ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the depiction of the New Orleans real estate market in the first season of the HGTV show Selling the Big Easy. Like many shelter media productions, the programme anonymizes the city, presenting bland interiors and few glimpses of the properties’ surroundings. Drawing on US census data and popular and scholarly literature about the effects of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent recovery efforts in New Orleans, the chapter argues that the programme obscures the harsh realities of gentrification and social inequality that structure life in the city, cultivating instead a fantasy of consumer pleasure devoid of consequences. In so doing, the show participates in the neo-liberal remaking of the city to further the interests of incoming wealthy elites and corporations.
