Abstract
This article examines a particular form of popular expertise, one that uses aggressive, face-threatening confrontations as a means of achieving its goals. The specific case under scrutiny is the Swedish home renovation programme The Angry Carpenter (Sw: Arga snickaren), here considered as an instance of what has been labelled belligerent broadcasting. The analysis demonstrates that belligerent outbursts and emotional displays serve essential, but varying functions in the construction of the host’s expertise. Belligerence is both a method to achieve epistemic status and for the enactment of expertise. Paradoxically, through his belligerence the host promotes a common-sense theory of good communication. A key lesson to be learned from programmes like this is the curative power of ‘tough love’. When nothing else works, belligerence is justified as a method for diagnosing problems, dealing with personal difficulties and restoring healthy households.
Keywords
Introduction and background
The past decade has witnessed an increase of lifestyle programmes mainly concerned with instructing participants and viewers about everyday matters such as cooking, eating, dressing, home decorating, parenting, and home renovation; and today these programmes have a prominent position on prime time television (see Heller, 2007; Hill, 2005; Lewis, 2008b, 2008c; Moseley, 2000). This development has been described as a ‘makeover takeover’ (Moseley, 2000) and should be thought of as a central feature of a more general ‘lifestyle turn’, involving an extensive increase of lifestyle media (above all books and magazines), that has been taking place since the 1980s (Bell and Hollows, 2006; Lewis, 2008c). The growing popularity of lifestyle media is frequently linked to a switch from a modern to a postmodern society, a change which also implies a switch from mass consumption to personal lifestyle choices (Chaney, 1996; Featherstone, 1991). It is also associated with the emergence of a neoliberal consumer culture (Bell and Hollows, 2006; Lewis, 2008a) in which lifestyles, and thus the popular expertise of lifestyle media, ‘act as resources of stability or coping mechanisms which help people to manage their own relationship to social change’ (Taylor, 2002: 482).
During the last couple of years the ‘makeover takeover’ on Swedish television (particularly on the commercial channels) has been augmented by certain formats characterized by a specific form of popular expertise in which belligerent, face-threatening confrontations play a crucial role. 1 Programmes like The Luxury Trap (Sw. Lyxfällan), The Job-hunter 2 (Sw. Jobbjägaren), and The Angry Carpenter (Sw. Arga snickaren) combine a variety of conventions from lifestyle advice programmes, reality shows and DIY programmes. They are all structured as before-and-after narratives, with a moment of revelation focused on the participants’ display of emotions serving as the climax of the story (Moseley, 2000). In all these shows, the host appears as a ‘mythical hero’ (Lorenzo-Dus, 2006: 742) who helps people achieve what is constructed as and assumed to be a better way of living. For the most part the participants seem to be ‘ordinary’ people, 3 but some of their behaviours and habits are framed as more or less dysfunctional. The hosts of these shows enact expertise in two related areas: they both solve the participants’ acute problems and help them to change the behaviour presumed to underlie the problems. In other words, they also perform makeovers of behaviour (see Lunt, 2008: 541). Such a makeover provides both participants and viewers with practical problem-solving techniques that support self-help and self-actualization in order to re-invent a healthy household (Ouellette and Hay, 2008).
With its belligerent approach, the form of expertise enacted in the Swedish programmes clearly deviates from how popular expertise is characterized in lifestyle programming otherwise. Based on analyses of diverse makeover formats, Lewis (2008a) describes popular expertise as ‘soft’ and ‘entertainment-oriented’. Smith (2010), who analyses Property Ladder (a British real-estate show), finds that the host of this programme acts both as a credible expert and a friend. The latter role is generally accomplished through various politeness strategies in face-to-face interaction, while the knowledgeable expert is commonly realized in the voice-over narrative. However, this study focuses on lifestyle makeover programmes that can be considered instances of what Higgins et al. (2012), based on a study of Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares, USA (an example of popular business programming), term ‘belligerent broadcasting’. Belligerent broadcasting contains face-threatening outbursts, outright insults and other forms of language (including swear words) that are not very common in public discourse. This belligerent style is part of a more wide-reaching trend, present in a variety of current television genres such as talent shows, reality programmes, talk shows, political debates and news interviews (Higgins, 2008; Higgins et al., 2012; Hutchby, 2011; Luginbühl, 2007; Montgomery, 2007).
This study focuses on the construction of belligerent popular expertise. The specific case under scrutiny is the Swedish home renovation programme The Angry Carpenter, in which aggressive verbal confrontations between the host and the participants are fundamental for the exercise of expertise. The plot of a typical Angry Carpenter episode revolves around a number of apparently ordinary people in a domestic setting. These are most often a heterosexual couple or a family whose ongoing renovation project is a colossal failure, and this failure is also often said to be causing serious problems in their relationship. The Angry Carpenter (together with his team) is depicted as a straightforward and tough hero who comes to the rescue. The following analysis aims to explore how belligerent outbursts serve to authorize and validate the host’s expert position in this programme. Crucial to expertise is the manifestation of epistemic status (Heritage, 2012a, 2012b; cf. Locher and Limburg, 2012), and hence the analysis pays particular attention to how instances of epistemic status are established in host–participant dialogues. As Higgins et al. conclude (2012: 515), however, it is ‘not sufficient to consider acts of belligerence in isolation or in the abstract but rather that it is necessary to situate them within the complex communicative dynamics of the broadcast event’. Therefore, the analysis also considers how sequences of belligerent talk are merged with other, non-belligerent, sequences so as to confirm the Angry Carpenter’s expertise. The analysis is guided by methodological insights developed within studies of broadcast talk as talk-in-interaction (Hutchby, 2006; Smith, 2010; Thornborrow, 2002; Tolson, 2006) and uses discourse analytic techniques. The study is linked to existing research on belligerent broadcasting and aims to increase our understanding of televised popular expertise.
Lifestyle programming and popular expertise
As dissimilar as different lifestyle shows may appear at a first sight (Bell and Hollows, 2005; Moran, 2008), a common feature of lifestyle television is its aim to inform or educate the audience in an entertaining manner. The expert host(s) and the discourse of expertise are crucial to fulfilling this ambition (Lewis, 2008a).
Generally, an expert is associated with specific advanced skills or knowledge pertaining to a certain subject. Expertise is often linked to institutionalized academic expertise; it is connected to scientists or scholars who in turn are part of an abstract system of knowledge. This knowledge tends to appear as general, objective, rational and counter-intuitive, and to be grounded in data of some kind (see Livingstone and Lunt, 1994). Enacting such expertise is not merely a question of being knowledgeable; it also involves a hierarchal social relationship being established around the fact that the expert possesses useful knowledge while others, who lack this knowledge, request it (Berner, 2002). The expert can thus be seen as a mediator, one who bridges the gap between personal needs and the general, more abstract system of knowledge (Bauman, 1992).
The popular expertise that features on lifestyle television does not, however, primarily mediate between an abstract system of scientific thinking and personal needs. Instead, with its focus on knowledge and skills, it is linked to domestic and daily routines and it seems to have a lot in common with ‘lay expertise’ as defined by Livingstone and Lunt (1994: 101–2) in their study of discussion programmes. Lay expertise is then characterized as authentic, narrative, hot, relevant, in-depth, grounded in experience, meaningful, practical and real. It constitutes an ‘anti-elitist position and asserts ‘the worth of the common man’.
Popular expertise is a form of lay or ‘ordinary expertise’ which is concrete, informal and integrated into people’s everyday lives (Lewis, 2008a). Taylor (2002: 483) describes these connections to the domestic sphere as ‘strategies of ordinary-ization’ which ‘work to connect the familiar, safe spaces of home with accessible and achievable lifestyle ideas’ (cf. Brunsdon et al., 2001). Participants – who appear to be ‘ordinary’ people – are involved in the activity in question, and function as a crucial element in a ‘negotiation process’ to construct a credible expert position for the host and to validate the advice.
In makeover television, the negotiation process is typically (and especially in the case studied here) oriented towards analysing the participants’ personalities and behaviours; the expert host operates as a ‘personality-interpreter’ who evaluates what is wrong with the participants’ way of handling daily issues and what they need to change in order to live a better and more functional everyday life (Taylor, 2002: 488–9). In that sense, the makeover narrative and the strategies of ‘ordinary-ization’ serve normalizing functions. What appear to be dysfunctional behaviours seem to be corrected and the host appears to help the participants achieve a more manageable, normal life. As Bonner (2003: 136) puts it, the participants are transformed into ‘happier, more satisfied, up-to-date versions of their selves’. Through such successful examples, viewers are provided with problem-solving techniques that can help them to live what is assumed to be a better life.
This is a dimension of lifestyle programming that has been extensively discussed using Foucauldian approaches to reality television, which see television as a form of ‘private governance’ (Heller 2007; Ouellette and Hay 2008; Parker 2003). The Swedish programmes mentioned above constitute a form of what Ouellette and Hay (2008) term ‘life intervention’ programmes. These programmes expect individuals to work on themselves in order to overcome obstacles in their lives, changes that often involve learning how to be more open-minded and flexible, and collaborate with others (Ouellette and Hay, 2008).
The case studied and analytic techniques used
The analysis below is based on a thorough examination of all 22 episodes of The Angry Carpenter aired in 2011 (the fifth and sixth seasons). The examples below are taken from only two different episodes, but I consider them to be typical of the phenomena I discuss. The programme is produced by Nordisk Film and aired by Channel 5 (a commercial channel) on Wednesdays between 8.00 and 9.00 pm. Each episode is 44 minutes long (excluding commercial breaks). The format was originally developed in Sweden. It is described by the production company as ‘advertiser funded programming’ (AFP), which means that product placement is a standard feature of the show.
On Channel 5’s website (http://kanal5.se), the programme is described as a ‘journey from renovation chaos to family happiness’ (author’s translation), and according to these accounts ‘Sweden is full of self-styled DIYers whose renovation efforts are massive failures.’ The host of the programme, Anders Öfvregård, is described as a 43-year-old (during the fifth season) carpenter and construction engineer from Stockholm, with his own business.
The makeover narrative of The Angry Carpenter is mainly enacted through what appears to be unscripted and unrehearsed talk. This talk is, of course, edited, but the participants seem to engage in performances of ‘fresh talk’ (Goffman, 1981). Voiceovers play a very limited role in the progression of the narrative. They are spoken by the host himself, and are used only on a few specific occasions: during the introduction of the episode and before and after the commercial breaks, when the host sums up what is going on in the specific episode. Instead, the construction and validation of the Angry Carpenter’s expertise is accomplished and talked into being in dialogues and indirect-aside commentaries. The latter are instances of a mode of audience address, common in today’s lifestyle and reality television, in which the host or a participant ‘breaks away’ from the other participants and shares his or her words solely with the viewers (Higgins et al., 2012).
Discourse analytic techniques are used in the analysis. A central component of the Angry Carpenter’s display of expertise consists of impolite, face-threatening acts, and the following analysis focuses particularly on how such acts are organized so as to validate the Angry Carpenter’s expertise. These are clearly intentional, as indicated by the title of the programme, but being impolite is not only a question of intentions. Instead, as Culpeper (2005: 38) states, impoliteness is ‘constructed in the interaction between speaker and hearer’, and thus concerns how and to what extent interlocutors exhibit an orientation towards actions of others as being impolite (Hutchby, 2008). The analysis therefore takes its starting-point from insights developed by interaction-oriented research on broadcast talk (see Giles, 2002; Higgins et al., 2012; Hutchby, 2006; Smith, 2010; Tolson, 2006) that suggest that the analysis should pay close attention to the interplay between interlocutors, that is, how utterances in conversations are linked together (Hutchby, 2006).
Another starting-point for the analysis, closely connected to the one above, is that an expert position is reliant on how the participants’ epistemic status is expressed and negotiated in the dialogues (cf. Locher and Limburg, 2012). Epistemic status refers to the interlocutors’ relative access to ‘epistemic territories’, and these involve ‘what is known, how it is known, and persons’ rights and responsibilities to know it’ (Heritage, 2012a: 6). Epistemic status is a relational concept. It concerns two (or more) persons’ access to some domain of knowledge and it will vary according to what domain of knowledge is being talked about, and the participants’ relative access to it. Status can also change as a result of what takes place in the ongoing interaction. Heritage (2012ab) demonstrates that through their interactional contributions interlocutors position themselves as more (K+) or less (K-) knowledgeable about a certain domain. Closely linked to this is the concept of epistemic stance, which concerns ‘how speakers position themselves in terms of epistemic status in and through the design of turns at talk’ (Heritage, 2012b: 33). A central issue for the analysis is to identify the epistemic stances taken by the host and the participants, and how their epistemic status is thereby negotiated and demonstrated for the viewers in order to construct the host’s expert position.
Constructing the Angry Carpenter’s expertise
Makeover programmes in general have a repetitive and format-based character (Lewis, 2008c: 442) and The Angry Carpenter is no exception. Its narrative structure is equivalent to the structure suggested by Smith (2010: 193, illustrated in Figure 1) and serves as a central and rather obvious element of the construction of the host’s expertise. However, this structure is talked into being in dialogues and indirect-aside commentaries, and the following examination shows how the host’s expert position is strengthened through the organization of talk. The analysis deals with three different functions of the belligerent confrontations, all of which are fundamental for the construction of the Angry Carpenter’s expertise.
The narrative structure of the makeover programme: (A) narrative structure proposed by Smith (2010: 193) and (B) narrative structure of The Angry Carpenter.
Establishing expert positions and justifying intervention
In the opening segments of each episode, belligerent outbursts function as a way to demonstrate and underline that the participants need both a home makeover and to change their behaviour. The initial scenes serve to establish the host’s epistemic status regarding construction work and to put him in a more or less indisputable position of superiority. This position is crucial for the host’s ability to operate as a ‘personality-interpreter’ and reveal the causes of the participants’ renovation failures.
All episodes start with an ‘application video’ (normally 3–5 minutes long) which has an amateurish feel (as if it was recorded by a friend or a member of the family). In this video some of the contextualizing information is presented while the participants guide the camera around their home. The participants describe their different renovation projects, their failures, and their feelings of despair over their mistakes or shortcomings to someone unheard and unseen beside the camera. After this introduction, the Angry Carpenter appears for the first time. He is driving his car, and just as he arrives at the participants’ home, he briefly repeats the information provided in the application video. Together with the participants, the host then examines the house and draws attention to unfinished renovation projects, asks how they were planned, and points out faulty construction work carried out by the participants. The host generally behaves in a challenging, questioning mode in these dialogues, and it is common to see heated reactions to participants’ inept efforts or installations, as in Example 1.
In one episode the Angry Carpenter visits the home of Jonas (J) and Irina (I), a young couple expecting their first child when the visit takes place. In Example 1, the host spots a wire hanging loose from the ceiling when he enters the bathroom. He grasps the wire (Picture 1) and his question (including a swear word) indicates both anger and astonishment. The male participant’s response to this is that the host should be careful because he has nicked the wire while putting in a screw. When the host finds out that Jonas showers in this bathroom (a camera-shot from the doorway is shown) he starts to lose his temper (2). Still holding the wire (3), the host summarizes what he has observed. Irina makes it clear that she was not informed about the nicked wire, while Jonas explains his lack of concern about the incident. While taking his hands off the wire, the host takes the turn (4). He appears to be at a loss for words and he ends up just screaming (eUU:HH). He also makes a gesture with his head that further stresses his frustration. At the same moment, Jonas starts to leave the room, but is called back by the host, who begins explaining to him the obvious dangers of this installation.
Reactions like this accentuate the need for makeover. As in many reality shows and lifestyle formats, the revelation of emotions, what Hirdman (2011) terms a ‘bodily emotionalism’, is crucial in this particular format. Bodily reactions such as the outburst of anger described above, or sometimes tears or signs of happiness (as will be demonstrated in the analysis below), generally appear to be authentic and true reactions (Aslama and Pantti, 2006; Hirdman, 2011). Following this line of reasoning, outbursts of anger function as markers of genuine involvement on the part of the host; he appears to be truly angry about the participants’ ignorance of their problems, but also concerned about the risks that come along with this. These reactions, as they are displayed for the viewer, stem from the hierarchical relationship of the host being K+ and the participants K- regarding construction work. The host’s outburst underlines how severe the participants’ ignorance is and how badly they need to achieve a change.
However, such outbursts are balanced by other emotional expressions displayed for the viewers. The inspection tour always ends with a sequence in which the host offers his help to the participants. The condition is that if they accept they will have to leave all the coming decisions concerning the renovation work to him and they must carry out the work he instructs them to do. This is often a very emotional moment. The participants are often shown crying with relief and happiness, and hugging the host, signalling that their gratitude and feelings of optimism are authentic (Aslama and Pantti, 2006; Hirdman, 2011). So, in this part of the programme, belligerent confrontations play a significant role in justifying the home makeover. They help to establish a platform from which the host can put his behavioural expertise to work and start to seek the reasons for the participants’ problems.
Finding causes of problems
The host’s search for the causes of the participants’ renovation failures is constructed as an information-seeking procedure in which belligerence is crucial. Belligerence is first used as a means to demonstrate what the participants’ problems actually are (as in Example 2) and then as a tool for discovering the root of these problems (see Example 3). This procedure begins during the host’s inspection visit and continues in the work-in-progress phase. However, it should be noted that parts of these information-seeking sequences are performed in a non-belligerent manner, which involve so-called B-event questions (Labov and Fanshel, 1977: 100). But this non-belligerent questioning almost always leads to a scene involving belligerent confrontation with the participants.
After the first visit, the Angry Carpenter leaves the participants. A couple of months later he returns with his team of craftsmen and the renovation work starts. This phase is the most extensive (more than two-thirds of the episode). Like the rest of his team, the Angry Carpenter is dressed in overalls. He directs the work, but he is also shown working. One general principle is that the work must not take more than five days (and the team appears to work rapidly). Another is that the team will not complete all the renovation work, but only make the house functional for the participants’ needs. The participants will therefore have to complete the renovation themselves, and before the episode ends they must make a plan for this coming work. Of great importance for the performance of expertise is that the host assigns the participants a specific task which they have to carry out together. This is always some kind of construction work which they will have to complete. Before the participants get started, they must estimate the time it will take them to do it. In almost every episode the participants fail to finish within the time allotted or fail with the task itself, and the host confronts the participants with their mistakes as a part of his analysis.
In Example 2, which is typical of how the Angry Carpenter operates, the host confronts Anna and Niklas, a couple in their mid-forties with four children (three of whom, all teenagers, take part in the programme and the renovation work), with the results of their attempts. The family was previously assigned the task of making a detailed plan for how to organize their work on a room intended for one of the children. Among other things, this involves building an inner wall, and Anna (A) and Niklas (N) were told to collaborate.
The host gathers the family in the room where they are working and starts questioning them about how they have organized the work, as it is not in line with his instructions (Lines 1–9). He notes in particular that Anna and Niklas are not working together (Lines 10–11) and he does not accept Anna’s explanation (Line 15). The host then makes a drastic statement. He begins by saying ‘this is how it actually is’ and then claims ‘you two can’t cooperate’. This is clearly a face-threatening act and the participants seem to be at a loss about how to respond to it. This is territory that he ought to be less knowledgeable about (K-) than the couple themselves (K+). Anna answers quietly (Line 20), which the host seems to interpret as meaning she opposes his statement. Therefore, he follows up with a negatively formulated yes/no-question (Line 21), which the participants are supposed to answer positively. They both do (Lines 22 and 23), but with a hesitant tone, indicating that they do not entirely agree. This is at least how it is understood by the host who immediately starts presenting an argument for his claim (Lines 24–27).
The event with the metal sheeting, which involved Anna (and sometimes some of the teenagers) standing around and waiting for Niklas, has previously been shown to the viewers. Here, the host switches to territory about which he is more knowledgeable (K+), namely the construction work carried out by the participants the day before. These events can be described as composing an AB-event (Labov and Fanshel, 1977: 100); they are known to both the host and the participants, and the latter can therefore hardly deny the host’s claim. By quickly leaving the room after saying ‘let’s get going’ (Line 32), the host leaves no space for negotiation. Statements to the effect that the participants cannot cooperate or communicate, and that this is the main reason for the renovation failures, appear in one form or another in every episode. Having reached this conclusion, the host moves on with his investigation and starts examining what is triggering these problems.
The cause-seeking processes include one-on-one dialogues in which the host tries to elicit more detailed information from the participants about their everyday life and their partners’ behaviour and personality. In Example 3, the host is talking to Anna in a confrontational mode.
The host starts this dialogue by stating that Hedvig wants a wardrobe because she keeps her clothes in the family’s sauna (shown on screen just before), and that it should be a simple matter to go to IKEA and buy one (Lines 1–9). His tone is harsh, and it seems absurd that she should have to keep the clothes in the sauna. Anna agrees, but stresses that money sometimes is a problem (Lines 10–12). The host disagrees (15), and Anna specifies that it sometimes is a problem for her (Lines 18–19). The host goes on to ask if it is a problem for her husband, which it is not (Lines 25). This leads the host to make an assertion about Niklas, namely that if he does not consider something a good idea then it will not be done (Lines 27–28). At this moment Anna starts crying and turns her face away from the host who asks if it is ‘tough’ (Line 30). Sobbing, Anna replies ‘I’m not the one with the money’ (Line 31). The host agrees and there is a longer pause in the dialogue, with Anna’s sobbing still audible. In a more comforting tone he continues to assert that it is Niklas who controls the money and makes the decisions at home (Lines 34–37). Anna, still crying, affirms that this is how she feels (Lines 38–39).
By showing Anna crying in response to the host’s face-threatening act, the host’s examination seems to reveal real tensions in the participants’ relationship. The tears operate as a marker of the truth (Hirdman, 2011) and indicate that the host’s examination is touching on real difficulties. It also displays for viewers that his harsh attitude towards the participants pays off and that he is capable of identifying the core of the problems. Reactions like Anna’s justify the host’s belligerence; there appears to be a ‘therapeutic warrant’ justifying the confrontations (Higgins et al., 2012: 513).
Final confrontation and conciliation
With his analysis, the host builds up to a final, conclusive confrontation with the participants, which is intended to make them see the error of their ways. In this interaction the host presents the results of his analysis of what underlies the renovation failures. He usually both points out the participants’ weaknesses and says what they must do in order to overcome them. In this episode, Niklas’s behaviour is said to be the main problem, but Anna is also criticized. Just before the sequence below (Example 4) the host has harshly confronted Niklas and compared his way of acting (concerning the renovation work) with ‘dictatorship’ and called him the ‘worst team-player ever’.
The host starts this analysis by making face-threatening claims about Niklas’s personality. He calls him a ‘control freak’ and enumerates examples of things he has control over (Lines 2–8). This list ends with a question concerning the reason for this behaviour (Line 9). This question should be considered an A-event, which means the questioner seems to have exclusive knowledge of what is being discussed (Labov and Fanshal, 1977). As the host is providing his analysis he is in the position of having superior knowledge, but since the analysis concerns Niklas’s behaviour, Niklas should also be able to contribute to this issue. The rather long pause (4.7 sec.) indicates, however, that Niklas does not immediately know what the host is suggesting and the answer is ‘no’. The host then claims that the reason is that Niklas desires to have a farmhouse, and even though Niklas agrees with this claim, the host goes on to list all the building projects Niklas has started (but not completed) (Lines 12–14). Earlier in the episode, in an indirect aside, Niklas has talked about the farmhouse idea, so this information has already been presented to the viewers as well. Turning to Anna (Line 23), the host states that she has become passive in all this because she does not share Niklas’s ideas (Lines 25–26). This sequence also demonstrates that the situation has changed since the beginning of the episode; the host is now in a K+ position when it comes to the participants’ relationship problems, and the participants appear to be K-. The host then returns to Niklas and advises him to abandon his plan and make a new one together with Anna (Lines 27–32). Anna agrees with the host’s analysis and his conclusion by stating that they have to be ‘on the same level’ (Line 33).
The confrontation phase is followed by a conciliation section, in which the participants further assess and validate the Angry Carpenter’s expertise. As Higgins et al. (2012) show, such non-belligerent commentaries are also crucial for validating belligerent expertise. Normally, an initial validation of the expertise takes place in indirect-aside commentaries immediately following the confrontation. In the episode with Anna and Niklas, the latter occurred in such a commentary, and amounted to an admission that the host was right in his claims. On the fourth day of the renovation work, the participants leave their home and the team’s home decorator takes over and completes the makeover. The participants now get the assignment to make a plan for the remaining work.
On the fifth day the participants return to their house and it is time for the ‘moment of revelation’ (Moseley, 2000), with a strong focus on the participants’ display of happiness and gratitude towards the host and his team. These reactions clearly confirm the team’s expertise in renovation work. This phase also contains a second validation of the host’s behavioural expertise. Anna and Niklas, for instance, jointly describe how the host’s advice made them aware of their shortcomings and caused them to talk about the plans in terms of ‘we/us’ instead of ‘I/me’.
The conciliatory section comes to an end with the participants uniting with the Angry Carpenter and his team in a farewell scene in which the participants thank all the workers involved in the makeover (sometimes with a brief, emotion-laden speech). The participants hug the members of the team and their shared happiness is displayed for the viewers. This sequence highlights how the host’s belligerent expertise and the problem-solving techniques that come with it are a form of ‘tough love’ that actually helps the participants to move forward in their lives. In this moment, as Higgins et al. (2012) also show in their study, the host’s employment of belligerence as a tool for conveying his expertise is justified on the grounds of its healing, cathartic effects.
Concluding discussion: the curative power of ‘tough love’
The Angry Carpenter’s belligerent outbursts appear to be authentic reactions to the participants’ renovation failures and relationship problems, and they serve at least three different functions in the construction of his expertise. First, in the introductory sections, by showing his frustration with the participants’ inability or indifference regarding renovation work, the host manifests the ‘makeover warrant’ and his superior epistemic status regarding construction work. His belligerence demonstrates that an intervention is needed in order to help the participants to achieve change. Second, belligerence is also constructed as a technique which reveals causes of the participants’ failures. With impolite, face-threatening acts that trigger emotional reactions (tears, sobbing), the host discovers what appears to be the true root of the troubles. Third, the belligerence exhibited in the concluding confrontations is depicted as an eye-opener that makes the participants realize they need to work on their (communicative) behaviours. The self-help techniques he provides are then validated by the participants who declare the usefulness of the advice and express their gratitude for the renovations completed by the host and his team.
With its belligerence, the Angry Carpenter’s expertise is a certain form of popular expertise. Popular expertise, as Lewis (2008a) shows, is rooted in the ‘ordinary’ and in many cases it is performed through a more personal, ‘I’m one of you’ mode of address. The colloquial, friendly attitude towards the participants, which Smith (2010) finds crucial for constructing the host as a credible expert, is a key aspect of this form of address. It might seem contradictory, but in the Angry Carpenter belligerence is a way to establish such an ‘I’m one of you’ mode of audience address and the carpenter persona is crucial for this mode. The host enacts his expertise dressed in overalls and also takes part in the renovation work. The Swedish term for overalls is blåställ and (at least in a Swedish context) such clothing connotes the working class and hard physical labour. These elements accentuate his ordinariness and establish a position from which he can relate to the ‘ordinary’ participants and conduct interventions in the private sphere. Being a carpenter, and not an academic or other kind of expert associated with an abstract system of knowledge, lends his belligerent techniques rhetorical legitimacy. His straightforward style and informal language-use match the carpenter persona. As a craftsman, the host is not expected to put forward complex arguments, or to be deferential and well-mannered all the time. Belligerent outbursts appear as authentic elements of this persona. They emerge as normal reactions in the occurring interventions and align him with the ordinary.
The host’s analysis and the advice provided further emphasize the ordinariness, or the lay character, of the Angry Carpenter’s expertise. What the host suggests in his analysis is not justified by any abstract (scientific) system of knowledge. His arguments are not based on anything other than what is displayed on the screen. Nothing is concealed from the viewers. The viewers are invited to observe the progress of the analysis and how the host arrives at his conclusions; they are invited, as Corner (1995) puts it, to ‘see for themselves’. It is thus a form of popular expertise that invites the viewers to participate and be experts of their own. The advice he generally offers seems to reproduce what Cameron (2000) describes as a popular theory of ‘good communication’. In almost every episode, the host’s expertise is based on an uncomplicated model, aptly captured by Tolson (2006: 144) in an analysis of talk shows: ‘Problem? Bad communication. Solution? Good communication.’ In The Angry Carpenter, bad communication is the cause of the participants’ problems and the remedy is to improve it. In the various episodes, this means that if the participants can just learn to interact in a mode characterized by openness, honesty and authenticity, they will improve their lives (cf. Cameron, 2000). ‘Good communication’ is supposed to enable them to take control of their own life. Presented in an everyday, straightforward mode of talk, without any psychological mumbo-jumbo, this is one crucial ‘coping mechanism’ advocated by the Angry Carpenter.
Paradoxically, however, to help the participants achieve a state of good communication they are subjected to a form of treatment that is generally seen as the opposite of it. The host’s belligerent outbursts, his way of dominating dialogues, and his disregard for opposing views do not qualify as good communicative behaviour. These bad manners seem to be excused to some extent, however, by being part of the carpenter persona, and even more so through their healing function. Belligerence is portrayed as necessary and useful in certain severe cases. When nothing else works, ‘tough love’, exhibited through aggressive outbursts, can help people move forward.
This curative power of ‘tough love’ is thus another important lesson to be learned from The Angry Carpenter and from other makeover programmes in which belligerence is a key element for ‘life intervention’. As Higgins et al. (2012: 513) demonstrate in their study, when belligerence occurs it does so ‘under a rubric of a “therapeutic warrant”’. As these programmes become more common (as they are doing in Sweden) ‘tough love’ is increasingly being accepted as a technique for diagnosing problems, dealing with personal difficulties, and restoring balance to family life; they promote this cure as a method for enabling individuals to become self-regulating, self-governing and well-functioning citizens (cf. Ouellette and Hay, 2008). In accordance with neoliberal ideology, those makeover shows underline the importance of the home as the basis for a functional everyday life. They show the viewers that an orderly home and a marriage (or relationship) characterized by good communication – and hence by sincerity, honesty and authenticity – are today more or less compulsory ingredients of enterprising citizenship.
Footnotes
Funding
This article is part of the project ‘Ordinary People on Television’ [2011-1708], funded by the Swedish Research Council (SW: Vetenskapsrådet).