The Pure Ideology of Kitchen Nightmares

this video was sponsored by rake on Kitchen Nightmares then I think the chicky Gordon Ramsay is not God that's a statement that is so obviously true that it feels pretty patronizing to even state it out loud like oh you think I needed you to say that Jax ain't you think I thought the big shout man was God what I want you to imagine is that for the purposes of his cow log of shows and in particular Kitchen Nightmares the assertion that Gordon Ramsay actually is God is 100% correct in fact it is so incredibly correct that the entire premise of these shows completely fall down unless you believe it to be the case let's back up a second I really can't overstate how much I love Kitchen Nightmares it is my go to show whenever I want to watch something without having to think about it too much and even when I don't have time to watch a full episode I'll usually just for one a clip to listen to while I go for a walk or take a [ __ ] if I want something a little more subdued and down to earth Oh throw on an episode from the UK series if I want some powerful drama and hygiene I have watched this video of Gordon Ramsay trying terrible pizzas over a dozen times at this point it is dare I say it's a problem ironically given the nature of the show itself I would define Kitchen Nightmares as the peak of junk food television it has serious dramatic tension it has incredible moments of hilarity the narrative itself contains and highly predictable Gordon enters a dysfunctional restaurants points out the many obvious problems has a heart heart of the owners and almost always they'll try to make necessary changes to their business and it all comes out with a happy ending well almost always right thing for me is to get out of it it's voyeuristic and often exploits the deep personal issues of real world people for cheap drama but it has enough of a feel-good helping the underdog veneer that I don't feel as guilty watching it as I would with something like dr. Phil or Jeremy it's that veneer that I'm gonna focus on today the way Gordon Ramsay and its producers have through Kitchen Nightmares constructed a reality designs who make you forget a fundamental truth about Kitchen Nightmares that the purpose of this show is not to save failing restaurants this feels like an odd thing to say considering the stated premise of the series is exactly that it's the wager the show is invariably making to the audience and what gives each episode most of its momentum can Gordon save this business or not but I think if you're trying to delve a little deeper into any consumer products it's important to separate something stated purpose with the underlying motivation surrounding it for a basic relevance example look at junk food the stated purpose is to feed you but that's not really the sole or even primary goal for most companies pushing out to the pub they want to sell you a flavor to convince you to associate a specific taste with a specific brand and keep you coming back there's a reason McDonald's burgers taste great but also don't really taste like burgers they taste like McDonald's so in the case of shows like Kitchen Nightmares the stated goal might be to help save failing restaurants but what they're really selling you is a brand among other things the brands of Gordon Ramsay hey do you generally dislike spending money do you also like listening to things with your ears well like me you may have a history of buying bad budget earphones and then having them almost immediately crap out on you creating a cycle of purchases that could have easily been avoided if you just bought one reliable set in the first place what is that reliable set you may ask ray Kahn specifically ray cons Wireless everyday e25 earbuds sent over to me as part of the sponsorship for this video they sound great isolate noise like nobody's business and start around half the price of other premium wireless earbuds on the market so if you're interested check out by Roy Cohn comm slash Jack st. for 15% off of your first order enjoy it's hard to talk about Kitchen Nightmares without talking about its host but I'll try to keep this brief more so even than his abilities as a chef selling himself as a brand has really always been Gordon Ramsay's most impressive skill most famously he was able to take the bad press of his repeated abuses of staff and customers to his restaurants and flip there into a positive a kind of I'm just brutally honest and cut through the [ __ ] charm that effectively let him have full control of his own narrative when good things are said about him good when bad things are said about him well that's just more whining from the snowflakes who can't handle his raw unadulterated appeal all press just became enough for opportunity to further reinforce his brand as at the end of the day a truth-teller I don't want to spend too much time here psychoanalyzing a dude who when it comes down to its I don't know honestly depending on your motivations going into it you could probably do a solid job framing Ramsey Eva as an abusive bully who exploits the people around him or a noble charitable figure who truly cares about furthering meaningful causes and helping people as I've already said I have a bitter crippling addiction to binging Ramsey shows and based on that I have to admit I'm gonna need to give a highly spicy take here Gordon Ramsay is complicated I don't think he's some shady villain completely indifferent to those around him but it's also hard to ignore that a lot of harmful and abusive actions have come from him and his connected enterprises this is all me underlining that this video is not about the ideology of Gordon Ramsay himself as a complex and multifaceted guy who you'd probably need more than a few shows to really understand but there's one thing I think I could say about Ramsey without much objection he is a man concerned with Authority the 1999 five-part documentary series boiling points is one of the first tastes most audiences had with Ramsey and his usual spicy hordes of meaning comment from now concentrate you was your kind of everybody here the idea of the show was simple Ramsey had made headlines as a young and highly ambitious chef who had already been awarded two Michelin stars among the most esteemed Awards in his industry and the show would document the opening of his new restaurants and his quest to get his third star now as I said as far as the food industry goes owning a Michelin star is a pretty prestigious honor and it takes a pretty wild amount of ruthlessness and determination to get one at as young and age as Ramsey let alone two of them and especially let alone free you can see all of that in the show in his efforts to prove himself as a chef and restauranteur Ramsey puts everything into his work here Gordan sort of comes and goes you know he comes when they're ready and disappear soon after frequently sparring with his staff sinking his personal life finances and reputation to make his dream a reality the question is considering the massive toll of all of this from the physical to the psychological why was this such a dream what does free Michelin stars prove that one or two don't again it comes back to what we said earlier Ramsey's worship of authority the Michelin Guide institution is like Ramsey not God it was a marketing gimmick for a tire company to increase demand for cars over the years it has certainly gained reputation from a combination of hiring on similarly experienced industry professionals being highly selective in who Awards and once again good marketing all of this means that like the Academy Awards with movies a Michelin star means something in a way that say five star review from a trusted critic on Yelp does not but also like the Academy Awards let's just say sometimes there's some disagreement with their decisions among other things the Michelin Guide institution has been accused of favoritism towards certain popular chefs pandering towards region Michelin itself which is the cater for and engaging in an insidious form of cultural imperialism with it's clear bias towards French cuisine and fine dining experiences none of this means necessarily that we just dismiss Michelin judgement out of hand but it does underline an obvious truth their word is not law it's a brand you've been trained to trust which brings us back to Gordon Ramsay I would be far from the first critic of Kitchen Nightmares to point out one of the most pronounced aspects of the show those [ __ ] sound effects [Music] Kitchen Nightmares is obsessed with ensuring its viewers are fed one specific narrative maybe more so than any other piece of media I have ever consumed this is mainly in reference to the US version and I am gonna focus on that here even if I do think the significant differences between its presentation and the UK original are worth pointing out let me explain why I mean obviously all reality shows are constructing a highly selective view of the world the logistics of production mean both space in terms of limited cameras to film and time needing to edit down what's film to fit a specific slots need to be taken into account and you want to maintain viewer interest so when you're editing you're obviously gonna bias towards editing together a story that's the most entertaining and easy to follow the same reason these shows usually have a very predictable structure to them and the people shown mostly windup fitting pretty one-dimensional archetypes is this the lazy owner who just doesn't care enough is this the shouty owner who mistreats his staff is this Nina hello my name's needle you add all this together and get as entertaining Charlie Brooker once put a a crude caricature of reality but even then Kitchen Nightmares takes all there and then just more like there is no room for ambiguity every moment of the show needs to give you music cut ins impact sound effects [Music] own deficiencies [Applause] it's the reason I said I watch this show when I don't want to think too much you sure don't even have to worry about wherever I'm supposed to like or dislike a person agree or disagree the show gives me special noises to decide that for me and while that's such a clear surface level part of the show I think the mentality behind that seeps into every part of it the authority that Ramsey commands that he's picked up over years of financial success professional accolades and controlling his media narrative are built on the same idea as this editing it's tricking you into not really considering any alternate perspective you can trust them I remember specifically an episode of the show this one same Georgia in which the managers of the black owned business parks edge complains a Gordon that one of the major issues that had was problems of racism in the local area and how that had been a big factor in their lack of initial success today we could do better we were not good enough for the neighborhood and my response was they don't like us because we were nobody on restaurant in a white neighborhood the show mentions this and then just completely discards it off hand for the entire rest of the episode it just plays out as if this was obviously made up by the owners with Gordon even exclaiming relief that customers had boycotted parks edge given management problems in the restaurant the locals boycotted this place because they they never come back I obviously don't know enough about the history of that particular restaurant or that particular neighborhood to say anything about their claim one way or the other but I do think the simple choice of handling the problem in this way is interesting in itself by choosing not to treat this accusation with any real seriousness the show is implicitly telling us this is not a big problem we are not focusing on this it doesn't really matter and of course they would right like what if local racism was a big problem for this can you imagine what a massive effect this would have on the structure of the show to have such a significant stumbling block be something fully outside of the confines of the restaurants that's like a major systemic problem way outside of Gordon Ramsay scope as someone who knows a lot about food and a lot about running restaurants it would threaten the narrative of the show and the authority of Ramsey and so as quickly as it's brought up it's gone incidentally something happens a parks edge that happens to a lot of restaurants shortly after Gordon comes to fix them up and give them their happy ending something that also rarely gets brought out by the production it closed today it's most of the restaurants covered on the show have since shut down many of them closed down before the episodes they were filled for had even aired well a 2014 article was stated that thirty of the seventy seven restaurants covered over the show's run were still running at 2018 update showed that number had shrunk to seventeen wait no fifteen Gordon Ramsay's success rate with these restaurants is less than twenty percent now you could look at that pretty uncharitably and wonder why he was ever really seen as some kind of trustworthy authority on this subject but just as easily there is a clear justification pre builds into the premise of shows like Kitchen Nightmares the restaurants are already failing therefore if they succeed we can say the Gordon did his job and they successfully followed his advice if they shut down that was on them they must have not followed what Gordon told them to do or otherwise made some other mistakes that ultimately led to their own failure Dave must have been the most arrogant restaurant owner my entire life as I predicted that black belt is closed kaput finished as we was handling of the press he can never really lose in real terms the fact that Kitchen Nightmares success rate is so low is irrelevant no matter how successful or unsuccessful the show is any success is seen as proof of Gordon's good judgments now I could spend time here getting into the times when the opposite appear to be the case on several occasions owners in their clientele have reported that Gordon's changes actually made the place worse season fives old Greco which closed a few weeks after the filming of the episode reported they were unhappy with many of the style and menu changes something reiterated by local press around the area according to the owner of chappies covered in season six Gordon's insistence on switching from authentic Creole dishes too generic crowd-pleasers like burgers and fried chicken caused irreparable harm to his business again I can't really say who's right and who's wrong here but from the outside all of this looks like it would undermine the entire premise of Kitchen Nightmares what if the owners are sometimes right what if Gordon is sometimes wrong what if as is the case for myriad struggling restaurants there are many factors playing a significant role in their failings outside of just cooking bad food and having poor hygiene standards it's not always just mistreating star for serving frozen food something Ramsey himself would know for well but that is not the reality Kitchen Nightmares sells us through the brand of its host through the unambiguous perspective of its editing or being sold is a simplified straightforward version of our world a world based on individual choices clear-cut right and wrong we're following authority means success and not following it means failure where Gordon Ramsay is God and the world he offers is just this is the bit where I talk about capitalism sorry the just world hypothesis states that for any person their actions will ultimately bring up appropriate consequences you do good good happens you do bad bad happens what goes around comes around you reap what you sow for obvious reasons the idea that you reap what you sow plays pretty well into the justifying ideology of capitalism I mean when you break it down the system kind of makes sense when you think of it that way right if you don't try your best try hard enough you'll fail if you do you'll succeed in fact to be really reductive about it I think a lot of the more anti-capitalist types would probably be more into the idea if that was how the world works but it doesn't the reality is that many hard-working people are not rewarded under capitalism and there are multitude of factors play into their ability to succeed in the first place disability mental illness education discrimination maybe most obviously cross positioned off in Brooklyn my father gave me a small loan of a million dollars wrapping things back to restaurant serves it's a simple reality that businesses attached to large well-funded corporations are much more safe and reliable investments than small time independent eateries and to the skies all of this we have thought leaders people whose job it is to interpret the world for you to have authority and spin you a narrative that lets you ignore the messy complications of this reality the Michelin Guide institution is an institution of thought leaders it is their job to tell you what is good taste and what is bad taste Gordon Ramsay is a thought leader it is his job to tell you what makes a person succeed and what makes them fail and from all of this we get Kitchen Nightmares junk food reality TV that we think is selling us the comfortable narrative that Gordon's here to help these well-meaning but incompetent people succeed but what it's really selling us is a different comfortable narrative as with my Jeremy Kyle video some months ago a narrative that's complex multi-layered topics are actually as simple as cutting through the [ __ ] kicking people in the arse and getting the individuals to make the right choices and for his presentation even for its premise it grips you in that mode of thinking and almost convinces you to believe in it's simplified cartoon world where Bram Z speaks the gospel truth and the people need only for words but just because you're only getting one perspective doesn't mean it's an objective one what you're buying isn't the truth but a brand Gordon Ramsay may be an authority but he is not God obviously we can't just avoid the presence and even occasional usefulness of thought leaders in our everyday lives maybe sometimes a person who's really good at speaking with authority and gain you to see the world through their unique lens could change your perspective for the better I mean that's basically what I'm trying to do here right this stuff comes in degrees as I've already mentioned even within the realm of Kitchen Nightmares you see a much more harsh in distilled form of this in the US version compared to the UK and that is its own massive can of worms but I think there is a fundamental harm that these kinds of manufactured authorities creates more than anything I think it's important to both keep our perspectives broad opens our voices we might not traditionally associate with Authority and to be skeptical of our own biases in who we choose to listen to and who we choose to ignore I don't think it's exactly a coincidence that the brand that's been created for Ramsey especially in the u.s. is one of a very specific hyper-masculine domineering and aggressive attitude the important thing I take away is to understand that we can acknowledge and respect the varied perspectives of those around us without giving up our own ability to see the world in all its nuances and complexities to allow ourselves to disagree and to change without that well I guess we might as well be watching reality TV hey folks hope you enjoyed the video as usual if you did I hope you consider giving a like sharing around and if you really enjoy it throwing me a buck or two over on patreon you can also use coffee for 100 Asians donating gets you in the credits scrolling by now today I'd like to give a special thanks to a wreck isn't anger at Thomas Atticus Cassidy Benjamin David Zala brown Kalin Stein Connor D Daphne Ethan volp India Leon Weigel lousy jag marlpit oeis Nick Everett platypus echo 7 snowy and Turin the exile with an extra special thanks to Charlotte's Alan Jaime Bellamy mayor Jay the fool and Ronald main finally I'd like to thank rake on again for sponsoring this video once again check the link in the description for 15% off with your break on order other than that thanks again for watching and I'll see you next time love you all and stay safe needle

Channel: Jack Saint

Views: 1,018,275

Keywords: gordon ramsay, kitchen nightmares, hells kitchen, boiling point, analysis, critique, rant, rage, jack saint, lackingsaint, thought leaders, lefttube, trash tv, jeremy kyle, reality tv, drama, dr phil, charlie brooker, editing, ideology, amys baking company

Id: px7mlwSQxuM

Length: 23min 49sec (1429 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 30 2020