Professionalism and Fraudulence

I recently learned of a television show, now in its second season on the Food Network, in which four contestants attempt to "con" celebrity chef judges into believing they are professional chefs. Its title, Cooks vs. Cons, was what first captured my attention, and is essentially all that continues to hold it, as there is very little difference between this show and any other cooking contest otherwise. Certainly the alliteration is likely the main reason for this choice of titles, but in the idea that non-professional cooks are automatically somehow "cons" (short for con-artists and not convicts in this case, thought the ambiguity is also notable), the show succumbs to the trend begun in the second half of the nineteenth century to turn skills and livelihoods into professions by increasingly requiring formal schooling and exams for entrance into a variety of fields. While some outcomes of professionalization have undoubtedly been positive (I'd like my doctor to have a measurable set of skills, for example), in many cases the trend has excluded already marginalized groups such as women, racial minorities, and the poor from entrance into fields now requiring expensive schooling and/or extensive leisure time. What also happens is an effective monetizing of skills--one must acquire set knowledge and skills through legitimate (paid for) channels in order to be considered a "professional" in a given field.

This television show, then, pits four people against one another, two of whom are professional chefs, and two who are not professional chefs, asking the judges to choose the best chef, who then reveals that she is either a "pro" or a "con" and wins $10k if she is a professional cook, and $15k if she is a "con." The idea is neither particularly new nor particularly complex, but the name of the show and the money involved speak volumes. Although the amateur cooks are not expected to win the contest (a chef knows another chef when he tastes her food, after all), the amateurs are rewarded monetarily for "tricking" the judges into believing that they are professionals; the additional money signals both that the odds are against the "con" and that he or she can potentially use it toward becoming a "real" chef. The nomenclature "con" gives the viewer trouble deciding whom to root for--should we cheer on natural talent and untutored success, or condemn the amateur because she has carried out a successful confidence trick, gone around the system that creates legitimate "professionals," and led us to believe a lie? It seems that the problem is all the more fuzzy because we are dealing with cooking here, a skill that a large percentage of the population has to some degree, and one some might argue doesn't necessarily require any professional training.  Ultimately only the celebrity chef judges have anything to lose, because a vote for the "con" works to de-legitimize their training in the suggestion that a barber might be just as good a cook as a culinary schooled chef, or else that the celebrity chef might not be the best judge of fine cuisine.