I watch people bake and save lives. Am I addicted to competency porn?
As the world slips its moorings, shows like The Pitt celebrate the steady course.
Scrolling through TikTok late at night, my algorithm serves me a never-ending stream of seemingly unrelated videos. The baker icing cookies to resemble Taylor Swift’s stage costumes, down to every sequinned detail. The tradies whose specialty is laying down tiles in perfect heritage patterns on the front porches of beautiful homes. The thing that ties them all together is the skill. I’m mesmerised by the competence and craft at play.
We’re living through a golden age of what’s been categorised as “competency porn”. TV show The Pitt drops us into an emergency room where doctors make split-second decisions to save lives. And in One Battle After Another, it’s not just the stoner bromance between Benicio del Toro and Leonardo DiCaprio that made audiences fall in love with the pair; it’s that del Toro’s sensei character is the picture of capable calm in the midst of the chaos unfolding around him.
We love journalism movies like Spotlight and All the President’s Men because we get to watch as the pieces fit together into airtight cases. The Oceans movies and Heat turn criminal jobs into precise choreography. When people know exactly what they’re doing, it’s impossible to look away.
It’s no wonder stories about how excellence manifests do so well. Like the podcast Song Exploder, where musicians break down the elements of their most popular or beloved or technical tracks. Or the TV series Chef’s Table, where we can see the near-monastic dedication to mastering dishes by the world’s most revered cooks. We consume these stories hungrily because they suggest excellence still exists, and remind us that at least someone is taking something seriously.
Our appetite for competency exists in direct opposition to another genre dominating our screens. Succession let us watch billionaire nepo babies fumble their way through running a media empire. The new Ryan Murphy series Love Story opens with JFK Jr. failing the bar exam – again. “The Hunk Flunks”, the tabloids crowed at the time, because even in 1990 there was something satisfying about watching someone fail upward in the face of actual standards.
Is competency porn a working-class response to living in a world run by evil idiots? When you see people coast on pedigree, there’s something clarifying about watching actual skill. A show like Hacks is a wonderful middle-ground; its heroine, the ageing stand-up comic Deborah Vance, might live in a mansion where her addiction to buying antique and wildly expensive salt and pepper shakers can flourish, but she got there on skill and obsessive hard work – something she refuses to give up even when her tides turn and opportunities are handed to her on a silver platter. The fame isn’t the point, the effort is.
The conversation is gendered, because ... of course it is. Being “competent” isn’t enough for fictional women like Deborah or real-life ones either. The hunks who flunk can coast on goodwill, the billionaire nepo fail-sons will always be fine, whatever hits their reputation takes. Incompetence isn’t an option for women in the same way; when baseline competence is assumed and expected, being excellent becomes essential.
The history of sitcoms was written for husbands to be beloved and bumbling dopes. From The Honeymooners to Homer Simpson, TV husbands made their wives’ lives harder and got laughs. In real life, mediocre ability from one partner means another manages everything. And is it really “competency” when women do it, or is it just expected?
Noah Wyle’s Dr Robbie might be the hero, but the female doctors and nurses in The Pitt get their flowers too. Carmy, the frustrating perfectionist chef in The Bear, knows he’d be nothing without Sydney by his side. In movies like Spotlight, Rachel McAdams works just as hard as Mark Ruffalo in pursuit of a story. The difference is, just like in our world, their skills need to be bulletproof to grab and hold our attention on screen.
Maybe we’re horny for competency because we’re surrounded by leaders who clearly aren’t qualified, by algorithms that promote mediocrity, by systems that reward nepotism over expertise. So we retreat to videos of someone baking something technically precise or a show surgeon making a flawless incision or a movie about journalists bringing down a system of power. We’re drawn to the skill it’s impossible to fake.
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Brodie Lancaster is a critic and the author of No Way! Okay, Fine.