Why do we love food TV?
Does The Bear keep up with the times or is it just mid?
I’m not much of a TV watcher. I don’t care for most sitcoms, Netflix shows, reality TV, or really any series (except for The Boys, that show… is wildt). I don’t watch shows mostly due to my addictive personality. If a full season - or worse - multiple seasons are available to watch… I will binge that show until the sun starts rising and I start to self-loathe for doing this to myself.
When The Bear came out on Hulu/FX at least 10 different friends asked if I watched it before the 3rd or 4th episode was out. The constant raving about “the accuracy!! the drama!!! is it really like that in restaurants?!” kept me from having any desire to watch it. Every show that tries to depict the reality of working in a restaurant always falls a bit short. Either it’s too romanticized to the point where it feels like the writers talked to a couple of their cook friends and ran with only a few of their thoughts (like in Chef when Jon Favreau cooks pasta for Scarlett Johansson in his studio apartment that happens to have an industrial kitchen in it). Or it’s too dramatized making it seem like working in a fine dining restaurant is equivalent to working at a pristine clean circus with a crazy unhinged ring leader throwing plates everywhere like in Burnt. Sometimes they’re spot on - like in Ratatouille.
I love movies and shows that focus on the culinary world, restaurants, and the lives of cooks. But the egomaniac chef that drives his team and himself to the brink with a happy ending is played out and I don’t bother spending time watching these kinds of films. Eventually, the constant memes about The Bear on Twitter got to me and I watched through it all in a couple of nights. TLDR it’s both somewhat accurate and mostly dramatized, as good TV shows go. After watching it I can see why the internet was enthralled with its charm, but I still thought it was alriiiiight.
There are already a plethora of show reviews online so I’m not interested in talking about the cinematography, plot, etc. But more how the writers as cast reflect current restaurant workers and if they have an interesting perspective outside of another story of another chef that is gunning for another award.
Yes, Carmy (aka white boy of the year) is the main lead that is charming and embodies another traumatized ego maniac chef that has yet to go to therapy but is finding his way back to humility on his journey. Richie is the obnoxious, erratic, and annoying one with cute character development as the show progressed. Sydney is the young star that’s fresh, talented, determined, and cocky; the yin to Carmy’s yang. Marcus is the cook who finds fresh inspiration with a pure heart, only to have it stomped down by Carmy’s inability to not be a man-child with his temper. And the unnecessary “comedic” relief that Matty Matheson played.
Certain aspects of the show have moments that are spot on. When Carmy makes himself a PB&J and falls asleep on the couch, calling everyone chef as a sign of respect, the blank-faced zone-out of underlying panic when shit hits the fan, or when… he just goes outside to drink water out of… a deli container (which Twitter was crazy about for some reason). The culinary producer on board the show did a great job adding some nuanced touches, minus the fact that Carmy went outside to have a cigarette with his apron on, come on chef.
They struggle, they grow, face stresses, blow up, make up, and win big in the end. Bing bong boom, hit show. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good show. I enjoyed it but I wasn’t crazy about it like a few of my friends were or as many people on the internet were. But I will say that the show makers shot and wrote it in a great way that helped emulate the stresses of a busy restaurant to make me even feel a bit stressed watching it and remembering moments from past jobs. A bit dramatic to say it’s some form of PTSD… but maybe a very very watered-down version of that. The overbearing chef. The rush of service. Watching cooks fumble and fuck up. Fumbling and fucking up yourself. Grabbing a hot pan handle that your station partner forgot to mention that it just came out of the oven. The sound of the ticket printer that is printing faster than you can put up onto your board. The clashing between two cooks that don’t fuck with each other… yet.
But the stress was negated when I caught myself thinking of myself in similar situations and old faces popped into memory as the show went on. Like how I was once like Marcus when I first got into fine dining; addicted to consuming anything and everything about technique, cookbooks, and experimentation. I resonated with him when Carmy had the inability as a leader to harness and champion that pure hunger and instead stomp it down because of his lack of emotional self-control and/or awareness. We all worked with someone like Tina, someone from the old guard who was resistant to change, too loyal and tenured to fire, but also a total hag to work with… until you earn their respect. And I’m sure every cook felt like they were Sydney at a point in their careers. Eager, hungry, talented, cocky, and looking for mentorship that would cultivate enough space for them to grow into.
Kitchens can be pirate ships. Made up of people who work in restaurants purely as a means to pay rent with little desire to see it as a craft. Others with massive broken egos mixed with good intentions, driven by passion and hunger. Others who just can’t seem to fit in other occupations; the outliers of the workforce that can’t stand to sit at a desk but somehow stumbled into a restaurant. The people that work in restaurants are what make the restaurant industry incredible. People from different walks of life find themselves crammed into a small pressure cooker, sacrificing their nights and weekends so that guests can have a good one.
At the end of the day, being a cook is laborious and up until recently seen as a blue-collar job. There’s no glamor in being neck-deep into your prep list with only a couple of hours left to get a laundry list of work done before the first guest walk in through the doors. It’s not sexy to feel sweat dripping down your legs as you stand for 6 hours in front of a raging hot french top and grill while getting oil burns as the fish you’re basting decides to pop an air bubble. There’s no glory in breaking down a mountain of boxes after the deliveries come in or when you have to scrub the walk-in on your hands and knees because you accidentally dropped a container with whatever liquid. The Bear did a decent job of showing this reality of working in restaurants without romanticizing it too much compared to other shows.
What interested me more than the show itself was what people who have never worked in the industry were fixated on; aside from people gawking at Carmy’s dirtbag line cook sexual appeal… thank you again Bon Appetit for another fascinating take. But more on how people love to see the kitchen politics and hierarchy (which I broke down in a previous post).
People love to see the head chef sous chef dynamic. When the sous chef and line cook butt heads but eventually build camaraderie. The BOH / FOH clash. The toxic manic chef that brings havoc onto their cooks. Maybe for similar reasons why so many people love wartime action movies. Clear roles, high-stress level battles that push the characters to the brink, the stone-cold leader that slowly warms up, and the stillness of the post-battle moments that bring clarity and fellowship. Perhaps another metaphor that works cohesively between a restaurant kitchen crew and a military squad.
Gordon Ramsey is the perfect TV chef personality that captures all of the elements that Food media lovers want. He’s an expert at the craft, he can be maniacal and toxic like he is on Kitchen Nightmares and Hell’s Kitchen, but he also has a soft side that shines in Master Chef Junior. The people love the duality and Ramsey whips around in his McLaren because of it.
TV and movies love this tug of war between the two sides of a cook that a show is often built around. Yet since the #MeToo movement, the canceling of many toxic chefs, and a call for a change in restaurant culture, restaurants have been changing for the better. More and more chefs understand that the Michelin Guide and the NYT food critics are not worth crushing the morale and spirits of their cooks. Chefs are fully aware that throwing tantrums, plates, and pans is a one-way ticket to cooks leaving, terrible publicity, and potential cancelation. And the new generation of cooks are fighting for healthier workplaces, higher wages, better hours, and zero tolerance for sexism, racism, and workplace abuse.
Surprisingly, The Bear is aware of the changing tides of restaurant culture. Carmy seeks out help to figure out his emotions and trauma throughout the series. Sydney and Marcus refuse to put up with Carmy the moment he starts cultivating a toxic workplace environment. Richie starts to wake up to the reality that times are changing fast and he will be displaced just as quickly if he doesn’t open up. The Bear has many tropes that many food films have that I mentioned I care little about anymore, but times are changing, and to see a show try to capture that was interesting to see.
Obviously, TV shows and movies about food aren’t going anywhere but I’m curious to see how writers and directors make future films about a changing industry without heavily leaning onto the usual tropes of a toxic restaurant culture that is slowly disappearing in real life. Food media feels like it’s still in its sophomore year. More shows are going to keep being made and I for one am excited to see what creators will creatively choose to focus on and highlight now that the toxic chef era is quickly being overdone.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read this week’s newsletter.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the show if you watched it and if there is something that you wish food shows would do more of.
ALSO
I’ve got some super exciting news that I will be blasting out tomorrow about a pop-up that a friend and I are doing in Brooklyn in a couple of weeks so keep an eye out for the e-mail!
A busy week for the Güd Güds fam ;)
All love,
Edmond