‘The Bear’ and The Joy of Competence
The characters on this show enjoy what they do and are good at it and it’s goddamn refreshing.
The workplace is always ripe for fiction1. Whether you want pathos, drama, tragedy, or humor (or a modern mixture of all of that) you can find it at someone’s job. Fiction set in a place of business always resonates because we all share the experience to some extent: Our jobs take on an oversize importance in our lives, and the people we work with can be the most intense relationships we have, if only for a limited time2.
For most TV shows and films, the workplace is just a backdrop. Often there’s no serious effort to demonstrate the work actually being done there3, and if there is it’s usually in the service of the story. The only time anyone gave a shit about selling paper on The Office was when it intersected with the storylines, after all. And that’s fine—for most stories set in a workplace the actual work is just set dressing, an ingredient in the verisimilitude sandwich they’re cooking up4.
But on The Bear, FX’s buzz-laden show about a superstar chef trying to transform his family’s old Italian Beef restaurant into a high-class joint, the work isn’t just background. It’s baked into the whole DNA of the show and the characters. And it’s terrific in large part because it’s one of the rare fictions in this world where everyone likes what they do and they’re actually good at it5.
Yes, Chef
For most people, work is drudgery. Even if you enjoy the people you work with and take some quantum of satisfaction from your work, it still becomes a grind, doesn’t it? Every day, you sell off hours of your life to someone else, and your victories are always shared6. That’s the primary reason so many fictions set in a workplace are kind of a bummer—even comedies like The Office usually lean into how miserable everyone is, how panicked they are as their lives slowly slip away. That can make watching workplace comedies and dramas and dramedies a bit of a chore, because you come home from your own miserable work experience and then experience someone else’s miserable workplace experience. It’s perverse, really.
But everyone on The Bear loves their work, at least eventually. Carmen Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) is, of course, a talented and renowned chef who apparently his no other interests outside of cooking (and drawing as hobby). And many of the other characters are initially miserable in Season One of the show, as Carmy and his sous-chef Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri) introduce a higher level of food service and kitchen culture to the restaurant7.
But slowly, almost all of the characters who work at the restaurant come around. Marcus (Lionel Boyce) becomes a dedicated and passionate pastry chef. Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) leans in to her more complex and demanding role, excited to go to culinary school. Even Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), who spends most of the first two seasons as The Dumbest, Angriest Motherfucker You Will Ever Meet8, finds his way to loving what he’s (surprisingly) good at by the end of Season Two. There are montages of people deconstructing food and creating amazing meals, which they then eat with obvious relish. There is no attempt to hide the hard work and long hours that goes into this, but everyone is good at it because of the hard work, and everyone is depicted as taking real pleasure in being good at it9. And that alone sets the show apart, and explains why it’s so much fun to watch. Whatever issues these folks are dealing with, whatever disappointments and heartaches are fucking up their lives in a given episode, it has nothing to do with their work, because their work is good, and they love it.
Competence = Overrated
The sheer competence and joy the characters mostly display when doing their actual work in this show has a subtle but powerful effect on the audience’s experience watching the show. For one thing, the work gives the show structure in a way that wouldn’t be possible with characters who hated their jobs or weren’t good at them, because it’s pleasurable to watch someone be good at something10, and to watch them get better at it through consistent effort. That allows the writers to hang a lot of the character stuff on the soothing act of doing good work.
For another, it elevates the stakes. Because everyone at The Bear (the restaurant) is so good and so dedicated, the audience becomes invested in their success, which augments the impact of every twist and turn. When Sydney’s experimental dishes don’t work, it’s devastating. When it looks like the friends and family dinner will be a disaster and a newly-passionate Richie saves the day, it’s exhilarating, because watching the show is an exercise in appreciating and enjoying competence and skill.
There’s also a rough vein of anti-expertise in the modern world, an attitude that deprecates caring about things and sneers at knowledge11. So a show like The Bear feels more important than it actually is simply because it says no, actually, knowing shit is important. Being good at shit is important. Cynicism is always easy, shitting on stuff is always the path of least resistance1213. That’s why so many of us use a variation of “this is dumb” when we quit stuff, because it makes everything easier if what we’re trying to do doesn’t mean anything. But on The Bear everyone knows that what they do means something, if only to them, and it’s delightful and refreshing.
I am legally forbidden to cook for myself, and to enter certain restaurants for at least the next six years due to circumstances I am bound by NDAs to never discuss. And trust me, you’re all much safer as a result.
NEXT WEEK: WarGames and plot via information flow. Also: Corn on the cob.
For example, the sheer number of reasons I was late for work directly made me a better writer and storyteller.
It takes a while to realize that friendships based on mutual despair and hangovers aren’t built to last.
My least favorite trope are the employees who have hours and hours every day to just sit around and plot pranks and have conversations. Where’s the 2-hour meeting about cleaning up your work area?
Is The Verisimilitude Sandwich the title of my next writing book? You betcha.
This is true about my current career writing about random things on the Internet, except you can’t get much drama out of an episode where I just sit here and laugh softly to myself while typing. Believe me, we’ve pitched that show. No one wants it.
I mourn that I’ll never get to eat the fictional beef sandwich they once made at The Beef. I know I could drive to Chicago and get a real one, but <gestures vaguely at everything>.
I happily mailed my crown to the producers.
Unlike me, who treats every finished story like a mistake and resents every royalty check because it’s not bigger. RECOGNIZE MY GENIUS, DAMMIT.
To be fair, this is especially true when you’re paying them. This is why contractors now have a clause in every contract I sign demanding that I stop watching them work while smiling softly.
And also embraces crystals and off-label poisons of various natures in lieu of actual medical science, so evolution may take care of this problem for us.
Believe me, I shit on a lot of stuff, so I know.
Is I Shit on a Lot of Stuff the title of my memoir? You bet your ass it is.
Happy Birthday Jeff 🎈🥃🎂