Core Response #4 - Sebastian

    I want to preface this by noting that the only time I’ve actively sought out a reality television show was during a couple weeks in high school when I watched episodes of Hell’s Kitchen that had been uploaded to YouTube. This isn’t at all because I disdain the genre, it’s just because my parents discouraged all forms of television when I was younger. That said, this week’s readings made me contemplate something about Hell’s Kitchen that I hadn’t when I was younger – Why is Gordon Ramsay so mean? On the surface, that seems like a childish question. Gordon Ramsay is mean because that’s part of his persona and a key part of the show’s selling point. In “The Political Economic Origins of Reali-TV,” Chad Raphael notes that this genre partially emerged from the networks’ need for cheap programming during periods of labor unrest (128). As a result, reality television drew substantially on the approach of tabloid journalism, focusing on “lifestyle, human interest, and celebrity news” (133). Given these origins, it is unsurprising that a show like Hell’s Kitchen revels in the drama of contestants who feel humiliated and ashamed. But the host of a reality show does not innately have to be cruel for the show to create scenarios wherein the contestants will embarrass themselves. So perhaps a better way to phrase my question would be: Why is the host’s cruelty such an unquestioned cornerstone of Hell’s Kitchen’s format? 

    In “Reality Television: A Neoliberal Theater of Suffering,” Anna McCarthy writes, “It seems to me that it’s impossible to talk about trauma’s place in reality television without talking about torture and violation” (30). This statement feels very applicable to Hell’s Kitchen. I don’t remember the show ever really trying to teach the spectator good cooking techniques or how to responsibly run a kitchen. The weekly promise wasn’t “You’ll get to see some people compete in a cooking challenge,” it was “You’ll get to see some people reduced to tears when Gordon Ramsay lambasts their cooking skills.” In keeping with McCarthy’s observations about “violation,” Ramsay’s tirades were never just hyperbolic constructive criticism; they were often personal attacks. I recall middle and high school friends making similar observations about Simon Cowell’s tenure as one of the judges on American Idol. Whenever they would talk about the show, it was always about how scathing Cowell’s barbs were. Yet what I find striking about both Ramsay and Cowell is that the spectator is never expected to question their behavior. Their petulance is simply one of the shows’ baseline assumptions, somewhat like the weekly format or the recurring graphics. 

    McCarthy suggests that one might read the dynamics of reality television – and neoliberalism in general – in terms of anxious attachment. She describes it thusly, “Researchers condition rats to expect food whenever they press a lever, then chance the rules abruptly, dolling out the food at random intervals. The rats go mad and spend every waking moment banging the levers, hoping with every atom of their rodent being for the fix they were trained to expect” (McCarthy 34). Although it can be easy to miss in a show like Hell’s Kitchen, Gordon Ramsay does dole out praise every once and a while. But it's always unexpected and, as often as not, unexplained. And I wonder if this isn’t key to the show’s own mobilization of anxious attachment. It is impossible to predict when Ramsay will be enraged and when he will be pleased, so the contestants scurry about, desperately trying to elicit the latter response. 

    Yet I also think it is worth noting that Ramsay and Cowell clearly embody a certain understanding of white masculinity in these shows. As I previously noted, Hell’s Kitchen could find other ways to show the contestants under pressure. Yet perhaps it could not find an easier way. After all, who better to endless generate the drama of reality television than white men like Ramsay and Cowell, exactly the kind of people whose behavior our culture tends to never question or scrutinize. Hell's Kitchen permits the spectator to be critical when the contestants are sexist, racist, or just generally abusive. But while the show frames Ramsay as harsh and domineering when he exhibits these same traits, I never recall it presenting him as wrong or reprehensible. Somehow Ramsay was always exempt from the standards of decency. Likewise, it’s telling that some viewers – such as my middle and high school friends watching American Idol – don’t just accept this vision of white masculinity, they embrace it. Ramsay and Cowell are somehow “cool” for being cruel. And while I have no experience whatsoever with The Apprentice, I can’t help but wonder how this all relates to the way in which Donald Trump’s supporters responded to his vindictive actions as president.

    Returning to the land of reality television, though, I wonder how the precedent established by the likes of Ramsay and Cowell shapes a show like RuPaul’s Drag Race. As Sabrina Strings and Long T. Bui note in “She Is Not Acting, She Is,” RuPaul is occasionally quite critical of the contestants. Describing one season in particular, they note that “RuPaul constantly criticizes Stacy for not giving enough ‘personality’ in her drag performances and costumes” (828). But, on the whole, RuPaul appears to present himself as somewhat less volatile than his white heteronormative counterparts. Thus, it would be interesting to further explore how the cultural conception of the aggressive and implicitly white masculine reality television host interacts with the competing discourses about gender and race that Strings and Bui describe in their essay. 

Note: I would like to credit Daniela for getting me thinking about some of the ideas I address in this post.