So, as I’d indicated earlier this summer – my husband and I love to watch cooking TV shows.
Massterchef is perhaps our least favorite, but this season I found a reason to watch in Christine Ha, the blind cook. From what I could assess from watching her use the cane, she’s not completely blind, but she certainly is legally so, much like myself.
But I have a secret to tell you – and it’s not that secret. I’m a terrible cook. So watching a woman with worse sight than me certainly makes me think that perhaps I can cook after all. Perhaps I can push harder and try with a little bit of help.
And she kept being on the show, and she kept beating the sighted contestants. And in the end, Christine Ha won against another chef, and took the title. Proving that cooking is all about how it tastes.
That being said, the rhetoric used around her on the show was pretty unpleasant. Some people when they had an advantage over her, used it to her disadvantage from her sight. They called her an angel, an inspiration. But what I want to know is – why did they not just choose to tell her that she was an amazing CHEF? Applauding her because she was blind seems silly. Applauding her because her food was good seems to be the right thing to do here.
I think they applauded her for her pie was significant. Ramsay was trying to make the point her lack of self confidence was only doing her a disservice for advancing people with disabilities. She really did have the best pie crust, even if it didn’t look completely perfect. She deserved to win, perhaps when one looks at her “even Steven” approach that Joe Bastianich praised on his blog. The season was riveting though, to say the least. I started having my Dish coworker over to watch since he introduced me to the show and we made a big event out of the finale. Instead of the commercial breaks, we used the Auto Hop on my PrimeTime Anytime recordings to watch commercial free, and then took food breaks. Everything took an hour anyway, but we enjoyed the time we would have been watching commercials by loading our plates!
On the other hand, and this is perhaps a more eloquent way of saying what I meant – I don’t necessarily think it’s fair to put the advancement of those of us with disabilities on her shoulders. All we can ever do is our best, and frequently, we get placed on pedestals when we do something well.
That being said, I look up to her and the season was fantastic! She clearly deserved all the praise that she received.