MasterChef Brasil and the Normalization of Moral Harassment in the Workplace

Abstract

The article proposes a reflection on a certain normalization of moral harassment in the work environment based on the television program MasterChef Brasil, in which a process of encouraging this harmful practice is delivered to the symbolic consumption of spectators. Through a methodology based on a theoretical framework of analysis, the present investigation has as its central concern an understanding of certain consumption logics that would be founding the aforementioned media product. We were interested in probing why a show with significant ratings would encourage a harmful attitude towards people in the workplace. Although in a comical and mediatized way, it was seen that a way of thinking and acting resulting from the neoliberal logic spread in our social web serves as an engine that encourages and presents as justifiable this way of managing people in the competitive labor market.