The Old School Lunch

I’ve always had a thing for cooking/food shows but without cable, my viewing options are pretty limited in this regard. So for the past few seasons or so, i’ve watched Hell’s Kitchen in an “if it’s on i’ll watch it” sort of way. If you’ve been watching this season, you know the contestant of Rock and that he is, as he’s shown today, an asshole with what I really think is an abusive personality. I know, I know it’s a reality show and i’m sure everyone’s real personality there is warped and such but there’s no denying what he did and said on the last episode. Though Rock didn’t lay a finger on anyone on the show, his intimidation of namely the other female contestants through verbal abuse and direct but not so direct that he’d get kicked off the show threats just really stink of one who gets what he wants by putting fear into others (women) and thus controlling them. For those who don’t watch the show, basically he “blew up” and “lost control” after he’d been sucking ass in the competition, been sniping back and forth with a female chef and said chef asked him to put a bowl of something near the sink to which he didn’t and said something along the lines of “I don’t jump when you say jump.” He then proceeded to call this woman (and another woman who came to her defense) bitch this and broad that all while splicing in the after-hours commentary of “I like working with women in the kitchen…but not these bitches.” Throughout his raging verbal attack of the two female chefs, he did some of this including “you don’t want to mess with me” as he’d walk past one of the two women, slam some kitchen utensils and trays around, stop to say what he was going to say and then proceed. It’s hard to remember all of the shit he said, it was just so much but if i’m missing anything, he roared on about “don’t fucking talk to me” “get the fuck outta me way” or some nonsense. But the idea is pretty clear. My dad destroyed furniture and punched walls in his moments of “rage” when he argued with my mom. He would always tell me that no matter what, he’d never hit my mom but it didn’t clear away the fact that he used physical intimidation to get what he wanted.

At the old job, there were many, many men who acted like this. When someone stands up or doesn’t take their shit, they throw an adult man-tantrum and try to intimidate their way through life. They know enough to not say “i’m going to kill you” but then again when you’ve got an abusive personality, you learn to blur the lines enough so that dumbasses like the show’s producers and Chef Ramsey don’t call him out and instead simply say “stop arguing.”

Come to think of it, I think in the last season of Hell’s Kitchen, there was another douchebag of a male chef who, after having lost a gender vs. gender competition, barked back at the women with something like “shut your mouths…women belong in the kitchen, get your ass back in there, woman.” But anyways.

While I was thinking about this abusive piece of shit, I wondered if I was being biased in seeing what he was doing as abusive when Chef Ramsey (some could argue) appears to do the same thing. Rock is Black and Chef Ramsey is White. Some could argue that through subtle layers of subconscious racism, I hold Black guys to a higher standard and that Chef Ramsey gets away with the same thing day after day. But I don’t think that’s the case. Sure, Chef Ramsey is verbally abusive (and sexist) in his comments to the different contestants and sure what he says is just awful all of the time, but the aspects of that abusive personality stop there. From what i’ve seen, he doesn’t say “don’t mess with me” which is a nice way of saying “don’t mess with me or i’m going to inflict harm on you” and he sure as hell doesn’t walk around the kitchen slamming shit around for the sole purpose of putting fear into the other people, namely the female contestants.

That Rock wasn’t eliminated in the last show makes me physically sick because Chef Ramsey didn’t for a second take into account Rock’s abusive (and i’m saying this word again because that’s what it is and there’s no better word for it nor is there a reason to use any other word) behavior and that to me reflects on an inability or unwillingness for Ramsey and the rest of the show’s team to say to the world “you may be a great chef, but if you’re going to treat people like that, if you’re going to treat women like that, fuck off because we don’t want you to represent our show.”