TV comparison to Real life

Here at The Food Hub we are culinary fans, we recently have watched Disney+ Tv Show, The Bear, as fans of TV and Food it really put our two favourite things together. Television has long been a source of entertainment, one genre that has gained popularity is cooking shows/cooking dramas. "The Bear" provides an interesting and fascinating glimpse into the culinary world. Shows are extreme and sometimes over the top, we wanted to find the differences/similarities of the show compared to real life and to talk about the show whilst recommending it to you all!

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The bear is a fictional show, its focus is on entertainment and follows the story of 'Carmy' who returns to his family's sandwich shop in Chicago. The show has captured the themes of, drama, humor and culinary expertise. In the show the kitchen is full of staff, with each character having their own role. Carmy had a stint in the 'big leagues' of the culinary world, working under the best of the best at Michelin star restaurants. Returning to his family's shop adds a tone of humbleness, we are trying to find differences or similarities and i believe we have found our first similarity. Humbleness, even though the show is set in a family shop, the similarity is towards our interviewees, they treat their kitchen and staff like a family. The Kitchen in the bear is massive, creating lots and lots of stressful scenes within the show, which grants us another similarity. As culinary fans, we know Gordon Ramsey as a very aggressive and angry chef, thus creating the stereotype that all chefs are angry and loud. If we are to visit a busy day at any type of kitchen/restaurant we wouldn't be surprised to find out that chefs raise their voice a lot, at The Food Hub we don't see an issue with this. Even as fans of the culinary world, we know that dishes are expected to be sent out perfectly and on time. In The Bear (2022), Carmy is a character that is always angry, we see this is because of his hard time in the big leagues, you get pushed around and bullied as you cannot make a single mistake, luckily we see this to be a big difference than compared to real life, our interviewees told us that teamwork is important to resolving problems, the less shouting and no hostile behaviour keeps the kitchen run well and creates no bad blood between each other. In The Bear, when a culinary problem arises, the sheer hostility and shouting that happens on screen creates that tension and uneasy working environment, which can be very different to real time kitchens.

There is a constant feel and idea of rushing in The Bear, it creates an almost uneasy feel as watchers, some scenes are shot all in one take this is an excellent show of the actors skills and the showing of their character development, when watching a TV show, we have characters that, as viewers, we dislike compared to other characters. The show helps us as culinary fans to see the growth that chefs have, Carmy's Cousin, "Richie" is one of these characters that we immediately dislike, he is shown to be selfish and has a hatred to Carmy. Carmy left his families shop (before returning) for the big leagues, Richie likes to believe that Carmy betrayed the family business and left it to run into the ground. As viewers we see where Richie is coming from yet we have a certain disliking to him. Throughout the show Carmy and Richie have a lot of verbal and physical fights, It would not be crazy to think this happens in real life, kitchens are under so much stress and workers have their own personal issues that can distract all from doing their job, the director throws these scenes in our face with a constant use of close ups and tracking shots, the different camera angles all have a purpose in showing the way things are ran and resolved.

In conclusion, have we found enough evidence to talk about similarities and differences? Well, yes we have after watching and spending our own time in a kitchen to see how its run there are many differences compared to the TV show, but that's a given there's a lot more drama and intensity in the show, the purpose is to entertain the viewers whilst also giving them an accurate insight in how stressful running a restaurant/kitchen is. We believe the director has done a wonderful job in creating similarities in comparison to a real kitchen, that being fluidity, stress and also teamwork. Teamwork, as we have been told recently, is important especially when the kitchen is full of egos, exactly like the show, the characters have an ego for themselves. We are shown this as when they are asked to work as a team or are asked to take on a different task, the characters will pull a face and think they are too good to be doing such easy and little tasks. An Ego-less kitchen, like real life, has the essence of teamwork, no job is beneath them, they are all more than happy to help in order to create the perfect dish and have it served to the customer in a timely manner.