The Food Network has produced yet another formulaic competition show, but this is not news. This is what the channel has been reduced to at this point — for every Chopped, which still holds its charm, there seem to be dozens of one-off holiday challenges and pumpkin carving competitions to serve as background noise for whoever fell asleep while Netflix was running.
But Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking is different. Premiering last week, the competition features all things Harry Potter. It’s hosted by James and Oliver Phelps, who played the Weasley twins in the films, and features cameos by a host of other secondary characters. It’s shot on the original sets of the films. And competitors are expected to make fantastical creations inspired by the series, for the opportunity to win a Wizards of Baking Cup and appear in a forthcoming Harry Potter cookbook. Carla Hall is there too.
This sucks.
Food Network could have made a generic wizard-themed baking show — no one owns the concept of magic. But being an official Harry Potter property means the show was licensed in some way by its creator, J.K. Rowling, a woman who has so thoroughly dedicated her public persona to promoting transphobia that even Elon Musk is telling her to cool it. Still, Harry Potter remains popular, and Rowling has made it clear that she sees the continued monetary success of Harry Potter as proof that she is right in her views. This is all public knowledge available to Food Network. By licensing Harry Potter so bakers can show off their cakes on Platform 9 ¾, Food Network is fueling her fire, showing it cares more about latching onto recognizable IP than taking any stance against a hateful creator. It’s also just plain lazy.
Many millennials who turned 11 right as the Harry Potter books hit the shelves have fretted about what to do with any warm, fuzzy feelings about the series in the wake of Rowling’s frothing-at-the-mouth hatred for trans people. Aja Romano at Vox has a good rundown of Rowling’s history, but, for example, the author promotes falsehoods by questioning the use of hormones as gender-affirming care, something that has been widely studied and deemed safe. Rowling has said she’d rather go to prison than use a trans woman’s correct pronouns. Many stars from the Harry Potter films have publicly denounced Rowling for her views. She is also currently being sued by Olympian Imane Khelif for cyber harassment after Rowling suggested she was a man. She posts about this all day every day. It is literally the only thing she talks about.
While some people have attempted to engage in Harry Potter fandom outside of Rowling, arguing the “author is dead” and the fictional world is what they make of it, the author is very much alive. “Rowling has always exerted authorial control over her universe and the messages it sends — across the books, across all the Warner Bros. movies… and even the Cursed Child stage play, which Rowling collaborated on,” writes Romano. “Anything that we respond to and love about a new Harry Potter series will still be something that ultimately came from J.K. Rowling.”
It’s not hard to see why Food Network would be so willing to make a Harry Potter tie-in. For all her public vitriol, there’s the awful truth that many people still don’t know about Rowling’s views (the vast majority of people aren’t on X), or if they do, they either agree with her or just don’t care enough to change their behavior about a series that they otherwise enjoy. Harry Potter still makes money, and in America, both Republicans and Democrats have presented abandoning trans rights as entirely reasonable behavior. If an author was a virulent, public racist it might be a different story, but unfortunately, transphobia is still a socially tolerated prejudice for many people.
But also, this is just the natural endpoint of the IP churn, where every show halfway serves as an ad for a different product. Food Network has not had a new star reach mass appeal in years, and the only recent show I thought had made some cultural waves — Is It Cake? — turns out isn’t actually a Food Network show. It has, however, created an Elf on the Shelf competition, an NFL tailgate challenge, and invited the Try Guys to make a show. All its new shows attempt to use something already popular, whether that’s professional football or Guy Fieri, to draw viewership, rather than take a chance on something new.
Which does appear to be working for them. Despite former Food Network personalities lamenting the channel’s pivot away from cooking shows, Food Network “has seen average weekly time spent viewing during primetime rise 4% year over year among the 25-54 group and 6% among all viewers,” according to Variety. Most of those primetime shows are competitions like The Great Food Truck Race or Guy’s Grocery Games, which again, have already proven themselves to be popular. Of course they’d want to make a Harry Potter competition show.
This isn’t just a Food Network issue. Every form of entertainment these days seems like a reboot, a spin-off, or a reunion tour, with audiences becoming increasingly comfortable engaging with what they already know. The argument, often, is escapism. The real world is hard; shouldn’t entertainment be easy? Who wants to think critically about things that are supposed to bring them joy? It’s an understandable argument, but one that many trans and queer people can’t afford to engage in, especially when it comes to the Wizarding World.
Food Network could be putting its resources into creating our next obsession, our next source of magic without the malevolence. Instead, it’s content to feed us regurgitated slop, because that’s what viewers seem to want. But there’s always a choice to put something else on. Even if you want your entertainment to be easy, it doesn’t have to be backed by hatred.
