Watching "Cake or No Cake?"
Fun and scary almost as much
The most shaky element in postmodern reality, of all kinds, is that these programs deceive and blur the perception of reality.
It is no longer possible to differentiate between what is up and what is down, who is a politician and who is a clown, who is a specialist doctor and who is an entertainer.
"Cake or no cake?"
Takes this idea to the extreme
Nadav Menuhin
05/04/2022
Tuesday, 05 April 2022, 09:34 Updated: 09:42
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Trailer for the show "Cake or No Cake?"
(Netflix)
Alfred Hitchcock once said one of the most wonderful sentences on screen, in relation to the gap between reality and cinema.
"There are movies that are a piece of life, but my movies are a piece of cake," the acclaimed director said.
Probably not exactly what Hitchcock meant, but Netflix took that vision literally and radically when it produced the new reality show, "Cake or No Cake?"
("Is it Cake?").
This is a post-modern TV baking competition, and watching it is both fascinating, funny and frightening.
To tell the truth, the interest in it is not necessarily related to the materials from which reality shows or good cooking competitions are created, but to the field of bizarre.
Competitors in cooking programs are usually judged on the flavors, textures and appearance of the dishes they serve to the judges.
Forget it.
"Cake or no cake" participants, amateur bakers, compete in pop art sculpture.
The concept is simple: they are required to bake cakes that look like junk food or everyday objects.
The cakes are placed next to real samples, and the judges are required to identify from a distance which cake is and which is not.
A participant who managed to mislead the judges, and make a suitcase cake look more realistic than a real suitcase - will win.
It's basically the "singer in a mask" only with cakes, with the invested costumes being replaced by sugar dough and vanilla cream.
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Why would anyone want to bake a cake this way?
"Cake or no cake?" (Photo: Netflix)
And why would anyone want to eat a cake that looks this way?
"Cake or no cake?" (Photo: Netflix)
The most shaky element in postmodern reality, of all kinds, is that these programs deceive and blur the perception of reality.
It is no longer possible to differentiate between what is up and what is down, who is a politician and who is a clown, who is a specialist doctor and who is an entertainer.
"Cake or no cake?"
Taking this idea to the extreme: we have reached a point where we are staring at the screen and trying to guess if it is a taco or a cake, plastic cups or a cake, a podium or a cake, a sewing machine or a cake, a sack of money or a cake - and not really able to decide.
It's fun and scary almost as much.
The feeling that it is no longer possible to trust anything also joins the feeling that this may be the dumbest game ever.
As befits the pop culture of the United States, everything is too big, exaggerated and glorious.
Why would anyone want to bake a suitcase-shaped cake?
And why would anyone want to eat a cake that looks like a suitcase?
Not clear, and it also does not matter so much in this food coloring celebration.
This is such a far-fetched event that it almost looks like a futuristic parody of what will happen to television in the 22nd century.
But we are probably ahead of our time - and already now there is a demand for instilling tension, anxiety, wars and epidemics in exaggerated fantasies about an alternative world where everyday life is made of sugar, so can not help but be sweet.
How wonderful it will be to discover that behind the appearance of everything that frustrates us, or even an object that is just there, hides a bite from the dreams.
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Too passionate.
Host Mike Day, "Cake or no cake?" (Photo: Netflix)
This is perhaps the dumbest game ever.
"Cake or no cake?" (Photo: Netflix)
It's also where "cake or no cake" appeared for shocking, or even barbaric.
At the stage after the guesses, the overly enthusiastic presenter Mikey Day ("Saturday Night Live") arrives with a knife, and sometimes a sword or machete, to check if it is an object or a cake - and tries to cut.
In the episode devoted to this junk food we were the same - one way or another spoiling the spoiled food, in vain.
Playing with food may be nice, but spoiling it on TV, just, now and anytime, it's already sickening.
This is the moment when escapism becomes a show of vulgarity on the part of the culture of abundance.
Meanwhile, "Cake or No Cake" continues to behave like any other reality show, and even in it it turns out there is drama, frustration, improvisation and even the personal stories come in slices, even if overall the show does not take itself too seriously.
Indeed, it is relatively short, both in terms of the number of episodes and in terms of the length of the episodes.
Here's how to do it yourself: place your head in front of the screen for baking in less than 40 minutes, and at the end you will look in the mirror, and you will be debating in front of what is facing you: a cake or not a cake?
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