A US version of the Great British Bake Off was aired this week to a lukewarm reception from critics, none of whom could identify quite what went wrong. The tent was there, in a field in Georgia. The contestants weren’t over-styled, in fact looked as if they’d done their own makeup and – crucially for a successful Bake Off – hadn’t considered their hair to be part of the project. And there was Mary Berry.
Watching Berry’s evolution from a woman with a dowdy wardrobe and faltering opinions to someone with the snap and glam of an A-list TV star has been a joy over the past five years. During her US appearance on Monday night, she road-tested the word “awesome”, tried to get her head around the concept of “store-bought dough” and successfully dodged pronouncing rugelach, the “traditional Jewish pastry”, as the show put it for the benefit of its middle-American audience, all of which was awkward rather than comic but good TV nonetheless.
The problem was with the other presenters: a pastry chef called Johnny Iuzzini, and two hosts, Nia Varlodos – the heroine of the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding – and Ian Gomez, who despite being husband and wife had zero chemistry. While Iuzzini and Berry talked to each other as if from opposite sides of a canyon, the other two simply looked baffled to be there. Still, the critics were a little harsh. The brandy snap round was fun because almost no one in the tent had encountered one before. And the tone was about right. Unlike every other cooking show the contestants weren’t visibly in search of celebrity and were treated with kindness.
Alone in the reality TV world, Bake Off celebrates rather than mocks eccentricity and so it was in this case, most notably when Grace, a contestant from New York, baked her gingerbread showstopper in the shape of the hospital where she works. Watching Berry eye her tottering rendition of NYU Lutheran while groping for words (eventually: “You’ve done this with your heart”) was alone worth the investment.
Porn star looks
If further evidence were needed that rape is a matter of power and not sex, it surely comes in the form of allegations this week against the porn star James Deen, whom three women – including his ex-girlfriend, Stoya – have accused of sexual assault. Some incidents are alleged to have taken place backstage on the set of a Deen porn shoot and in the moments after wrapping a scene. If that’s not hiding in plain sight I don’t know what is.
What’s odd in this scenario is the number of commentators who have lined up to express disappointment in Deen, as if his self-styled role as the wholesome face of the porn industry had any credibility beyond those who think of porn as a form of “sex-positive” education and deride feminist objectors as “frigid” in the Victorian style.
Even without the allegations, Deen has always been a vapid personality, his appeal based on the fact that, relative to the average male porn star, he looked not only human but positively humanitarian. If Brett Easton Ellis thought he was a good guy, nothing about him should surprise us.
Give freely this Christmas
An intriguing gift idea for the person with everything: the Squatty Potty, a footstool designed to tuck around the toilet and redress the posture most of us assume while going to the loo, and much promoted this month in New York stores. According to the infomercial, the health of the colon is best served in the squatting position, which, prior to the advent of the modern toilet, people naturally assumed in the field or outhouse.
So for $24.99, you can give the gift of reducing “toxic build-up”, improving the “elimination” process – or merely enjoying the number of euphemisms contained in the sales pitch.
