#gastronauts

pstpstpst

At some point on Dropout, Izzy said something along the lines of "You want food that comes with a task?" I think it was on one of the Um, Actually Reality Tv episodes, but does anyone happen to know which one specifically? I wanna use that clip for something.

YOU’RE GAY AND YOU’VE NEVER HAD FLAVORED BUTTER????

As a food show fan, I like the concept of Gastronauts (professional chefs getting creative with zany prompts) and my biggest feedback is to just tone the energy down a couple of notches. The editing often feels very frantic, rapidly cutting back and forth between different shots and cutting off conversations. There's also sometimes a very nervous energy around the Dropout side of the cast, either because of the structure or the editing, where it seems like they feel some sort of pressure to maintain a running commentary and fill any silences with comedic bits or personality. Which is common in many initial seasons where they're still ironing out the format and getting comfortable with the show! If Gastronauts gets more seasons (and I hope they do!), I think having a greater focus on the food itself and more confidence to take "breather" moments will make the show much stronger.

Jordan Myrick is a bad host, annoyingly performative, and a prototypical egotistical white LA liberal. I really enjoyed the first season of Gastronauts, and I was excited for the second season, but in between while waiting I listened to episodes of Jordan's personal podcast with her wife where they'd invited couples from Dropout. Which was fine until I got to the episode of Ify and his partner Emily. The way Jordan talked about kinks was very off putting, entitled, and sex negative, and it bothered me how they invited kinksters onto the show just to emphatically share a common anti-kink refrain that misrepresents consent, and I did not appreciate the way she spoke to Ify when he gently and politely disagreed with her self-obsessed and entitled opinion on other people's kinks. It made me start to dislike Jordan, and I began rethinking some of the behaviors and statements I'd observed. As a non binary trans person myself, I hate the way Jordan talks about gender in a very bianry and essentialist way. She's gone from being moderately funny, to the most obnoxious person to grace my screen, and I am desperate to get away from them. Which sucks. Because I really liked Gastronauts. But when me and my partners went to give season 2 a shot, we only managed an episode and a half before we were so bored and annoyed that it wasn't worth it anymore. All the "white people" jokes were bad energy right out the gate, which is something I also blame Katie for - not because there's something wrong with mocking whiteness, but because it's always boring and feels weird when white people gather up talented Black and Brown people and posture at anti-racism, while still somehow centering themselves and their whiteness ("how well you can roast Katie and I" and constantly trying to define whiteness, which, as a category of social power and not a true culture, doesn't HAVE a definition in this manner anyway. "white people food" is a functionally useless category, no matter what stereotype pops into your head, because "whiteness" isn't real.) i feel like Jordan's anti-kink remarks and out of pocket dismissal of Ify's opinions as a kinky polyamorous Black man has something to do with her clear focus on distancing themself from "whiteness" and what they consider "white" rather than deconstructing whiteness. It's not anti-racist or progressive and its not uplifting marginalized groups, it's white neoliberal performance art, and it's annoying.