Episode 116: The Pro-Gentrification Aspirationalism of HGTV's House-Flipping Shows
Citations Needed29 Heinä 2020

Episode 116: The Pro-Gentrification Aspirationalism of HGTV's House-Flipping Shows

The popularity of HGTV house-flipping TV shows can't be overstated: In the second week of July, HGTV was the fourth highest rated cable network, behind only Fox News, MSNBC and CNN, making it the highest rated entertainment network in the United States. Its most prominent programming: the reliable, risk free formula of home flipping shows. All of these shows—Flip or Flop and its many regional spinoffs, Good Bones, Flipping 101, to name just a few—share a basic formula: house-flippers, usually a family business in the form of a husband and wife team or parent and child with a folksy rapport, buy a neglected house on the cheap—cue zoom-ins on mold, water damage, decaying wood, dust and dead bugs—that's often in a relatively poor or gentrifying neighborhood.

They then turn it into something they describe as "beautiful", to be sold at a much higher price to, most likely, young white people looking for a "funky" home in an "up-and-coming" neighborhood. But at what cost do these glossy, get-rich-quick reality shows entertain us? What ideologies do they promote, and how do they erase the working class black and brown families whose housing was condemned, and communities were systemically neglected, before the camera's even began rolling?


On this episode—our Season 3 finale—we take a look at these shows to understand how and why HGTV became a glorified commercial for house-flipping and gentrification, examining its indifference to housing instability and its dead-eyed cheerleading of "middle-class" bourgeois aspirationalism, no matter the social cost.

Our guests are culture writer Ann-Derrick Gaillot and Atlanta-based community organizer Kamau Franklin.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(374)

Episode 238: The Fictional, Racist, Paranoia-Sowing "Sleeper Cell" Media Construction

Episode 238: The Fictional, Racist, Paranoia-Sowing "Sleeper Cell" Media Construction

In this episode, we detail the vague, baseless racism-sowing media coverage and pop culture obsession with so-called "sleeper cells," a construction that has consumed post-9/11 America but suffers fro...

20 Touko 1h 30min

Live Show: 'How to Sell a Genocide' Book Talk at The Word Is Change Bookstore in Brooklyn, NY

Live Show: 'How to Sell a Genocide' Book Talk at The Word Is Change Bookstore in Brooklyn, NY

This is a live recording between Nima and Adam at the Word is Change Bookstore May 7, 2026. In this conversation, we discuss key findings that can be found in Adam's new book, How to Sell a Genocide: ...

13 Touko 1h 3min

News Brief: "Peak TV," Streamer Studio Accounting Gimmicks, and the Precarity of Hollywood Labor

News Brief: "Peak TV," Streamer Studio Accounting Gimmicks, and the Precarity of Hollywood Labor

In this News Brief, we talk with Miranda Banks and Kate Fortmueller, authors of the new book Boom to Bust: How Streaming Broke Hollywood Workers, about rising inequality and precarity in Hollywood, st...

6 Touko 47min

News Brief: How the Right Invented — and Exploited — the "Liberal Media" Trope

News Brief: How the Right Invented — and Exploited — the "Liberal Media" Trope

In this News Brief, we talk with A. J. Bauer, assistant professor at the University of Alabama, about his new book," Making the Liberal Media: How Conservatives Built a Movement Against the Press". In...

22 Huhti 51min

Ep 237: How Selective, Patronizing 'Deradicalization' Discourse Pathologizes Anti-Colonial Struggle

Ep 237: How Selective, Patronizing 'Deradicalization' Discourse Pathologizes Anti-Colonial Struggle

In this episode, we break down the long history of US media reducing recalcitrant populations' grievances to "terrorism," "hate," and "radicalism" in urgent need of re-education.   With guest Prem T...

15 Huhti 1h 21min

Ep 236: Manufactured Austerity and the Media Assisted 'Public-Private Partnership' Rip-Off

Ep 236: Manufactured Austerity and the Media Assisted 'Public-Private Partnership' Rip-Off

In this episode we discuss how privatization was rebranded 'Public-Private Partnerships' and unleashed decades of raiding of the public coffers by Wall Street. With guest Donald Cohen, founder and exe...

8 Huhti 1h 6min

News Brief: As American Troops Hide in Civilian Hotels, US Media Ignores Pentagon's Use of 'Human Shields'

News Brief: As American Troops Hide in Civilian Hotels, US Media Ignores Pentagon's Use of 'Human Shields'

In this News Brief we examine CNN, the Atlantic, Washington Post and NYT's blatant 'human shields' double standard as reports emerge of US troops hiding from Iranian attacks in civilian infrastructure...

1 Huhti 17min

News Brief: How Decades of Media Distortions and Lies about "Iran's Nuclear Program" Lead to War

News Brief: How Decades of Media Distortions and Lies about "Iran's Nuclear Program" Lead to War

In this News Brief, we discuss a recent poll showing 70% of Americans are fundamentally wrong about the nature of Iran's "nuclear program"—including 1 in 4 who think Iran currently possesses a nuclear...

25 Maalis 34min

Suosittua kategoriassa Politiikka ja uutiset

uutiscast
aikalisa
politiikan-puskaradio
rss-ootsa-kuullut-tasta
ootsa-kuullut-tasta-2
rss-vaalirankkurit-podcast
tervo-halme
otetaan-yhdet
rss-podme-livebox
viisupodi
et-sa-noin-voi-sanoo-esittaa
rss-pinnalla
rss-asiastudio
rss-girls-finish-f1rst
linda-maria
rss-raha-talous-ja-politiikka
rss-ulkopoditiikkaa
rikosmyytit
the-ulkopolitist
rss-polikulaari-pitka-kiekko-ja-muut-ts-podcastit