Tattooed Chiefs...

 “The Bear” Season One, created by Christopher Storer, 2022

Most ‘workplace’ dramas are about idiotic offices that no one has ever worked in like “The Office;’ or jokey fake clerks in a pretend superstore; or high-end dramas in the A-suite full of intolerable monsters, as in Succession. That latter is the most common. Rare is one that includes more realistic working-class people. Television is not going so far as to look at the hidden and ‘boring’ precincts of a factory, but in ‘The Bear’ they look at cooks working in a sandwich shop called “The Original Beef of Chicagoland.”

Controlled chaos in the kitchen

This is one stressed-out place, full of frenzy, fighting and confusion, located on the near north side of downtown Chicago. It is based on a real restaurant in that area, “Mr. Beef” on Orleans, known to the creator. The plot centers on the new owner Carmy (Carmen), who used to work as a chef at high-end restaurants. He finds himself the owner of this dive café through inheritance, as his brother Mike committed suicide and left it to him. His cousin Richie works there too. Mike’s story haunts his friends and relatives for the whole Season. Per usual, death provides some kind of emotional gravitas.

Richie is an obnoxious, loudmouth who wants the café to stay exactly the same, while Carmy wants it to serve better food and keep it clean. Carmy’s ally is Sydney, a newly-trained chef who wants to learn under a true skills-master, along with a young black cook who creates special donuts. Richie has allies in the staff, one of whom sabotages some dishes. It is sort of like if Gordon Ramsay bought one of the failing dumps he counsels in Kitchen Nightmares, and some of the staff kept pushing back at him for 6-7 episodes – with the screaming done by one of the staff members instead of the foul-mouthed Ramsay. Even the depressed, quiet Carmy loses it at one point.

The series might remind one of All Screwed Up, Lina Wertmueller’s excellent 1974 film about a large, frantic Italian restaurant in Milan. It is supposed to show the audience believable proletarian exhaustion, pace, perfectionism and conflict. It somewhat succeeds. Carmy attends Al Anon meetings due to his time dealing with his dead brother Mike’s addiction. Alcoholism is frequent in the ‘service industry,’ though that is not hinted at here. We see a back-story about an abusive head chef in New York screaming at Carmy. We see Carmy staring at rafts of unpaid bills and a sorry, confusing ledger - all piled on an old worn desk at the back of the cafe. There are huge payments to a mysterious entity too…

MISSING in ACTION

Several things seemed unreal. One, in Carmy’s fights with Richie he never mentions that this small joint is $300K in debt, so the ‘old ways’ of crappy spaghetti, broken equipment and geeks playing vintage video games aren’t working, even financially. Why Carmy won’t mention this to the loudmouth in their arguments is questionable. After confronting the debt, the loudmouth pooh-poohs it. It is owed to a family friend in Wilmette named 'Cicero.' (Note the city juxtaposition, Chicago folks…)

Two, Carmy, the head chef, and Sydney, the sous chef, institute a French ‘brigade’ system where each worker is responsible for one area – meat, bread, vegetables, potatoes, cakes, etc. The staff all get blue aprons to look professional and are called ‘chef.’ They are told to clean their areas, even with a toothbrush. They have to learn new methods. What is unsaid here is that it seems more work is being loaded on the staff, but no extra money is being offered, nor a serious discussion of finances and the future. The ‘money’ question again disappears.

The third thing is why doesn’t Carmy (The Bear) fire Richie, who is the main problem? Is it because he’s family? I barely see Richie work except sometimes taking orders. He's kinda lazy. No hint or discussion of this anywhere, even if it isn’t carried through.

Left-wing Wertmueller's '74 "All Screwed Up" 

TRENDS

The Bear shows the modern foodie obsession with hipster, tattooed chefs. The series hints at the transition from traditional blue-collar comfort food to something else in the U.S.  Meat is still its center, as some old ways don’t change in the stereotype of big shoulders' Chicago. Richie pretends to stand up for ‘blue collar’ food in one scene, as imported menu items will only attract white collar professionals. A newspaper review praising one of Sydney’s new dishes almost breaks the place with a huge rush of new customers, and Richie blames it on Sydney. This chaos harks back to a standard segment in Kitchen Nightmares.

Many movies and TV series wallow in the stupidity, arrogance, emotionalism, nastiness or childishness of the characters. They are celebrations of screw-ups, which gets tiring. This story seems to have a bit of this too, with Richie leading. Are these methods describing … or proscribing?

The last episode ends the season with an unbelievable happy ending on the finance issue. Evidently the writers fail to actually understand the restaurant business or debt, banking and tax rules. Or perhaps it is a celebration of theft. They replace a probable reality with a fun, unbelievable fantasy.

Chicagoans will enjoy the series, as it’s an improvement over dreck like Chicago Fire/Med/Police. It has a good rock and roll soundtrack, as so many high-quality series like Big Little Lies and Peaky Blinders do now. Ultimately this is a familiar story about an entrepreneur who makes a small business grow. It is part of the bootstrap boondoggle, the ‘be your own boss’ thinking, the capitalist myth of escaping wage slavery. Cafes and restaurants actually have a terrible record for longevity, as do most small businesses. In this case, the real misery looks like it’s not quite worth it.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 16 year archive, using these terms: “Waiter Rant,” “Behind the Kitchen Door,” “The Poklikker Papers,” “Manny’s Steakhouse,” “The Customer is Always Wrong,” “Super-Size Wages,” “Shopping World,” “To Serve God and Wal-Mart,” “Salt, Sugar, Fat,” “Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking,” “A Foodies Guide to Capitalism,” “Vegan Freak,” “Deadwood.”

The Cultural Marxist

January 3, 2023 (Happy Winter!)