Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Duh Food Network

My dear friend Arlette, whom I do not know, with whom I have yet to communicate, she of future culinary wizardry, commented on the Food Network in this post.

Well, I've been meaning to comment on that for, whoa, the longest time. Since I started airing my foodities online, like, say, around 1996, things have sure changed. I, at least, got no Food Network, though I think it may have been available; no, all I got was the Saturday and Sunday PBS afternoon cooking shows: Bibi Cooks Italian, Jacques Pépin et Fille, y'know the drill, maybe a little Julia here and there, maybe some Martin Yan.

God, how times have changed. I was one who literally bought the digital channels JUST for the Food Channel. But as Arlette so succinctly pointed out, it's all background noise now.

I watched Iron Chef when it WAS Iron Chef, in Japan, in 1991. In Japanese! I watched it as it suddenly exploded into North America, communicated with the original owner of ironchef.com (who knows where she is now, probably exorcised by Fuji TV or maybe Alton Brown's army of lawyers) and I've seen them all come and go. Jamie, from idiot British twit to ultra-superstar, met by prime ministers. That fuckwad Rocco di Spirito, with his own fuckfest reality show (God, how ancient history is that?)

Yep, seen 'em all. And while I admit that, like Arlette, the default channel is still the Food Network, by gum 'n' by gracious, the years have not been kind. Not in the goddamn least.

The pantheon of idiots is legion. She mentioned Paula Deen. Don't worry, dear, you don't have to even TRY to understand Paula Deen. There is simply nothing to understand. When there is nothing there to begin with, cue the cute music, cue the shaky camerawork, cue the lookatme factor. In her case, some absurd Southern schtick. But guess what: now everyone has a schtick.

Survivor begets "Survivor Vanuatu". CSI begets "CSI/Conakry." Forget it, Arlette, it's a losing battle and we're not winning it.

Face it, we'll always get dumbed down in the end with the Rachael Rays and the Anna Olsons and may god rest her soul, whatever the hell happened to her, Nigella Lawsons.

It's just the Law of Entropy, Arlette, dear; we're all doomed. The worst always comes to the surface and subsumes the weaker, more talented efforts. Blockbusters will always trump small films. The Arts & Entertainment Channel will always descend into Dog The Bounty Hunter over Captain Cook.

It is our fate and I accept it.

It is our fate, but I still despise Rachael Ray.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing your wisdom :), I watched the original Iron Chef back in the day too! I'd like to think there's hope still, although I have always been a pessimist, I still want to think people are either going to get sick of all the Rachael Rays on tv, or the executives will decide all that stupidity is a thing of the past.
    Maybe more sophisticated foodies will boycott the food network, or maybe some frustrated billionaire will buy it and toss it in the garbage among with all those "cooks"

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  2. Rachael Ray...

    All I can say is that you-know-what doesn't know how to tip to save her life.

    She's in the biz. She should damn well know better.

    (I'm in the biz)

    That just irks the living crap out of me...

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