I’m going to say something that really shouldn’t be controversial anymore: LGBT+ characters deserve to be played by LGBT+ actors whenever possible.
For decades, LGBT+ actors were told to stay closeted if they wanted careers, while straight actors collected awards and praise for “bravely” portraying LGBT+ experiences they could walk away from at the end of filming. Meanwhile, actual LGBT+ actors struggled to even get auditions, not just for straight roles, but sometimes even for queer ones.
Representation is not just about what appears on screen. It’s also about who gets opportunities behind the scenes and inside the industry itself.
And before someone says “acting is pretending”, yes, obviously. Actors play people unlike themselves all the time. But this conversation exists because Hollywood has a long history of shutting LGBT+ performers out while still profiting from LGBT+ stories. That imbalance matters.
There’s also something authentic that many LGBT+ actors bring to these roles. The body language, the emotional nuance, the lived experience, the understanding of what it feels like to hide, to come out, to navigate identity, those things can add depth that audiences absolutely notice, even if they can’t explain why.
None of this means a straight actor can never play an LGBT+ character. It means the industry should stop treating openly LGBT+ actors like a “risk” while handing LGBT* narratives to safer, more marketable straight stars.
If studios genuinely care about representation, then representation has to extend beyond the script.
i don’t really know how to feel about the queen–penelope dynamic this season. in a way, i find it funny, but in another, i feel like the whistledown plot loses some of its charm by being revealed so early in the series.
So, I’ll admit I’m a food nerd. Eating something especially delicious, is just fun to me. Also, being from Chicago, of course I’m obsessed with The Bear & its Chicago food scene roots. So I’m getting kind of annoyed by some fans who don’t understand how deliberately Syd is being illustrated as Extremely talented & capable. Her failures at some of the recipes when they were testing, is Normal & Expected at the level they’re aiming for. It’s the whole reason they were testing, and all high level restaurants do the same.
S1, we see Syd’s resume briefly, & Carmy says, “…that’s some serious heat…” - because it really, Really was. All the places listed, are real places. Alinea, specifically is, currently, the only 3 Michelin starred restaurant in Chicago & it’s regularly listed amongst the World’s best too. So for The Bear’s in world story to have Syd work there, is a Big deal.
If you like meta & have Netflix, you should go watch the Alinea/Grant Achatz episode of Chef’s Table - season 2, epi 2. It has so many tidbits that seem to reflect back on The Bear. Like, Achatz tells a story about working in misery under famous Chi chef, Charlie Trotter. Now, Trotter is deceased, but when he was working, he had this rep for being wildly cruel. And he’s supposedly who Carm’s nightmare boss in NYC is modeled after!
Achatz also explains how vital experimentation is to the creative process, & talks about how they went about inventing a helium balloon people could eat. All the failures they went through before they figured it out. So that should explain why Syd struggled, it’s a normal part of trying to Invent Something New.
I think that epi also can give you an idea of the difference between aiming for 1 star, as Syd wants, and the 3 stars Carm ended up dreading because he was trying to Retain someone else’s 3 stars (his nightmare boss.) The level 3 star restaurants like Alinea operate at, is just, really hard to comprehend. I’ve eaten there & not only was the food like Nothing I’d ever experienced before in my life, the act of eating there was just so Joyful. The staff wants you to experience “wonderment”. And when we ate our dessert balloons (!They tasted like bananas!) we laughed so hard in teeny helium laughs.
So, just know Syd doesn’t suck at her job or some such nonsense I see some goofy people contend, (not many over here, but some.) She & Carmy are aiming for levels of dining that’s pretty hard to get, until you’ve experienced it maybe. 🍽️
By the final seasons due to how the actors union handles television, and how tv worked, yes friends did have a higher budget over all cause there was fuckin 10 seasons of that goddamn show and actors get paid more the longer they are able to renegotiate their contracts, so congrats, you kept your paladin oath to defend sitcoms, by saying they cost more cause they are built to run forever like a meth addiction
Still haven't answered why having 26 episodes is important (besides advertisements)
Still haven't justified why they faded away if they are so consumable, they would be IDEAL for binging, yet suspiciously they seems to have mostly gone
Hotish take: I can deal with sex scenes in movies and tv, what I want to see, (more so hear), less of is babies crying, and peeing, bc that shit is ear torture!
Explored Reddit because boredom, here was my experience:
1. Sydney is being defended a little bit more, progress. I wonder what changed, I don’t want to reduce it to this but they have been posting Ayo’s magazine photos.
2. Read this really interesting post about how many times ‘beautiful’ is mentioned in season two. <has anyone else read this post>. The writer claimed they weren’t arguing for or against Claire and Carmy, but interpretations skewed more pro Claire in a diplomatic way. They brought up Molly’s statement that intimacy for Carmy is starring at a woman. Conveniently does not address he spends most of both seasons starring at Syd. But no harm, no foul, it was interesting.
3. They think the romance angle is coming from Sydney if at all, this truly made me chuckle. It’s literally the complete opposite of what we’re picking up, because sometimes I have no read on Syd. Only when Claire appeared or was mentioned, or the latter half of the table scene and the stare off Syd and Carmy had in the first episode of season one reacted as though she had any feelings or interest, she’s so guarded. So that was hilarious.
4. When they discuss the pairing, they still flat out dismiss it. Don’t address any of the one thousand scenes that what suggest romance. Nothing new there.
5. They think Ebon had the best acting, and I’m not anti Richie but Jeremy Allen White carries the show, @moments-on-film addresses this. End of discussion.
6. There was one thing we could all agree on was that the table did not need fixing.
7. They also tried to run a poll on if The Bear’s audience was more male or female. I’m no statistician but I can without a doubt state that running that poll on Reddit would render an deceptive results.
Rating: 3/10 would not recommend, it’s not as bad as when the new season was released but it’s still Reddit.
