The Absolute Heaven of Hotel Hell

How a long-cancelled show starring Gordon Ramsay is just what I needed

Hi, Dames Nation. Dame Sophie is feeling under the weather and allowed me to take up a whole issue and pay tribute to my new obsession — a long-cancelled reality television show. A few weeks ago, my friend Holly, whom some of you may remember from Perfume Nite issues of Drugstore Cowgirl,  told me that Hotel Hell was now on Hulu and it was exactly what she needed right now in terms of television entertainment. Hotel Hell is a Gordon Ramsay show that ran on Fox for three seasons between 2012 and 2016 in which he visited small American hotels on the verge of closing and whipped them into shape.

As I started watching Hotel Hell, I remembered that during a particularly hard time in my life maybe 15 years ago, I’d gotten pretty obsessed with Kitchen Nightmares. As I continued with Hotel Hell, just utterly enthralled with every episode and hanging on Gordon Ramsay’s every word, I realized that what I was watching was almost pornographic in nature, and I’m not referring to the fact that Gordon’s (may I call him Gordon?) bare bum is briefly and casually on display in maybe a third of the episodes, usually while he’s getting into a shower and complaining about the lack of water pressure or mold in the corner or some such. It’s not played for sexy times or laughs — just a brief bit of tush for the people, I guess. But I digress…

Kurt Vonnegut once compared his science fiction stories to pornography saying they both contained “fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world.” Gordon Ramsay is constantly on the side of hospitality and will not rest until these places that are supposed to be respites and sources of rest and comfort for their guests are just that!

Furthermore, Hotel Hell is absolute catnip for anyone who has ever been at the mercy of a terrible boss and, in my opinion, a fine option if you enjoy shows like Law & Order: All of Them but hate the copaganda of it all. Holly and I got into this and more during our chat. Holly is not only a longtime Ramsay fan, she has spent a good portion of her life working in kitchens and is currently a chef at Galaxy in Easthampton, MA. I wanted to get some insight from someone who is a genuine expert on how kitchens work and the inherent drama of the service industry. Before I started recording, she said to me “Everyone deserves everything that Gordon Ramsay says to them, and no I haven’t watched The Bear.” That’s a fine tl; dr for our conversation, but I think you should read the whole thing.

Karen: How long have you been working in kitchens? 

Holly: I was 18 when I started and did it until I was 31. I took a break and went back in 2019, so…16 years, cumulatively. 

Karen: And you recommended Hotel Hell to me.

Holly: Yes. I have watched and rewatched all of Bar Rescue, all of Kitchen Nightmares, and some of 24 Hours To Hell and Back. There’s a few other, lesser, non-Ramsay rescue shows, like Restaurant Impossible and Hotel Impossible. They’re fine, but the hosts have zero charisma. But these shows are my absolute shit. I’ll revisit favorite episodes, I’ll recommend them to anyone, and Hotel Hell hasn’t been easily accessible until recently. 

Karen: Ok, and I am less familiar with this format. I did have a brief flirtation with Kitchen Nightmares many years ago, but it didn’t have the same effect on me that Hotel Hell has had on me over the last few whirlwind weeks, when I realized that Gordon Ramsay is the hero we all need right now. As you said, everyone who is getting wildly dressed down by Gordon Ramsay on his shows absolutely deserves it. At first glance, he seems like just a yelling bully who lives to break people down. But in reality, he’s an AVENGER.

He comes in to these hotels and he speaks with the people in the kitchens and in this show, the people working the front desk, the people keeping house, and says “This is fucking horrifying. TELL ME EVERYTHING.” You can SEE the relief in their faces! 

Holly: Yes! You can see the “Ok, finally! Here we go! I can complain to someone who’s going to get what I’m talking about and get why it’s really bad!” If you are a person who works in the service industry, you often don’t have anyone to talk to about your work. If you say to another person in the industry, “This is what’s happening to me. It’s awful. I’m having a really hard time,” they will usually have an equally awful story. That’s not why Gordon is there; he’s not interested in bantering back and forth and telling war stories, which often just normalizes the insane conditions people work under in kitchens. He’s there to listen and to fix the problems. That’s a satisfying story line for anyone.

Karen: Yes. Most people have had a job where they were under the thumb of and forced to comply with the rules made by someone who is terrible at what they do. And the fact is, people who have that kind of personality, in which they refuse to ever consider their role and their responsibilities within a bad workplace, often end up as managers. I mean, that’s something we could talk about forever. 

Holly: Not to get into “it was capitalism all along,” which, of course, BUT, a very American guiding principle is “if you work hard, success will come to you.” Most working people know that’s a lie, but the fantasy remains. And there’s something to be said for just blind confidence. Whether it’s a narcissism trait, whether it’s hubris, whether it’s someone who’s never been told no, some people tend toward “Well, I can do that” whether or not it’s true! I’ve seen people, not just in restaurants but in other workplaces too, fail upwards again and again because they’re so confident. If you have people constantly boosting these kinds of leaders, it becomes very toxic very quickly. 

I see that in a lot of business owners on these shows who are like “Well, I always wanted to open a bar so I opened a bar.” Or it’s seen as an easy retirement option, like that episode in which a son buys an historic hotel so he has a place for his mom to live and she can just…run the hotel. Why would she be able to do that?! “Well, Mom raised us and cooked for us and cleaned up after us, and we lived in a house. A small hotel is basically a house and she’s great at taking care of people!” People think of the service industry as being unskilled labor that anyone can do -- “oh, if these PLEBES can do it, then clearly I can!” That is WRONG. It’s a value set and a skill. The general public seems to have become somewhat aware of that during the pandemic because we had to be so loud about it! 

Karen: I’ve been thinking about how Hotel Hell is a great alternative for fans of copaganda shows because it scratches that itch of seeing justice being served again and again. Of course it’s all in the editing, but the owners of these hotels are often set up as power hungry maniacs who are cruel to their entire staff, often withholding their paychecks from them?!?! Then Gordon comes in, and when he talks to the staff, he truly listens to them and even when he sees where they’re messing up, he errs on the side of encouragement and praise. 

I was talking to another friend about my obsession with Gordon Ramsay and she called him “the ultimate soft Dom,” and I don’t really know enough to truly get into that, but I think that’s a good way to categorize his dealings with the staff members of the hellish hotels. He just has high expectations and very much takes charge in environments where a competent, knowledgeable, firm leader is very much wanted and needed! 

Holly: That’s a good point. He does a great job with motivating people without being a jerk about it. One of my favorite things about him is how he flirts with old ladies. The cheek kisses, the “Hello, darling,” the compliments. 

Karen: It’s so charming and almost cheesy, but not quite. 

Holly: I mean, it doesn’t hurt that he’s conventionally handsome, has an accent that Americans find very hot, and has a trustworthy air — he looks like he belongs in white linen.

Karen: It’s that confidence that you were talking about before, but used for the power of good. So many of the bad bosses on the show immediately bristle at his manner and he just stands firm and calm. There’s definitely a lot of yelling and swearing, but he also knows to speak softly to people having temper tantrums and just get very quiet and stare at them in disbelief. It’s very effective, and again, a total fantasy in terms of how we want to react to our own terrible bosses. Just absolute confidence and strength until they wear down and admit they are the problem, not us, and we were right all along and they promise to do better in the future. Will they actually do better in the future? Probably not, but that’s where the fantasy comes in — the show usually ends with everyone experiencing a cleansing catharsis, headed for a brighter, fairer future.

Holly: Right, and another thing about Gordon Ramsay is that he always has really good, simple ideas. I often jokingly quote him at work when I’ll do something like put a flatbread on the menu and say [Scottish accent] “Simple. Elegant. Delicious.” The thing is, he’s often dealing with people who don’t have a lot of training or background. He’s not going into places where people have been trained at Le Cordon Bleu. At these hotels, most people have come up naturally through the system, and they’ve learned what they’ve learned through the jobs that they’ve have. They haven’t studied the mother sauces for weeks at a time. So his whole “burgers and flatbreads” bit can be a joke, but honestly, that’s usually what customers want, and I’d be really surprised if I stayed at a mid-range boutique hotel and it had an outrageously fancy menu! And it gives power back to the kitchen staff, too, who so often are at the clueless whim of the owners who usually don’t know how kitchens work in the first place.

Karen: It also often comes to light after the hapless owners spend a little time with Gordon that they’re going through some sort of horrible personal crisis on top of being bad at owning a hotel — recovering from a debilitating car accident, mourning the death of a child, worrying about a family member who’s in the throes of addiction, all sorts of awful shit. 

Holly: Right, and it’s like “Oh, what you really need is therapy or possibly medication!” Is this also about capitalism? Is it also about the American health care system? Yes and yes.

Karen: Yes, and they’re just railing, railing, railing against what Gordon’s telling them and finally they stop fighting and just collapse into Gordon’s arms and admit that they’re carrying a massive psychological burden for which they’ve never been able to get help! They’re in so much pain AND they’re trying to keep their personal and professional life together. Like, who can’t relate to that, at this point? The show is now six to ten years old but right now, in 2022, everyone is suffering from massive psychic pain and we’re just expected to go on with our lives every day like nothing is wrong. Who among us doesn’t want a Gordon Ramsay-like figure to swoop in and tell billionaires and politicians and every other asshole making a bad situation worse that they are in fact the problem and they need to face the facts and start treating other people with a modicum of care and respect?! 

Holly: I think this is what some people think the return of Jesus is going to be like. They dream of the rapture, we dream of Gordon Ramsay.

Two Bossy Dames is brought to you by:

• The welcome news that All Creatures Great and Small is coming back for a much-needed Season 3!

• The very first unionized Trader Joe’s which just happens to be Dame Karen’s local Trader Joe’s … extra Garlic Naan Crackers and Unexpected Cheddar for all!

• This statue of Prometheus that is simply desperate for your attention!

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