Conflicted with Reality

Víctima del plasma., originally uploaded by ZEЯO.

It's been awhile since I've watched any reality tv. Usually, I'm excellent at avoiding them. I'm more of a guide surfer than a channel flipper anyway so I hardly ever just run across them and get sucked in. Last night though was a different story. It started off innocently enough with me watching one of my dvr'd Kathy Griffin: D-List episodes, which was hilarious, of course. However once it ended, the tv automatically brought me back to live tv and THAT IS WHEN THE SUCKING BEGAN. I was sucked in, the show sucked, the people on the show sucked, the food on the show sucked, you get the idea. Has anyone ever found themselves watching Kitchen Nightmares with the questionable Gordon Ramsay? I'm new to the Gordon Ramsay universe but I understand he's become quite popular as some sort of perfectionist, evil chef. Evidently, he's supposed to be one of the top chefs in the world with all of his Michelin stars and Order of the British Empire and such. Of course, I don't know why he feels the need to yell at people on tv. Perhaps someone has gotten a little too big for his britches?

The general premise is they pick a failing restaurant and Gordon swoops in and yells at people telling them how bad they are, changes everything and saves the day. Brilliant. This restaurant they picked, Sebastian's (somewhere in LA, I think), was god awful bad. It truly made me reevaluate my past, present and future choices in restaurants. Yes, THAT BAD. They didn't make anything in-house. 95% of what they served was delivered FROZEN to them and they essentially heated it up. Now, I'm no restaurateur, but is that legal? I mean, really? That seems to go against the very idea of a restaurant. Are they allowed to just buy out Costco and serve it to you?

Of course, Gordon was appalled and the head chef was such a major tool. He was somehow proud of his frozen restaurant, even though they hardly had any customers. He didn't get the whole chefs should actually do some cooking concept, even when Gordon would considerately scream it in his face. It really was quite painful and shocking and like watching a train wreck and all of those other schadenfreude qualities of our generation's gift to the television arts. But, I have to admit, it also made me quite indignant (how dare a restaurant serve frozen food! how many restaurants have I actually been to like this?!) and supportive of Gordon, too. Like he was fighting the good fight to make all restaurants honest and fresh and respectable.

So now I'm all conflicted about it. On the one hand I feel dirty for spending an hour watching the flagrant manipulation of people and events. On the other hand, it really did open my eyes and, dare I say, I actually learned something.

Damn you, reality tv.