Fried Chicken Endorsements on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives

Image via Wikipedia

On every episode of Guy Fieri’s Diners Drive-ins and Dives that I have seen, in which he visits a restaurant serving fried chicken there is a black patron testifying to how good the chicken is. Even if this chicken-joint is in the wilds of Utah, there will be at least one black person there telling you how perfect the chicken is. I am not claiming that the show is racist, certainly, as ethnic stereotypes go chicken-addiction is relatively harmless, but it is curious. The phenomenon is similar to those McDonald’s ads in which they show off a chicken product. The people in those ads are always black. I suspect that the idea that black people really, really like their chicken is somehow comforting to many people, including other black people. It feels like their thing, like an authentic representation of their people because lots of black people like it. Hear me out here. It’s not necessarily negative. It’s completely false, and 100% marketing nonsense, but it’s not necessarily a bigoted thing.

Lots of people like Fried Chicken
You can make fried chicken desire stereotypical of pretty much any culture you can think of and not be wrong. Are you Italian? I guarantee that you know some fried chicken addicts, somebody who prefers eating at Popeye’s or KFC to any other kind of food. Vietnamese? Same thing. Mexican? Same thing. Fried chicken love is universal. The portrayal of it as a black American thing is true in the sense that they, too, like everybody else, love it. It’s an established stereotype, and like all stereotypes it serves to make everybody feel at home.

The idea of Fieri’s show is to advertise small, local eateries, to show how you can find good, original cooking  wherever you are. The fact that fried chicken is, in American culture identified with black people, is actually a sign of quality. If your fried chicken gets the stamp of approval from a black person then it must be good, even if there are only three black people who live in the whole state. This is necessary especially when the cooks are white. It’s an endorsement form someone who much of America will believe is “in the know”. Nobody can taste how good this chicken is just by looking at it on the TV, so the fact that a black person loves it the perfect testament to its quality.