It’s A Man’s World After All (Top Chef 3, Episode 7)

This episode of Top Chef: Miami had the strangest effect on me. It forced me to reconsider an issue I had long forgotten—an issue I had placed under lock and key somewhere in my over-crowded brain. I’ll get to that a little later.

There was reason to celebrate this week. Yep, Dale won the quickfire challenge, and that made me one very happy gay man. In other news, Dale dumped Casey for Sara N. Honestly, I think switching hags like that isn’t a good idea. But that’s just me. Actually, Dale really lucked out this week. He didn’t even have to participate in the elimination challenge. His reaction to that was wonderful.



Wait, it got better; in addition to getting the night off, he had dinner with Govind Armstrong. Yeah, that was a pretty sweet deal. I’m sure the other cheftestants weren’t too happy about that.



Now, let’s discuss the bad stuff. The cheftestants were told to get ready to party because Bravo was going to foot the bill for a night on the town. Those silly fools believed it, and their hopes soared higher than Hung’s ego. Oh, reality can be such a bitch. The cheftestants were all dressed up when Padma and Govind broke the news that they were not going to some awesome Miami club. Instead, the cheftestants were going to cook some food for party-goers as part of their elimination challenge. The women were pissed. The guys weren’t happy, but they eventually got over it. In fact, Brian was having a blast the whole time. And Tre was a little too eager to show off his big guns.



The women never quite got over the deception. Well, I should point out that Sara M seemed perfectly fine with the whole situation. She said,

I don’t give a shit

You know, Sara M drives me nuts, and not in a good way. She’s on my and Tom’s shit list. She just seems like a really lazy person. I was not surprised that she had no issues, as a woman, with this challenge. It’s actually kind of scary. She reminds me of a terrible mother with six kids who lets themplay on the streets at 2 AM. Why? Well, because these mothers don’t give a shit. I have one question for Sara M; do you give a shit about winning the title of Top Chef? Actually, she has prepared some surprisingly good dishes in the past; she may be one to watch. But she still drives me crazy.

At the judges table, the judges seemed baffled by the women’s reaction. And that kind of irritated me. Tom was shocked when Casey and Sara voiced their concerns. Even my beloved Ted Allen was a little surprised by the women’s poor performance. He asked,

. . . you can’t cook because you don’t like your outfit?

He totally missed the point, I think. Fortunately, Ted took back his comments, and he offered a different interpretation of the whole situation. He even acknowledged that he and the producers were a little insensitive. Click here to read his blog entry.

However, I cannot blame Sara N’s elimination on the producers' and judges' insensitivity. Padma made a very good point when she said,

If you’re gearing up to do one thing, and you . . . (end up doing something else????) . . . I can appreciate that . . . you should be able to bounce back.

Yeah, I couldn’t understand what she said before the “I can appreciate” part. Anyway, Padma was absolutely right. Life isn’t always easy and predictable. You have to be able to adapt to different situations and working conditions. You may have clients that you’re not used to serving, or you may have a demanding boss who expects damn near perfection. And, if you want to keep your job, you’ve got to deliver.

So, I think the judges made the right decision. In fact, Sara N gave them every reason to send her home. My biggest problem with this episode was the clear lack of consideration for the female point of view. Ted described this in his blog entry, and I would just like to add a little more to that.

It’s kind of sad that in this day and age women (and gays, too) have to adjust to various work environments that are dominated by heterosexual males. In this episode, everyone seemed surprised that two of the women were very uncomfortable. Even other bloggers questioned Casey’s and Sara N’s behavior. To some people, it may seem strange that two women made such a big deal about this. However, one must consider how women are viewed in our culture. Women have to juggle multiple roles. They are sexual beings, of course, and it’s normal for a woman to want to look sexually attractive. But these same women have to be very careful when picking out an outfit for work or some other more conservative function. Sure, they want to dress to impress, but they also want to be taken seriously. It’s interesting that in our culture no one seems to care whether a man behaves a certain way in or out of the work place. In fact, our culture often celebrates male promiscuity and aggressive behavior. It’s a dog eat dog world, they say. It’s all justified. Well, that’s a complicated issue that I won’t go into here.

Again, I think it’s important to be able to perform effectively under any kind of pressure. Most dedicated and successful people can weather almost any storm. And there are many women who have accomplished so much in the face of adversity. I just think we should do more to support women in the work place. I once heard a supervisor complain that his employee’s pregnancy was a big inconvenience for the company. That really upset me. It pains me to say it, but there’s no question we live in a man’s world. It's kind of depressing. I think I'll keep this little bit of reality under lock and key in the most inaccessible part of my brain.