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Hell’s Kitchen on Fox

Last week, this column discussed the profanity-laden show Hell’s Kitchen, for its wall-to-wall use of expletives.  The premiere episode contained no fewer that 60 bleeped f-words.  That column also warned that future episodes promise to deliver more of the same.  Well, it took all of one week for Hell’s Kitchen (Tuesdays, 8:00 p.m. ET) to completely blow the premiere out of the water.  For the second week in a row, Fox’s profane series has been named the Worst TV Show of the Week.

In 43 minutes, bleeped expletives appeared a staggering 113 times.  That’s one profanity every 22 seconds – on a show that broadcasts during Family Hour (as early as 7 o’ clock p.m. in the Central/Mountain time zone). 

Coincidentally, Hell’s Kitchen aired two days after the MTV Movie Awards, which featured more expletives than an episode of The Sopranos.  The f-bomb was dropped so many times during that broadcast that the censor’s finger must have started cramping.   

Whereas the vulgarities during the Movie Awards were supposedly intended as “comic” relief, the unrelenting barrage of profanity on Hell’s Kitchen amounts to verbal abuse, plain and simple.  Here are some of Chef Gordon Ramsay’s exchanges:

Gordon instructs maitre d’ Jean Philippe to appease some of the customers.

GORDON:  “Serve me four more [bleeped ‘f******’] tartar on table 12 and four more on 5 please.  Urgently.  And apologize for the incompetence of a bunch of [bleeped].”

And here’s how Ramsay treats one chef as he throws him out of the kitchen:

GORDON: “Get out.  [bleeped ‘F***’] off.  Let me [bleeped ‘f******’] tell you something straight.  You've got nothing right.  You don't care.  You got no respect.  And you know what?  You're a [bleeped ‘f******’] joke to the industry.”

With profanity now ubiquitous on television, viewers become inured to its demeaning effects.  Invariably on Hell’s Kitchen, the contestant-chefs begin to treat each other as badly as Ramsay treats them.  The real knife work on the show isn’t in the kitchen; it’s all the back-stabbing that happens in between meals. 

And audiences are apparently eating up this swill.  Hell’s Kitchen easily beat out all non-NBA Finals competitors with a 10% rise in viewership.  No wonder the national discourse seems to be hardening.  From politics, to sports, and now even inside the kitchen, civility has become as stale as day-old bread.  And Hell’s Kitchen is certainly responsible for some of that.

For a ridiculous amount of profanity, Hell’s Kitchen has been named Worst TV Show of the Week.