I’ve bitched about this before. Watching Alton Brown is insufferable. His real personality, which he displays on every other show besides Good Eats, makes his “friendly food geek” routine stand out like a giant, badly formed pair of fake tits. I can’t watch Good Eats now without thinking “fakey fakey fakey fake faaaaaaaaaaaake!”
The guy’s really a stiff, unapproachable, tinpot dictator. He’s a manipulative martinet without a shred of real emotion besides contempt.
The worst of it was last night on Food Network Star, during the big emotional cliffhanger. Which one of Alton’s lovable losers will be sent home? Oh, the drama! Oh, the emotion! Oh, the sheer, raw humanity! Now is the time for a carefully orchestrated outpouring of tears and fake-assed TV histrionics.
That’s right. Alton Brown was supposedly crying. You see, he was supposedly equally attached to both his beloved protege’s.
Except that they were the most obviously bullshit TV tears I’ve ever seen. Alton couldn’t give a rat’s ass whether those two idiots drowned in peanut oil. The camera kept giving us short cutaways of Alton supposedly overcome with emotion, but it was as if the cameraman and the director both knew that he was utterly unable to show, and possibly to even EXPERIENCE, real feelings. It was painfully hilarious.
Actually, watching the process of making one of these shows is like watching the proverbial sausage-making. It really kills any illusions of authenticity you might harbor about these people. They’re all Type A, cutthroat, contemptuous pricks, and no, the mere fact of that doesn’t surprise me particularly, but it does not make me want to watch these assholes.
What gets me is that Bobby Flay, the one person from Food Network who I’ve always heard was a complete piece of work, who is supposedly an utter tool to work with, comes off best on that show. He’s all business, sure, but he appears to be very straightforward in his relationships with the contestants. Giada is a horrifying harpy. Alton is a godawful sociopath who should NEVER let his true self be seen on TV.
I’m a big Alton Brown fan, but I’m not a huge fan of the snippets of Alton’s personality I’ve seen on Twitter and in other interviews. It’s just a general feeling I get, and I obviously don’t claim to know what the guy is like in real life. I did meet him once, and came away with lukewarm opinion of the guy.
Also, I was stunned to find out that he’s a born-again Christian. It just didn’t mesh with my impression of him.
Little things. It’s very uniform and natural appearing for him in all his interactions on the show, whether it’s with his contestants, the producers, the critics, or with the other chefs (Bobby Flay and Giada). I don’t think he’s a good enough actor to FAKE a lack of emotion in that manner. Too meta.
I enjoy cooking and cooking programs as much as the next schlub, but I can’t help but wondering why these chefs think they’re such hot shit. They aren’t surgeons who literally hold people’s lives in their hands. They’re not captains of industry who employ thousands and can sway entire economies with their decisions. Hell, they’re not even actors who have legions of men envying them and women lusting for them.
I think your perspective is colored by the fact that these chefs are also the kind of people who want to be famous. I think you’ll find arrogance is a core component of that mindset.
That said, why should he care about the contestants, the producers or the chefs? Why *shouldn’t *he hate them all? Despising them is a normal, healthy human reaction.
This AND…there have been a few times I’ve come across a competitive cooking type show, and the contestants are always screaming ‘Yes CHEF, no CHEF’ etc., like the chef is a fucking drill instructor.
Does this happen in an actual kitchen? I kinda hate it…seems like an affectation.
Slight threadjack- I have a friend who is a sous-chef in one of the -very- high-end restaurants in Chicago. About eight-ten months ago, she was brought out to the west coast to audition for some chef ‘reality shows’. She came back completely disillusioned by the process; it seems they didn’t want her because she wanted to talk -with- her crew instead of screaming at them. She wanted to get work done and do it well instead of causing drama. I’ve seen her work, and she brings out the best of people around her. That’s not, at all, what the shows want. They want screaming. They want drama. They want fake tears.
Screw them.
(Their loss is our gain. She’s pretty awesome).
I’d heard rumors that Alton really isn’t that pleasant in person. Saddens me a little, as I like his personality on GE. If that’s not really him, it’s a bit of a let down.
I first read that as “…my children, trying to get out of the dishwasher.”
I am a fan of cooking competition shows hangs head in shame. TV is about drama. The one thing we, the viewers, cannot enjoy is the actual taste/smell of the food so the show has to concentrate on the drama.
There’s very little that’s “real” about reality television, so I don’t know why you think that you have discovered anything real about reality TV personnel’s personalities.
