Going to take a look at some television and write about the relationship and communication between the characters.
Time for self disclosure! I haven’t had a television in over a decade and generally I don’t care about television. As a result, I rarely watch any. I decided to head over to crackle.com and watch an episode of the drama/reality Television called Kitchen Nightmares – starring British Celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay.
This episode of Kitchen Nightmares can be viewed here.
Gordon Ramsey is sent to California to help out a struggling restaurant called The Secret Garden. The owner, and head chef, of the restaurant is a Frenchman named Michel Bardavid.
The restaurant if ugly and filthy. The front entrance does not work. The menu is bizarre – one of the dishes included garlic shrimp with strawberries. Worst of all the food was cold and not very good according to the celebrity chef. But, I’m sure he’s playing it up for the cameras.
Gordon is hostile to Michel. If I had to venture a guess it would be because Gordon is a competent chef and Michel’s take on the culinary arts offends him as a professional. Gordon begins telling Michel all the things that he thinks are going wrong with the restaurant. And, Michel does not take the criticism well.
Michel definitely feels hostility towards Gordon. Not just because Gordon dared to criticize Michel’s cooking and restaurant, but also because Michel feels threatened by other chefs being more competent than him. He clearly takes pride in his cooking and culinary “skills” and brags about his past successes as a chef. I think that pride is what makes Michel so delusional when being confronted by his failures with this restaurant.
One line perfectly describes this delusion, “My restaurant is doing better than this asshole over there!” The “asshole over there” is Gordon Ramsay – the chef who has received more than sixteen Michelin Stars in his restaurants. And, who has been running a three Michelin star restaurant for almost 20 years. Meanwhile, Michel, the man who uttered such words at Gordon Ramsey, is admittedly $300,000 in debt and needs help bad enough he’s willing to sign up for a reality TV show and basically be laughed at by a national audience.
Not that Gordon Ramsay doesn’t deserve some hostility. There are ways to criticize in a productive manner and then there’s calling the other chef as “French Fat Pig”. Which, I think, is taking things quite a bit too far. Fat shaming is already a huge issue in our society – and, pigs are highly intelligent animals.
If I was one of the characters on this episode I’d be the poor waitress bawling her eyes out. The cooks weren’t doing a good job, mostly as a result of Michel, and the front of house got chewed out by angry customers. I don’t handle conflict well either so I really feel for her. Hang in there!
That being said. I see myself in all these people. Sometimes I’m as prideful and stubborn (and delusional) as Michel. Sometimes I’m as snobbish and aggressive as Gordon. And, sometimes I’m the sous-chef who actually stepped up and got stuff done when Michel stepped away.
Who would think that the entire spectrum of human experience would be out on display in a reality TV show about cooking.
Miscommunicating Communication 