A review of the Hulu series The Bear by Amy Welborn
Is it possible to create great art without being dysfunctional, a terrible person, or both? Received wisdom says no, proposing that life for and especially with creative types is inevitably, well, dramatic.
It’s a generalization, but consider the source of the creative drive and the creative process: a talent, vision attuned to beauty, truth and so on, but then there’s also the pride, competitiveness, attention-seeking, affirmation-yearning, trauma, and all the rest.
And the creative process? It’s usually mostly awful, painful, and frustrating: ever falling short, never adequately expressing what’s in your head, whether the material is sound or words, paint or stone.
Or food. And this, I’ve decided, is what “The Bear” (streaming on FX/Hulu) is all about.
Oh, you thought it was about the restaurant business? Well, sure it is, complete with celebrity chef cast members (Matty Matheson) and cameos (Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud), but just as we don’t watch “The Sopranos” to learn about the workings of the Jersey mob, “The Bear” may attract us by the menu, but what keeps us coming back are the people.
The people and their problems, that is. And to circle back to my opener, the central problem the people in “The Bear” grapple with is, in essence: We know you’re crazy creative, love that for you, but is being a jerk really necessary to your process, chef?
