My mad Bourdain love just continues to grow and grow. (Also enjoying the earworm from this week's blog title.)
Non-Fiction TV: I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own
This thread is for non-fiction TV, including but not limited to reality television (So You Think You Can Dance, Top Chef: Masters, Project Runway), documentaries (The History Channel, The Discovery Channel), and sundry (Expedition Africa, Mythbusters), et al. [NAFDA]
On ANTM, I thought that non-plus size model Sarah's picture was beautiful. And I loved Lisa's photo as well. I think Ebony's beautiful, but I had to give it up to Ms. Jay (I know!) on the awkward, pin thin gams in the photo. I don't get the Asperger's girl. She's not so quirky/unattractive that she could fit into the "so ugly she's pretty" model category, but she's not stunning enough to make it into the "too beautiful for this world" category. I thought the Yalie took a great photo, but I think she's gonna start to grate on my nerves real soon. And WTF on Ms. Jay's hair? I laughed and laughed and laughed. I am enjoying Cycle 9 so far.
The same cannot be said of Survivor. Good grief, everyone on the yellow tribe is an enormous tool. I'm hoping for a royal Pagong-ing.
Top Chef: I was really uncomfortable with Colicchio's "we need to see more of you; we need to see you cook Vietnamese" comment to Hung. I don't see the other contestants getting asked to cook to their ethnic heritage. And further, as people pointed out in Bourdain's blog, cooking French is cooking to his heritage.
I'm fourth generation, and Hung is first, so I'm much further away from my country of ethnic background than he is. But if I turned up on a cooking show and you expected me to cook traditional Japanese food, you'd be sorely disappointed. I cook a couple of Japanese dishes, and there's generally a preponderance of sticky rice in my cooking. But even those dishes are filtered through Hawaii. A Japanese from Japan person wouldn't like them.
I guess I'm saying, I just don't see the relevance, and I'm pretty comfortable in saying the comment seems racist to me.
And WTF on Ms. Jay's hair? I laughed and laughed and laughed.
Ack! I completely forgot about that!!! So funny!!! And he was totally dude-ing it up outfit wise as well.
And (Liese) I don't recall him saying anything of the sort to LeeAnn so I don't get where the remark came from.
Sumi and Liese, I think it came from how Hung has been talking about his background more (or they have been editing it that way), so Colicchio was calling him out on it. At least, that is how I took it.
Well, it kind of struck a nerve after a week of the whole Asian as technician discussion (not here) and then to have Ripert and others come out with the same thing. It's not that I like Hung - becuase he's not really my horse in this race but I don't want him to not win because of something so nebulous.
Sumi and Liese, I think it came from how Hung has been talking about his background more (or they have been editing it that way), so Colicchio was calling him out on it. At least, that is how I took it.
I don't recall anyone saying that he needed to cook more Vietnamese, but that they needed to see Hung in the dish. I think that the idea is that Hung makes very good classic dishes, but doesn't put his own spin or special touch on them.
I don't recall anyone saying that he needed to cook more Vietnamese,
I don't remember this either. Was it not aired but in a blog maybe?