Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Master Chef, Mister Chef, or Missus Chef?


Am I the only one who wonders if the one in the middle is a man or a woman??

Life is difficult for those of us who:

a) don't watch television
b) live in a 'gender diverse' community
c) have too much time on our hands.

It's true that I don't watch television. I haven't for about nine years now. I don't even own a television in Toronto. For entertainment I go for a walk with my eyes and ears open. All the characters are out there on Toronto's sidewalks; the Kramers, the Newmans, the Mad Men, the Danny Bonaducci, the Chris and Stevens, even Regis and Kathy Lee!

You know that Regis and Kathy Lee both retired, eh, Ian?

 Seriously? That's news to me. Did this happen within the last week or so?

Almost everyone I know watches television, so I feel rather uneducated when they begin to talk about their favourite programs. For example, I don't know if Breaking Bad is good. I don't know when Six Feet Under is over. I don't know if House Of Cards is destined to fall in the ratings, or whether Survivor survives. I know little or nothing, and I don't know if the middle chef is a man or a woman.

If you look at the picture accompanying today's blog through my eyes you'll see (from left to right): an angry psychologist, an angry lesbian, and an angry data programmer who styles himself after Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. None of them look like chefs to me. I think the show may be a hoax. As a network, CTV is a hoax so I may be onto something. It's time for me and my team of researchers to do some investigative reporting.

Here are my conclusive results based on seconds, if not minutes, of exhaustive research....

Good lord....it's not an original Canadian television program! This is a shocker. I thought it was original programming dreamed up by the CTV brain-trust (they did, after all, bring us The New Littlest Hobo in 1979 though it too was a rip-off of someone else's earlier concept). The original Littlest Hobo was born out of a 1958 movie which then became a 1963 television series which was syndicated around the world. Who knew? I suppose this explains why there's never been a Hinterland: Who's Who segment done on London (the German Shepherd). Not as much of a Canadian icon as I had originally thought.

Isn't this blog about MasterChef, Varty?

Apparently MasterChef originated in the United Kingdom (1990) and it's part of a global franchise with spin-offs in forty different countries. There seems to be a growing trend for British television to colonize the global airwaves. They're going to foist their tyranny on us one way or the other, and we're all going to Downton Abbey to pray for new episodes. Well, not me or JNV.

So there's a MasterChef Bangladesh and a MasterChef Elarab (Saudi Arabia). I wonder out loud if the contestants in Saudi Arabia are men or women. In Canada I wonder if the judges are men or women (at least the one in the middle).

Okay, so who is the one in the middle? Enquiring minds, and blog hostages, want to know.

It's a boy! His name is Alvin Leung. Here's what CTV's web site said about our man:

With his trademark blue-streaked hair, cross earrings, and revolutionary approach to the culinary art, chef Alvin Leung is the enfant terrible of Hong Kong's dining scene. Born in London, England, Leung grew up in Scarborough, Ont. 

The enfant terrible of Hong Kong's dining scene? Come on? How does one become the 'enfant terrible' of a dining scene, or anything for that matter? Ludicrous. Television is fantasy...you can't believe what you see or hear. The internet is fiction....you can't believe what you read. I prove that daily.

No you don't.

You just proved it for me.

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