i’m nearly done watching this season, and i’ve seen a lot of internet discourse centered around outrage and disbelief that courtney snagged the masterchef title in season 5.
are these opinions grounded in reason? though i do find courtney to be rather irritating at times, i can’t help but feel that a great mass of opinions i come upon online are viciously unreasonable and have little to do with her actual skills in the kitchen.
is there something i’m missing here? i feel that people are mistaking their dislike for her character and personality for her cooking abilities as they pertain to the masterchef title.
i understand a lot of internet dislike for courtney arose from her supposed disingenuous backstory on the show considering she’s returned to doing SW and doesn’t work in the culinary industry. i do feel that’s her prerogative though. people are ever-evolving, and if she felt that SW was a guaranteed means of income against the uncertainty of a successful career as a chef… i can’t blame her. we really shouldn’t. it’s unfortunate that it came down to that, but what i find so much more unfortunate is the internet hate train which pegged her some sleazy harlot that slept her way to the top. that type of logic reads to me as incredibly regressive.
if she was favored, as a lot of contestants attest to, does that not speak to the the unfairness, incompetence, and lack of transparency on the judges’ part and that of the production team? if she were favored for reasons outside of her cooking talent, is that not disturbing, especially considering her prior history of SW? her favorability speaks to the fact that she was the easiest to exploit.
we’re very impressionable viewers i think, despite our collective knowledge that reality TV shows are exploitative money-making machines that orchestrate drama where there isn’t any. it’s likely that courtney spoke degradingly of SW at the gentlemen’s club because the storyline constructed by the production team called for it.
she appears to be an extremely skilled cook, from what i’ve seen. she may have been favored for more reasons than one, but her skill is undeniable. she got away with making mistakes, but not very many mistakes were made. there have been multiple instances in not only this season but the previous ones where somebody was saved despite making a disastrous dish. i notice that people generally appear to be more selectively pissed about courtney not being eliminated. i see people cite that courtney made the same mistake leslie made which got him eliminated, but he was eliminated far down the line when it was down to the final three. at that point the competition was too fierce to overlook his error and pass him through.
i hope you’re aware that the vicious discourse and heavy engagement is exactly what they wanted. they made characters of real people that face tangible consequences for participating. if you were capable of catching on about the unfair favoritism, did it not strike you as strange that multiple contestants were filmed stating strikingly similar responses as to why they despise courtney? did none of that come off to you as orchestrated or rehearsed? the other contestants’ “opinions,” the needless panning to her high heels, etc. were aired with the intention of turning the viewers against courtney. unsurprisingly, that worked and everybody hates courtney online.
her bashful schoolgirl act that people are so critical of actually makes me feel for her, precisely because of its performativity. the purpose of performance is to command and impress, and having a prior history in SW, perhaps she treated the male judges as nothing different to clients she worked for. also… don’t the judges have a history of SH accusations made against them (particularly joe)? does that not cast courtney in a more devastating light?
what do you guys think?
