Press, 2005, pp. 221\u2013245.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Fried Green Tomatoes<\/em>explores the relationship between women and food. The film reaffirms hegemonic values and provides several examples of the relationship between gender, food, and power. Lindenfeld (2005) explores how the film is intrinsically linked to material that challenges cultural norms and adheres to what Raymond Williams refers to as \u201cemergent culture\u201d. By \u201cemergent\u201d Williams means \u201cfirst that new meanings and values, new practices, new significances, and experiences, are continually being created,\u201d (224). The film navigates both effective \u201cdominant culture\u201d and \u201coppositional culture\u201d. Fried Green Tomatoes<\/em>, attempts to challenge gender roles and heterosexism and the stereotypical ways women and food have been represented in mainstream media (224). In film women who are \u201clarger\u201d than what hegemonic culture says is acceptable are portrayed as either the butt of a joke, evil, comically unattractive or a domineering mother figure. Even when slender women eat, they are seldom portrayed as \u201cenjoying\u201d the food without being demonized or sexualized.<\/p>\n

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Lindenfeld states \u201cThe cinematography and editing have already established food as a central link between the contemporary and the historical in this opening scene\u201d (227). Lindenfeld describes that for Idgie and Ruth, their relationship to food represents community, connectedness, and togetherness while Evelyn\u2019s relationship with food signifies alienation, loneliness, and pain. The comparison between processed \u2018junk\u2019 food and homemade food contributes to this correlation. The film makes a point to build on the narrative that food is power.<\/p>\n

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The film creates a dichotomy between \u201cgood eating\u201d and \u201cbad eating\u201d, linking thinness with \u201cgood eating\u201d and fatness with lack of control. Fried Green Tomatoes<\/em>displays woman as the classic feeder and server, making her subservient. Lindenfeld states, \u201cThe cinematography cautiously provides us with just enough distance from Evelyn that we can empathize with her without having to fear becoming her\u201d (231).<\/p>\n

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McCabe, Janet & Kim Akass. \u201cWhat Has Carmela Ever Done for Feminism? Carmela Soprano and the Post-Feminist Dilemma.\u201d\u00a0Reading the Sopranos<\/em>, Lavery, D. (Editor). Palgrave McMillian, 2006, pp. 39\u201355.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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McCabe and Akass (2006) explore Carmela Soprano\u2019s role as a Mafia housewife and her contributions to the feminist cause. McCabe and Akass mention, \u201cshe supports widowed girlfriends with baked goods and sympathy but only until her husband tells her to terminate the friendship.\u201d (39). While the authors concur that generally, Carmella is an embarrassment to the feminist struggle, there is something compelling about her. The authors argue that Carmella possesses a tremendous sense of agency, holding a unique ability to control her unruly husband. Carmella rejects feminism as \u201can elitist practice\u201d, partially due to her Catholicism. Carmella is a paradox and is full of contradictions, stuck between domestic goddess, victim and Mafia matriarch. The long series narrative arc \u201cimposes meticulous rules of self-examination\u201d (Foucault, Will 19). The narrative mechanisms compel Carmella to bring forth representation.<\/p>\n

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Korsmeyer, Carolyn. Making Sense of Taste: Food & Philosophy<\/em>. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999. <\/strong><\/p>\n

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Korsmeyer (1999) explores \u2018taste\u2019 and how it can be used not only in the literal sense as it applies to food, but also in a metaphorical sense in regards to the ability to discern beauty and aesthetic qualities. \u201cPhilosophers have assumed that the sense of taste affords little of theoretical interest. Too closely identified with the body and our animal nature, it seems not to figure in the exploration of rationality or the development of knowledge. Therefore, taste is omitted from epistemology\u2019s discussions of sense perception, in striking contrast to vision, which receives a great deal of attention for its delivery of information about the world\u201d (1). Gustatory taste can divide and unite classes, race, and gender. From a moral standpoint, food can serve as both a bodily pleasure and a vice of gluttony. In Christianity, the enjoyment of food and eating is cautioned against as a \u2018sin\u2019 of gluttony. There are narratives of eating and \u2018gustatory semantics\u2019. Food can serve as a key component of the plot of a story, the dramatic focus of an event or provide symbolic attachment.<\/p>\n

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Rice, Jeff. \u201cMenu Literacy.\u201d\u00a0Pre\/Text\u00a0<\/em>, vol. 21, no. 1-4, 2001, pp. 119\u2013131.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Rice (2001) posits that a menu is a form of culinary literacy. Whether written in chalk on a board, printed on paper or listed in an 11-page book, a menu invites one to engage with menu literacy. Just like the ingredients in a dish, our senses are fragments. The practice of writing before eating is customary for Japanese chefs. Rice points out that on Iron Chef<\/em>, the contestants do poorly when they actually \u201ccook\u201d the food, rather than leave it raw. Rather then they develop a \u201cmeaningful\u201d menu and write down the dishes names and ingredients, they demonstrate menu literacy. The concealing of the literary practices of food preparation also lead to mystery, for example when the menu of a restaurant in Chinatown is written on the wall in Chinese \u2013 this leads to fears that one who cannot \u2018read\u2019 the menu is missing out and the Chinese customers are getting \u201csucculent dishes I don\u2019t even know about\u201d (112). Compare and contrast the ordering of food at a fast food restaurant, in which the \u2018reading\u2019 of the menu isn\u2019t even necessary (cheeseburger, French Fries) vs. a fine dining establishment in which every item needs to be read slowly before ordering (strawberry sherry reduction, cashew cauliflower mash). This is yet another example of how food literacy contributes to the division of class.<\/p>\n

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Snider, Zachary. \u201cThe Erotic Pleasures of Danger Foods\u201d\u00a0Pre\/Text\u00a0<\/em>, vol. 21, no. 1-4, 2001, pp. 133\u2013165.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Snider (2001) states that pain can be involved with food and sex in regards to pleasure and pain. For example, eating hot peppers, spicy foods can be considered aphrodisiacs. The same dopamine-laden neurotransmitters in the brain are activated when risk behaviors related to both food and sex are sought.\u00a0 Anything the brain perceives as enjoyable will cause dopamine to flood our brain cells and build a memory ramp for pleasure. Food and sex are generally closely linked. They are physically in our brain, as well as emotionally. Good food is correlated with good sex. \u201cSome social theorists\u2014Foucault, namely\u2014argue that this tantalizing, ongoing search for culinary and carnal pleasure has much more in common than most pleasure-seeking eaters and sexual practitioners are even aware of themselves. These prime reasons consist of: purely pleasurable greed and bliss; masochistic endeavors; psychological confusion and\/or substitution of the oral and phallic stages; desire for or purposeful loss of self-control; social status motives such as succumbing to trends or obtaining bragging rights; transcendence of gender and oft-established power roles with \u2018foodie\u2019 or sexual experimentation; among other reasons explored in the forthcoming sections\u201d (135-136). The relationship between risk, potential pain and pleasure are interconnected. Sex has been substituted for food. The separation between pleasure and pain, \u2018good\u2019 and \u2018bad\u2019 aspects of sex and eating.<\/p>\n

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Walden, Sarah.\u00a0Tasteful Domesticity Women\u2019s Rhetoric & the American Cookbook 1790-1940.<\/em>University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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In Tasteful Domesticity<\/em>, Sarah Walden states that there are specific, ideologic characteristics communicated to American wives and mothers. \u201cRepublican motherhood\u201d is defined as \u201cthe relegation of women\u2019s authority to the \u2018private\u2019 sphere\u201d (29). A key component of this was a common understanding \u201cthat one\u2019s passions and preferences must be regulated for the good of the Republic\u201d (29). Walden states, \u201cEarly republican society rhetorically cast women as rational beings with the ability to self-regulate,\u201d (34). This demonstrates the continued notion that reinforces the notion that women should be viewed as beautiful objects meant for the male gaze.<\/p>\n

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Hale, author of The Good Housekeeper<\/em>(1839) defines ideal motherhood: \u201cThe mother appears more in relation to her children than in any other position: therefore, here mind and thoughts should chiefly be given to there are and training\u201d (65). The role of the \u2018moral mother\u2019 was to ensure to nurture her children and her role was defined more through her character than her financial state. From a morality perspective, Walden furthers her argument that ideal motherhood is defined by these texts when she quotes child-rearing advice in Mother\u2019s Magazine, \u201cthe tastes and habits of children are usually formed from what they see and hear from their mother, they copy her likes and dislikes, and when very young, will often do and suffer much to win her smile of approbation\u201d (67). Walden explains that both Beecher and Mother Magazine relies upon Protestant context to describe women\u2019s work. Walden states, \u201cRhetorically, taste now indicates rational food choices based on modern science, while the palate connotes uneducated food choices based on tradition and emotion. In either application, the message is clear: Americans need an intellectual understanding of food and the body to promote good taste and cultural betterment,\u201d (124).<\/p>\n

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Yacowar, M. The Sopranos on the Couch.<\/em>The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc., 2002.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Sopranos was an HBO series that attracted 3.7 million viewers on Sunday nights, 10 million in its four weekly airings and topped cable audience ratings. The first episode of Season Two scored the highest cable show rating in history. It received 16 Emmy nominations in its first season and won two. Each week The Sopranos churned out content that was nuanced and thought through as a film. Yacowar states, \u201cit\u2019s brilliantly written, performed, and filmed. Each episode has the polish of an excellent feature film \u2013 with a tighter yet more complex, resonant script than most,\u201d (12). Without having to build the plot and faux cliffhangers around advertisements and commercials, The Sopranos was able to develop a revolutionary series that drew the audience into the immense, dimensioned characters\u2019 lives. There is a complex dialectic between male vs. female, woman vs. idealized image of a woman, strength vs. vulnerability, which creates a central tension.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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