Ilan Won. Let’s Move On…
Ok, people. I love Top Chef as much as the next person. Actually, MORE than the next person.
But Ilan won. Top Chef is over until next season. Let’s move on.
Yet, still, people are talking about it. This past weekend, Mama Hall decided that she too, was sick of hearing about it. Well, mainly she was sick of people bashing her son. She says that he played a character, partly on his own account and partly because of editing.
I found my reaction to him on TV a kind of flip side to my response to a fictional character like Tony Soprano. I treat Tony, in post-episode conversations, as if he were real. And I treat Ilan, in similar post-show analyses, as if he was a character.
During the last presidential election, I, a news and political junkie, was glued to the computer screen.
During the “Top Chef” season I was also glued, this time as an advocate, reading bloggers’ kind and cruel comments. Wanting Ilan to be loved, albeit by strangers, was almost as important as seeing him win. (Not quite, but almost.) And when “Top Chef” wrapped, I felt a little bit of the same letdown I felt after “The Sopranos” season and the election coverage were over. (Not quite, but almost.)
Cooking with the ingredients and under the constraints of the “Top Chef” competition was only lifelike. Even though, according to Ilan, the judging was fair and the best cooks really did make it to the finale, reality TV is a lot like American cheese: edible, tasty, a winning dish even, but not the real thing.
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