Put a food stylist like MKR’s Jane on a cooking show, ask her to assess a dinner party, and there is a decent chance she will have thoughts about the plate. This should be the least surprising development in Australian television.
Yet Jane and Shane’s arrival on My Kitchen Rules has already given us something to argue about beyond dinner. In our earlier coverage, we questioned how quickly the couple had become the pair to dislike. Jane’s confidence is central to that story. So is our willingness to read a strong opinion as a character flaw.
Seven’s own introduction presents Jane as a food stylist with a flair for design, outspoken views and plenty of confidence. Those qualities are part of the programme’s sales pitch. It is worth asking why the very things that make someone interesting enough to cast can also become reasons to sneer at them.
MKR’s Jane and the problem with passion
Anyone who has worked with people who care fiercely about their craft knows that enthusiasm can arrive with sharp edges. A designer notices proportions. A cook notices seasoning. Someone who thinks carefully about presentation is going to notice how dinner looks. That attention is part of what they bring to the table.
Can it come across as catty? Absolutely. Passion can make someone impatient, defensive or unnecessarily blunt. A contestant’s expertise does not make every opinion correct, and caring deeply does not excuse treating somebody badly.
But there is room between disagreeing with a remark and deciding that the person who made it is fundamentally unpleasant. We should be able to occupy that room without needing a dramatic redemption episode to let us in.
If we invite people to judge, compete and defend their choices, some friction is inevitable. Would we really prefer a table full of people cautiously saying everything is lovely? More importantly, is constant agreeableness the standard we use to decide who deserves basic kindness?
The people playing gods are behind the cameras
Reality television gives producers extraordinary power over a small world: who enters it, the challenges they face, the questions they are asked and, in an edited episode, which moments the rest of us get to see. Playing gods is a fair metaphor for that power. It should also remind us how little of the complete picture reaches the lounge room.
This is something people who made Big Brother have discussed publicly. In a 2025 ABC interview, former producer and voice of Big Brother Aaron Lucas described looking for story arcs and sometimes helping them develop. He recalled using casual diary-room conversations to raise tensions between housemates, hoping a later encounter might escalate.
Lucas also said that, in his experience, producers did not put words in contestants’ mouths. Both points matter. People can genuinely say something while production still influences the circumstances in which it happens and the story built around it.
Then there is everything surrounding the words. A soundtrack can make a pause feel ominous. A reaction shot can give a comment an apparent consequence. The choice to linger, cut away or revisit an exchange helps establish what matters. Those are storytelling tools, and the ABC report demonstrates how powerfully they can guide an audience.
The story is in the details, too
The visual world matters too. Sets, lighting, table settings and the way clothing is framed can all feed our reading of a scene.
An outfit is not evidence of arrogance. Nor should we assume production chose every garment. What an edited programme does control is how those details are presented to us.
None of this establishes that a particular MKR exchange was manipulated. It establishes why a finished episode deserves to be watched with some awareness of how television is made.
Producers have to build an entertaining programme out of far more material than they can broadcast. Conflict offers a clear story, a reason to return and something to discuss the next morning. My concern is how easily our attention shifts entirely onto the contestant, while the decisions that shaped our impression disappear from view.
By the time we feel certain we have worked someone out, we may have become very familiar with just one part of them.
A villain is a role. How much should it tell us?
Australian Survivor made the label explicit in its 2023 Heroes V Villains season, with George Mladenov on the Villains tribe. In that setting, scheming and theatrical confidence are part of a game the audience is invited to enjoy. The tribe name plainly cannot serve as a complete moral assessment of its members.
There are important differences between embracing a strategic role on Survivor and being received as the difficult person at a dinner table. Still, the comparison exposes how flexible the word villain is. It can describe an entertaining function in a programme, then quietly harden into a verdict on a person.
We do not need to declare every contestant misunderstood or every producer cruel to question that leap. People are complicated.
A person can make a nasty remark and also be generous. They can be confident at work and vulnerable to criticism. They can behave poorly on one occasion without that moment explaining the rest of their life.
The credits don’t end the consequences
The viewer can switch channels. The person on screen still has a job, a family and a name that follows them into the next room.
That is why the scale of our response matters. Critiquing a comment is fair. Turning someone’s appearance into a punchline or carrying a television grievance into their personal messages is a choice we make ourselves. An entertaining episode does not relieve us of responsibility for what we do after watching it.
Nor should contestants have to maintain an immaculate public persona through every tired moment, disagreement or awkward conversation to earn a little perspective. Most of us have said something badly. We have had the considerable luxury of doing it without a soundtrack and a national audience.
With Jane, I would like us to leave room for the possibility that a person who cares about presentation is expressing a genuine professional interest, even when we dislike the delivery.
Watch her cook. Consider her decisions. Disagree where you disagree. There is plenty to discuss without pretending we have seen enough to judge her whole character.
We can enjoy a heated dinner party and still remember that we are watching a show. We can ask more of producers, too: enough context to understand an opinion, enough range to see a person beyond their most useful dramatic moments.
A cooking competition can survive a bit of humanity. Frankly, so can the conversation around it.
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