[img]7|left|||no_popup[/img] As I watched my first ever episode of Hell’s Kitchen, I was reminded of something Mike Daisey said during his monologue, How Theater Failed America. While describing the tail end of his life’s darkest year, he wondered why theatre festivals couldn’t just be festivals. Oh no, these have to be fights to the death where the winners are crowned with glory and the losers see their sets burned down and actors killed. Watching the highly competitive environment of Hell’s Kitchen, I could only think: there’s the problem in a nutshell.
While the manipulated reality series went on, mindful that what you see isn’t necessarily the unvarnished, unedited truth, I was flabbergasted by the spectacle. Obscenity, failure, raised voices, people coming apart at the seams, vast, overflowing pools of loathing. These weren’t people on the screen, but walking bundles of raw nerves. But where, I wondered, is the joy? For all the pressure to get the food consistently right and out on time, the environment, not helped by Gordon Ramsay’s merciless badgering, seems too toxic for any kind of life. Where is the transcendence? Where is the love of food and cooking?
Mike Daisey’s comment, of course, doesn’t really have much of a link to Hell’s Kitchen, except that it gets me thinking about competition and how it dominates our culture. When watching the poor saps on Hell’s Kitchen, it’s clear the format is designed to bring out the worst in them. Although ostensibly organized in teams with short-terms rewards for cooperative behaviour, there can ultimately only be one winner to get that coveted prize of a $250,000-a-year job at Atlantic City’s Borgota Hotel and Spa. Again, bearing in mind the effects editing can have on our interpretation of what we see on screen, the show’s barrage of blaming, arguing, politicking and ambition reveals the extent to which cooperation is, at best, a tactical choice. The show rewards atrocious behaviour by encouraging players to eliminate each other. The game is rigged because it’s not only in a candidate’s interest to shine, but to actively dull other candidates. And all that miserable human behaviour gets beamed into people’s homes for our supposed entertainment; reward by select editing on behalf of the show’s producers. If real-life kitchens are anything like this, by George (no, not that one), restaurant patrons should leave bigger tips to finance post-traumatic stress disorder counseling.
For comparison, take The Amazing Race, a “reality” show that actually is quite entertaining. Although there are dramas and occasional acts of treachery, for the most part it’s not a foul-mouthed, evil-tempered affair. Then again, the format is different. The racers compete against each other to some extent. But the race is based on completing tasks and getting places in the fastest amount of time – something that can be objectively measured, is dependent on the individual team’s skills and luck, and is perfectly straightforward about the competitive aspects. The only equivalent I can think of in terms of cooking is Iron Chef, and the moral is that you can get the thrill of the chase and the adrenaline rush of competition without encouraging the worst in people.
Sherlock’s in the House
So there’s obviously a parallel between Hell’s Kitchen and what’s going on with the banks. In a recent A.P. piece, this morsel stood out:
Banking regulators have observed that “‘poorly designed compensation policies can create perverse incentives that can ultimately jeopardize the health of the banking organization,’ Bernanke told a meeting of smaller ‘community’ banks.”
No kidding, Sherlock. But that’s capitalism for you: Anything goes in pursuit of the mighty buck, especially in the absence of the kind of regulation that drives the Republican Order of St. Reagan crazy. Whether it’s Hell’s Kitchen or the economy, if the system is structurally set up to reward bad behaviour and marginalize good behaviour, it’s not a surprise that the system eventually collapses.
It doesn’t have to be this way. In sports, for example, competition is the name of the game. Yet there is a broader context that shapes how competitiveness is manifested. Through sportsmanship, there is the expectation of fair play and respect. Of course, rules are broken and cheats find their way into sports, necessitating an enforcement process. But setting that aside, the greater culture of sports offers guidance as to how sports play out. Interestingly, that culture can be strong enough even to deemphasize the pursuit of victory as defined merely by “winning” to a celebration of personal empowerment, as in the case of the Special Olympics.
What is needed is not the remedy Tim Geithner is proposing, which Paul Krugman refers to as recycling “Bush Administration policies — specifically, the ‘cash for trash’ plan proposed, then abandoned, six months ago by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.” And the Republicans, hypocritical in condemning the very system they helped create, have yet to contribute anything intelligent other than harping at Democrats and blathering on about tax cuts. (Alternet writer Robert Freeman might be right in suggesting that Republicans are more interested in promoting themselves by actively sabotaging Democratic efforts to solve the problem.)
Without denying the role fair competition has played in driving people to work for personal achievements, we are nonetheless lacking, both economically and culturally, the focus on cooperation that grants us long-term social stability and greater control over our own affairs. And it begins with us, as individuals, to get out of Hell’s Kitchen and make for ourselves a better political and economic environment. In other words, sometimes it’s okay to just enjoy a theatre festival without worrying about crowning winners and condemning losers.
Frédérik invites you to discuss this week’s column and more at his blog.
