Editorial | Would the Real Gordon Ramsay Please Stand Up? Jne 2004

Would the real Gordon Ramsay please stand up. June '04
We live in a media age driven by TV, Radio, Newpapers
and Internet, where the definition of entertainment has
changed: We are interested in personalities and no longer
satisfied with persona – being in the media as part of a job
is no longer possible, we want everything – be it Jordan
getting her tits out in public, Chris Evans being pissed in a
pub, Richard Branson going for another failed balloon ride
or David Beckham texting his latest indiscretion. We want to
know these people, we want a piece of them. Tuning into
their radio show or watching them kick a ball about is
simply not enough.

The proliferation of gossip magazines and reality television
were natural extensions to the trend in late ‘90s personality
lead tabloid journalism. A byproduct is a group a savvy
individuals who have accrued fortunes far beyond their
wildest dreams and, arguably, far beyond their talent.

And the participants can only manipulate this trend to their
advantage for so long - there is a down side - the public
fascination is as greedy for the bad news as the good
news. The media is not stupid, what goes up must come
down and the coming down sells at least as well as the
going up.

So who is Gordon Ramsay? That shy, quiet, upper class lad
in the Rangers dressing room? The man who has
amassed a reputed £20 million fortune? Is he a case of
what you see is what you get?

Gordon’s flagship restaurant on Royal Hospital Road is the
undisputed king of restaurants in Great Britain – number
one in The 1% Club – holder of 3 Michelin Stars, 10/10 in
the Good Food Guide and 5 AA Rosettes. Those in the
know, know it is perfection. Gordon has undoubtedly great
talent, drive and professionalism and in every respect has
earned the right.

So what is his new, enhanced, media profile all about? The
Boiling Point fly-on-the-wall had the ingredient of a ‘cool
angle for a TV programme’ as it focused on the personality;
an aggressive, bullying NCO. Was that real or briefed?
Who knows? The public bought it and loved it. Kitchen
Nightmares and Hell’s Kitchen fed us some more of this
personality, only offering occasional glimpses of the
expertise that has made Ramsay the master of his craft.

From Parkinson – where he talked movingly about his
relationship with his father (doesn’t everyone on Parkinson)
– to Desert Island Disks, Gordon has embraced the media
age.

I can only imagine that he (or his advisors) believe there's a
need to ‘broaden the brand.’ While the majority of the
millions who now know him will never eat at his flagship
restaurant, this may not stop them from buying his books or
paying a visit to his mid-market eateries.

Since Delia made her millions, the revenue opportunity from
books is not to be underestimated - WH Smiths has an ever
expanding section dedicated to writings of chefs. Not just
recipe books, personality books – biographies and such.

But is it worth the risk to Gordon of putting his personal life
under potential scrutiny?

We saw during the second week of Hell’s Kitchen, the
tabloid press dig up an old 1993 charge of gross indecency
in a Green Park tube station toilet. While Gordon laughed
this off as ‘drunken high jinx between friends’ he was
notably seen in the same tabloid press a week later being
photographed with is wife leaving The Ivy. Welcome to the
circus!

It is also a pity that the media generates an emphasis on
style over substance. Had you never experienced Gordon
Ramsay as food on a plate, you’d be forgiven for
differentiating him from Ainsley Harriot as the ‘potty
mouthed rude one.’ Of course, this is another price of
mass appeal, your entertainment value is packaged and
labeled by your profile and not your genuine talent.

I’ve seen it written that he’s The Johnny Rotten of the chef
world (in The Observer no less). And this indeed plays to
the profile, one which Gordon is happy to play back. He was
asked in a one minute internet interview when he last lied.
His reply was ‘yesterday to a vegetarian in my restaurant, I
told them the sauce was made from vegetable stock when it
was made from Chicken stock.’ (Subsequently retracted)

This is where things start to get a little dangerous. It’s a
question of priorities. Gordon is not Anthony Bourdain; he is
a great chef and recognized as such by his peers and
industry watchers - surely that must be paramount to him.
The sex appeal of being considered a rebellious rock star
or a Kitchen Confidential character might be exciting but the
excitement is hollow. These are characters of relatively
limited talent.

I genuinely hope that Gordon Ramsay is a man we don’t
know at all; a man with genius who understands his Slim
Shady and where to draw the line, and above all, that the
‘success can be skin deep’ philosophy of the media age
does not leak into his kitchen.