Kitchen Nightmares: Ignore The Weakness And You'll Fail Commentary by Maja Seif
October 19, 2007
The Wednesday October 17th episode of Kitchen Nightmares featured an owner who was more like Gordon Ramsay than any restaurant owner/staffer we have seen so far on the series. It was interesting to see Gordon's calm but unrelenting reaction to someone with a tendency to dominate that rivaled his own.
When two people who are alike in this way come together, it can be very good or very bad. This particular meeting of the minds brought some obvious friction, but by the end of the episode, the way Gordon seemed to get through to owner Dean with his unapologetic, yet somehow gentle, truthfulness seemed almost sweet. Gordon was probably one of the only things that could've reached an egg so hard-boiled as Dean - an obviously paternalistic man, who was shown issuing money to his wife by her request, shouting at his own chef as if he were scolding him, and admitting that changing his business plan in a way that was obvious to customers "showed weakness."
Gordon picked up on Dean's strong and confident facade for what it was, though - probably because Gordon has come from the exact same place Dean was in, as Gordon admitted this much in his one-on-one with Dean outside, during the second half of the episode. The facade was a typical strong and silent masculine front - one in which perfectly talented and able men (and sometimes women), who are experiencing normal difficulties in some area, pretend that they are not because they believe that to do otherwise would be to appear weak.
The one-on-one under the tree was a heartwarming conversation to witness - one quite reminiscent of past U.K. - version shows, in which Gordon often shows his apparent empathy for small restaurant owners. This was where Gordon shared with Dean that he, too, had failed with a restaurant before and that what he learned was that he could not be afraid to fail (or to appear a failure by reevaluating a game plan) - that he had to keep trying and stop avoiding things that may have been problems in his business.
Dean, being a tough nut, did not break immediately, of course. There was a shouting match and arguments against "too much" change, but eventually he let Gordon do his stuff. We saw Gordon canvass the area restaurants and determine what demand was not being met. We saw the dining room makeover and the new menu being planned. We saw Gordon trying to train the wait staff and restaurant manager in serving etiquette. All the while, Dean could be seen somewhere in scene, quiet and pensive. He seemed so silently uncomfortable - like he was gripping his seatbelt and holding in his backseat-driver commentary as he watched Gordon behind the wheel, veering onto the freeway at full speed with no signal.
Dean's chef, Mike, was quite refreshing in his respect for Gordon Ramsay compared to last week's Chef Doug. His openness and willingness to learn from another chef is more of what viewers of the U.K. version would expect to see, as I described in my last commentary. I mean, even if Gordon Ramsay weren't the highest-rated chef in the world, would it really hurt any chef to observe someone else's style and try to learn from it? Would it hurt anyone, in any field, to do that? Honestly, the kind of mindless hubris Chef Doug showed us last week really revealed that guy for the insecure weenie he truly was.
One thing that's frustrating.....
Maja Seif is a freelance writer residing in the Sacramento, California area. Holder of a B.A. in Journalism, she has published feature articles in Outword Magazine and has experience writing political news and opinion pieces, as well as marketing material. Reality television is one of her favorite diversions, so writing for Reality TV Calendar is a perfect combination of two of her hobbies. You can reach her at: maja.m.seif@gmail.com
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