Make no mistake--Chef Gordon Ramsay is in no way responsible for the suicides of Joseph Cerniglia and Rachel Brown. Their deaths do, however, show us that behind the wild and wacky hijinks that reality television provides everyday viewers, these are real people who, as the passing of Cerniglia and Brown show us, are carrying serious personal baggage onto a nationally televised show.
In 2007, Rachel Brown shot herself to death in her Dallas home one year after competing on Chef Ramsay's "Hell's Kitchen." Last week, Joseph Cerniglia's body was found in the Hudson River. Cerniglia was a former "Kitchen Nightmares" participant.
"I'm financially in trouble -- the debt of the restaurant alone is overwhelming. My personal debt -- wife, kids mortgage -- that's a lot of debt," he told Ramsay on the show. "I owe my purveyors about $80,000 right now in cold, hard cash... I can't see us going on another year."
Often on reality television, we tend to believe that what we're seeing is fake. That it's a set-up, manufactured for a viewing audience that's more in tune with watching contrived conflict than real people.
In many instances, the name "reality television" is an incredible oxymoron.
Still, as viewers we tend to forget that not everyone who goes on reality television is fake. Or fame-seeking. Or money hungry. Some people, such as Joseph Cerniglia and presumably Rachel Brown, just want an opportunity to succeed in life so that they can rise above their problems--be it social, financial or otherwise. While we root for our favorite contestants, we easily forget that these are not characters written in a script or cast from an actor's union. They're real people with real-world problems that, depending on the program, prompted them to apply for the show.
Amidst the competition and overall entertainment, reality television can, at times, be more real than we ever imagined. And sadly, Chef Gordon Ramsay now knows this all too well.
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Michael also writes for the African American Entertainment Examiner and the TV Examiner.
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Comments
well written article!
Glad you enjoyed it.
Very sad.
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