More Cruelty TV

It is entirely possible, and I'm given to believe it is, that Gordon Ramsay is a great chef. Having just watched a jag of Kitchen Nightmares I can hardly believe such a beast was ever called to a nurturing profession. What is more giving than the desire to offer people good food? And who is more bloody-minded and cruel than our Gord?

I watched a segment of a show where our Gord goes into a fairly run of the mill restaurant and orders lunch. He finds the crabcakes, as billed, perfectly good and finds everything else overwrought. No shallots in the shallot-infused sauce over the apparently dry Atlantic salmon, too much garlic in the green beans, a pasty zucchini pancake. A lovely-seeming gentle manager who was THRILLED to have our Gord enter his establishment was eviscerated, the chef and owner called mediocre despite the crabcake, the chef/owner and his wife/partner asked if maybe they shouldn't just shutter the place.

Easy pickin's Gord. Truly.

Not only that, as a study in character, doesn't it take a particular and not necessarily honorable personality to be able to so easily be cruel to people who are inclined to admire and respect you? Did they ask to be COMPARED to you? only in the most oblique way. And yet our Gord tears a strip off them for not being .... more Gord.

It is interesting to me that some professions are called to answer for their sins right off the bat and others can slide along merrily, mailing in mediocrity whenever they want, and they seem to want to a lot. But a restaurant is reviewed, criticized, judged in its first week and as per biblical prophecy, so it shall be written, so it shall be done. Nail it and you're great, miss and you're dead no matter what. Lawyers can win or lose and that's expected, they aren't actually publicly judged for their prowess with the point; teachers can slide for years and still deserve a huge pension; even reporters who are ostensibly judged by their word every day can last a long time before someone says hey, you missed every scoop ever offered by a dumptruck.

Now, to be honest, I feel it is better value to eat a vastly expensive but amazing meal than to consume calories at a fraction of the price. Most days I'd rather go hungry than eat something poor. But a restaurant is merely a business like any other and each finds its level -- there are a lot of people who think Buffalo wings are the height of great cuisine. Frankly, some days, in some conditions, so do I. For many people food is food.

So why is it interesting to us that a horrible man but great chef should find a modest restaurant modest? The poor bastards didn't claim to be more. Is "constructive criticism" ever constructive? and to what psychopath? I cannot bear TV's current interest in showing the falling face, the brave front, the batted-back tears. Fine if it's about exposing the church to its sins or a government agency to its failings. But these are honest people trying to earn an honest buck. If Gord could find similar fault at a peer's restaurant, go for it. But this exercise in nastiness seems utterly gratuitous. And, I don't think there's a higher purpose such as teaching America to eat better. America, for the most part, and willingly, merely wants to eat.

No, this is "great television" and it sucks.