Aug 23, 2007 12:50 PM
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New York, 6:04 AM
Wed Feb 10
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More than, say, whether you support Obama or Hillary or even Mike "Rock Thrower" Gravel in 2008, Bravo's Top Chef has the potential to derail nascent relationships. Now that we are down to the final seven contestants, the villains, the scoundrels, the codgers, the heroes, the Hectors and the Hecubas are shaking out. Who you see as a villain or a hero reveals too much about who you are as a person and if there's one thing you don't want to reveal on a first date, it's that.
Me, for instance, I love Howie, the squat fireplug of a Miamian who speaks with the flattened vowels of a New Jerseyite though he was born and bred in Florida. Frank Bruni, on the other hand, hates him. In a recent Diner's Journal he wrote, "Has "Top Chef" ever had a villain as obnoxious as Howie?" The Jezebel girls despise him. One wrote, "I don't think he behaves respectfully enough in the kitchen—I think he makes everyone feel bad." True! But as Howie says, he didn't come to Top Chef to make friends. I love how he wears a bald cap as a sign of empathy with Colicchio. I love his explosive rage, his head-down work ethos, his inability to communicate his feelings. As my companion last night acidly mentioned, the implications of my idolatry of Howie in terms of how I relate to issues of power and communication and the importance of being loved as opposed to being feared are troubling.
"C'mon," I told her. "I'm here to watch Top Chef, not make friends."
So who is my villain? Hung was—but turned out to be a bisexual genius. Casey is benign. Sara is annoying but lacks the import to be truly villainous. CJ is smug but he had cancer so he's out. Brian is nice and was reading Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime last night. And so all we have left is Dale. Dale, the argument could be made, is as bland and benign as the others. But that mohawk, those clothes, that taste, those candles! No Dale is the worst.
Why? Dale embodies the most offensively bland stereotype of homosexuality on television. And as opposed to offensively bland stereotypes embodied by characters like Will from Will and Grace, he actually exists. He does gymnastics. He actually has a mohawk at his age. You can bet his apartment is furnished with those multicolored octopus lamps and fake leopard skin rugs and beads instead of doorways and tons of asymmetrical mirrors. It's like he learned how to be gay from watching Uncle Arthur on Bewitched. He kind of understands and yet he missed all the good parts.
He's queeny without being clever, and catty without being smart. He dresses like it was1996. Ben Sherman short sleeve polo, brother? COME ON! If he lived in New York he'd constantly be at Therapy. At home he'd listen to Felix Da Housecat: Ibiza while lighting cheap scented candles. Inhaling deeply, he might even exclaim, "Oooooh, purr-fect!"
Needless to say, my date thought that I was either a self-hating gay or deeply homophobic. But that's not entirely it. Dale is offensively mediocre. To defend him is to defend mediocrity itself.
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