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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
The bit on Top Chef shocked and disgusted me. Are you fucking kidding me? Do you even watch the show? Did you even notice that on a number of occasions Cliff said that he wanted to punch Marcel? Did you fail to see the gang mentality that the sick producers of this show gave free rein to throughout the competition?
And where did you get the idea that Marcel was a slimy little weasel, except from the bullies themselves? Great way to join in the groupthink.
I would also like to point out that the assaulters all went after Marcel BEFORE they decided to shave their own heads. If you look at the footage carefully, you will see that when Marcel finally pulls Cliff's fingers apart and gets away from him, he walks past Elia, who is on the right, as he leaves the room. She is actually doubled over with laughter. SOOOO funny for a huge man to push a little man's face into the carpet. This all has been brought out and is being discussed on the boards at Bravo (if they haven't deleted them yet for damage control) and at televisionwithoutpity.com. The producers deliberately changed the timeline on this because they didn't want us to see Elia, Sam, and Ilan, horrible human beings that they are, laughing their damn heads off AFTER the assault, in the most callous way. I don't believe they would have even shaved their heads, except that they were trying to minimize what they had done: "Look WE shaved our heads--no big deal!" And as Marcel has said in a recent interview, Cliff actually followed him into his bedroom and was throwing things at him, until Marcel finally locked himself in the bathroom to get away. Assault and harrassment like this should not be made light of.
I don't know about the frequency of black men being thrown off of reality TV shows, and you may have a point, but do you have to make it at the expense of reason and compassion? You might also, at least, look at the gender dynamics of this situation. It seems to me that Sam, Ilan, and Cliff represent the very macho culture of the kitchen, and have been trying to assert their privilege by demeaning a less "masculine" guy, with taunts about his sexuality and comments about the fact that he talks too much and so on.
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