In June 2018, University of Tulsa Assistant Professor of Media Studies Emily Contois published the following scholarly article: “The Spicy Spectacular: Food, Gender, and Celebrity on Hot Ones.” (Feminist Media Studies. Commentary and Criticism: Food Media Special Issue. Published Online June 7, 2018. DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2018.1478690.) Soon thereafter, Twitter’s New Peer Review, an account that monitors academic publications and calls out studies lacking in solid evidence-based scholarship, shared the contents of the Dr. Contois’ article online. Subsequently, the study was picked up and lampooned by various media outlets, including Breitbart, The Daily Wire and The National Review.
Apparently, Kevin Hart’s appearance on the show is the most popular episode:
The subject of Contois’ article is a popular YouTube show where celebrity guests eat spicy hot wings with differing levels of hot sauce, often tearing up, laughing, swearing, and answering interview questions all at once. It troubled Dr. Contois that in the history of the show, only eleven women have appeared, which amounted to about 10 percent of guests.
Contois’ thesis: “My analysis of Hot Ones informs feminist media studies, as it reveals how this YouTube show creates, maintains and manipulates inequitable gender hierarchies through the interrelated performances of gender, food consumption, and celebrity.”
The author then goes on to throw around assertions that shows like this reinforce power hierarchies because women are supposed to like/eat dainty food with restraint, that female chefs are often depicted preparing comfort food, whereas men eating hot food reinforces the idea that they are tough dudes and fearless risk takers. She says chicken wings and hot foods are masculine coded foods. As evidence, she supports the masculine coding of certain foods by citing another of her articles about Super Bowl food and sports bar fare.
Look, you get the idea. She even questions her own thesis about the show being biased against female guests by saying maybe women don’t want to come on the show because eating and talking are not conventionally feminine but doesn’t really follow up on that.
But here’s the rub: after so much media ridicule of her academic study, she is trolled on Twitter and some of the comments are kind of nasty, while some are just simply saying this cannot pass for scholarship—it’s not good scholarship. So how does Dr. Contois address this criticism of the validity of her research?
She doubles down—she writes an article titled “I Was Trolled – Here’s Why I’m Turning It into a Teaching Opportunity” where she then says it all boils down to misogyny—not bad scholarship. She writes:
It’s both ironic and fitting that my essay happened to be published in Feminist Media Studies in a commentary section on feminism and food media within a special issue on online misogyny.3 In the issue’s introduction, editors Debbie Ging and Eugenia Siapera adopt a cultural rather than legal approach to online gender-based violence, writing:
…misogyny, which may not involve violence but almost always entails some form of harm; either directly in the form of psychological, professional, reputational, or, in some cases, physical harm; or indirectly, in the sense that it makes the internet a less equal, less safe, or less inclusive space for women and girls.
I Was Trolled – Here’s Why I’m Turning It into a Teaching Opportunity
She adds:
I’m very relieved I haven’t faced real threats, yet, but many folks attacked by online misogyny do. Amanda Hess’s 2014 essay, “Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet” and Amnesty International’s 2018 report on Twitter both document such occurrences. A national UK study published in 2017 offers additional evidence and explores “online abuse of this kind as an extension of offline gender relations.”
Her rebuttal never addresses any weaknesses in her academic paper. It doesn’t look at shows like Fear Factor, where both men and women ate yucky stuff or any other YouTube hot stuff challenges. It just doesn’t qualify any of the conclusions she draws. It simply condemns critics as being misogynists who like to be mean to women online—people she even classifies as “trolls,” not academic scholars or critics in their own right, so why pay them any mind?
How about we just stick to science and not pull the misogyny card, feminists? It dismisses all rational debate and silences critics over and over again and reinforces the idea that women are just too darn fragile to handle legitimate criticism or defend their work if they believe it to be valid. Playing the misogyny card and complaining about mean old trolls just isn’t going to cut it anymore. Evidence based studies matter–I for one want my work to be judged on merit–and I don’t plan to act like a delicate flower when I make a mistake.
By the way, my Master’s Degree was from the University of Tulsa, and it is a good school. This is a bad look.