Reality TV nightmares
“If you don’t have a script, you don’t have anything.”
Most film critics have expressed this sentiment at one time or another. And with the occasional exception (such as effects-driven silliness like ‘Transformers’) it’s true.
A movie without a good script is like a boat without a rudder: it can go somewhere, but sooner or later it’s going to run aground. The list of films with a broken or absent rudder is endless, but one of the best and simplest examples of bad writing in action I’ve ever seen isn’t fiction at all – it’s a reality television show.
Yes, reality TV is written – mostly in the editing room. Many a ‘Big Brother’ housemate or ‘Survivor’ contestant has been shocked to find afterwards that he or she is the bad guy or the bitch. But some writing does go on beforehand – just look at ‘Hell’s Kitchen’.
For those not au fait with ‘Hell’s Kitchen’, it stars potty-mouthed super-chef Gordon Ramsay in charge of a new restaurant in LA. In its format it’s not dissimilar to ‘The Apprentice’: a group of would-be restaurateurs are subjected to a rigorous elimination process, with the winner receiving their own eating establishment. Each week, Ramsay fires one of two nominated contestants.
Ramsay had already made a name for himself with ‘Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares’, where he went into floundering British and American restaurants, and with a lot of abusive tough love, tried to make them profitable again. This documentary-style format worked well, because Ramsay is such a strong personality – usually his charges would start off in screaming matches with him and finish up grateful for his help.
‘Hell’s Kitchen’ tried to boil off the essence off Ramsay’s abrasive demeanour, bottle it, and then inject it into the overt and predictable format of reality TV shows like ‘Survivor’ and ‘Joe Millionaire’. This in itself is not a terrible idea – although Ramsay does often look uncomfortable delivering the stupid ‘suspenseful’ pauses TV producers have decided are essential.
What makes ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ sometimes painful to watch is that the writers (and no doubt producers) have told Ramsay to go over the top with his abuse of the contestants. The first time he tipped a substandard plate of food on someone’s chest, it had shock value. But the second and the third, and the thirteenth time … well, we could see the puppeteers pulling his strings and the effect was worse than nil.
The same goes for Ramsay’s direct and often offensive manner of speech. In ‘Kitchen Nightmares’ he is abrupt, but it is usually because he is trying to destroy the sort of indolent attitudes and ineffectual thinking that has got the restaurant into trouble in the first place. In ‘Hell’s Kitchen’, he is just yelling because the producers have decided that’s Ramsay’s trademark and they’re going to milk it for everything (and much more than) it’s worth. Most of the contestants have no restaurant experience anyway, so why is he yelling? It’s like shouting at a dog for failing to sit when you haven’t taught it how.
In its proper context, Ramsay’s direct manner is remarkable – something unique in a PC world where everyone speaks circuitously and steps on eggshells. But in ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ it is dragged out of its natural environment and made to wear a tutu and ride a unicycle.
‘Kitchen Nightmares’ has class, ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ has none – and it’s their respective ‘scripts’ that make the difference.
Kris Ashton has published fiction in more than ten different magazines and anthologies. His new novel Ghost Kiss is available now from Asylett Press. Learn more at his official website: www.freewebs.com/krisashton.
