So I’ve been mainlining a bunch of old Kitchen Nightmares episodes the last couple weeks, and one thing belatedly jumping out at me is that like 80% of the U.S. episodes have a bunch of Latino line cooks in the kitchen who are just weird vacuums in the narrative. I was going to say they’re presented “like kitchen equipment” except sometimes the kitchen equipment gets a fair amount of attention.
I assume this is mostly a language thing—Ramsay doesn’t seem to speak much Spanish and subtitles or translators would slow down the drama—but once you start noticing it, it becomes really glaring and feels pretty weird.
Realistically, probably some are undocumented and therefore understandably not super eager to be in the spotlight as named characters on a national television program, but it still feels super weird to see episode after episode where they’re obsessiing over how to fix the bad food and barely referencing the folks doing the bulk of the acutal cooking.
Here’s one particularly striking case where the head chef is Spanish-speaking, so can’t be totally avoided, but is never really a proper character. He’s presented as an uninspired, crappy chef, which the series is full of. But usually then the story is Ramsay reawakening their love of cooking and forcing them to develop some standards. https://youtu.be/mcrSnT4daUM
Now, the guy absolutely seems like a bad cook. But 90% of the head chefs on the show are bad cooks. That’s usually the start of a character arc. When did they let their standards go? How do we reignite their love of cooking? Can Gordon get them up to snuff?
There’s none of that here. The tension is all “how fast can Gordon convince the pretty white owner to finally fire this lazy incompetent who’s been taking advantage of her?” Which, you know, maybe he is, but that’s not the usual approach. Casimiro never gets the face-to-camera interviews where they explore why he isn’t doing better or if he’s interested in changing.
Or the corresponding redemption arc where a couple days of cooking next to Gordon shakes the chef with the bad attitude out of their rut and finally they can take pride in their work again, etc etc.
The crappy anglophone chefs get a presumption of interiority: Yeah, they’re surly and lazy, but there’s got to be a psychological reason, which the show’s task is to explore and address. Here it’s treated as an immutable character trait about which no similar curiosity is warranted.
@normative Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential had a long bit on this
@normative
There must be a reason. From what I've seen of Ramsay over the years, he's a big proponent of the underdog and without racial, gender, etc. biases.
@dswidow I think some of it is immigration status, and a bunch of it is producers thinking translated interviews where Ramsay can’t directly participate making bad TV.
@normative
That makes sense. I just have noticed that in his other shows, the only people he seems to dislike are smug, entitled white guys. Which really makes me like him a lot. But his shows are on FOX, so who knows where they're coming from....
@normative I like this turn of phrase, “presumption of interiority” because it sums up in-group, out-group dynamics so well. Easy to misread interiority as interiority though. Makes you pay attention.
@BudGibson @normative
Your point is excellent, but unfortunately there's a typo- it's REALLY easy to misread interiority as interiority. that aside the phrase is a great one and a good shorthand for a major source of unconscious bias.
@MayorQdiv
Urrh, the autocorrect 
@BudGibson @normative
@normative The undocumented have a special talent for being invisible. Their survival depends on it.
@normative I feel like "latino line cooks who quietly are doing everything but get no credit" is pretty much the story of every restaurant I've ever worked in.
@normative. You have nothing better to write about? Who cares about this?
Lucy Wildboots 
@normative Anthony Bourdain is the only one I ever heard openly discuss how American kitchens are run by Latino cooks. No matter the kind of food. It was in one of his Texas border shows.