First published in early 2023.
1 — the predator
There’s something about food porn that feels so violent, isn’t there? Let me explain.
I was in my early 20s when a discarded house bunny wound up in the daycare yard that my little brother went to. A Holland Lop-Eared Rabbit — what survival instincts they have left after generations of domestication are insufficient to survive in the world. Especially in the non-committal mild weather of the Canadian late-spring. Sadly, this is not so uncommon. Many families with small, spoilt children will adopt pet bunnies as an Easter treat. The bunny will serve it’s one-week purpose of, first, being a fantastic prop for family photography to be uploaded to facebook where pictures taken on phone cameras with too many pixels for how smudged and scratched the lens is kept; and second, functioning as a week-long novelty.
Wherein, after this one-week span of time where we can expect many children to stretch the zenith of their attention span, the family will learn that a bunny is neither like a cat (who remains relatively independent and will confidently approach members of the household), neither like a dog (who, in spite of being needy, offers joy and affection), nor is is it like any other caged animal who persists in silence provided a steady supply of food. Bunnies prefer to be outside of cages where they may explore; and bunnies’ ‘playtime’ amounts to aggressively moving objects around their living space. They’re independent creatures who may delight in affection, but who also may not need need for it like other house pets.
You can’t really be certain which kind you’re getting and you can’t train it into them.
And so, with a child who has no interest in taking responsibility for this living creature who’s primary objective was to give parents an opportunity to write them a letter from the easter bunny explaining who this animal is, parents promptly come to the conclusion that this investment has served it’s primarily objective of imparting a lesson to a child demonstrating that awe and affection require no responsibility nor ongoing care, the rabbit is dismissed. I can imagine this ceremony of releasing this domestic creature into the wild after a tenure of home life so lacking in mental stimulation is boarders on traumatic.
Gathering in the back yard, patting the child on their back and assuring them that this rabbit is going to find it’s home in nature where it belongs. Yes, instead of modifying behaviour and developing habits of empathy, let’s just discard the inconvenience. Never mind that, as mentioned, breeds of domestic rabbits are not able to survive in the wild.
The domestic rabbit purge that begins any time from the third week of April to the end of May, meets its conclusion in the mid summer — when all the easter bunnies have fed something else more suited to life in the wild.
Binky the rabbit lived with my mother for many years. Binky loved the pet dog, and Binky spent his entire time being errantly afraid of us. We never thought much of it — we let him loose and lifted the power cords and cables from the floor. (Though… he still managed to eat through a few of my laptop chargers.) We enjoyed seeing him when he came out to explore, but we put very little pressure on him to come out from under the couch. Sometimes we wouldn’t see him for days — only acknowledging that he was still under beds or couches from periodic thumps against the floor.
And no, after the first week, the dog made no attempt to eat Binky. Instead, he had nothing but contempt for how easy it was for the rabbit to steal his familial affection.
When my mother had to downsize into a small house and began struggling with mobility, she did re-home Binky. Though instead of a wild release, she found a family willing to take him. I’m sure that, provided he is still supplied with carrot tops, Binky would have been entirely indifferent.
Binky was not just cute, but sinfully adorable. If ever there was a corporeal manifestation of ‘kawaii’ it would have been this thing.
And over a few months I realized that I was getting this bizarre impulse to eat this thing while was holding him. Now naturally, this was such a back-brain thought that it was easy to ignore, but it got me thinking that — perhaps — the social ability to recognize something as ‘cute’ is tied to the human predator instinct. Or rather, that our identification of cuteness is an evolution of out predator instinct. (As in, we don't actually want to eat the cute thing, but the cute thing is an echo of a prehistoric instinct.) And that even if we don’t want to eat the cute thing, that perhaps the same area of the brain is triggered.
Surely, this explains a lot about tops. And... furries.
Instead of locking this into an essentialist mindset of human beings as carnivores, apply this to how we seem to feel the need to consume things that give us delight.
2 — the menu
I could tell it was about something, but I wasn’t sure what. (Spoilers ahead? for a 1.5 year old movie.)
One thing that was certain is that, without having seen The Whale, I’m not sure what kind of problematically tone-deaf, sad-gay, fat-suit acting Brendan Fraser did for that Oscar, but it was abundantly apparent to me that Ralph Fiennes was snubbed for the 2023 Academy Award for best actor in a leading role. Starring Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Nicholas Hoult, The Menu started making waves far too late into Oscar Season — whereas it seemed the winners had already been determined.
The menu tells the story of one of America’s premiere chefs: his disillusion of culinary arts, and cultish slip into mass murder. Chef Julian Slowick has invited everyone who has made his craft entirely unbearable to his island restaurant, Hawthorne, for one last, fatal, multi-course meal. ‘Everyone’ includes his inability to escape his self-loathing. And his alcoholic, enabling mother. The exact events leading to this self-destructive decision are deliberately unclear — though there are suggestions. But ultimately, it’s not important.
What’s made abundantly clear is that this last meal is a class dichotomy. With those who represent the wealthy at the tables, and those representing the working class in the kitchen. The ‘wrench’ in this art performance is Anya Taylor-Joy’s character — Margot (real name Erin). Unlike the other guests, she is an escort that Tyler (played by Hoult) hired as a date when his girlfriend dumped him, as Slowick does not seat tables for one. Using the language of the film, Margot is a ‘server’ who is sitting among the ‘served.’ As everyone is going to die that night, her choice is which group she wants to die with — with Slowick urging her that it is better to die with her people, the servers.
Seemingly unlike everyone else involved… Margot would simply rather not die.
Class dynamic is a clear component of what this media is saying — but what was tripping me up was deeper. Class dynamics was on the surface in a very spoken way… it was being used to deliver the actual message. What was this using class dynamics to communicate? Or… what specific element about class is being said?
At the centre of it all is Margot — as the restaurant staff tells her, she doesn’t belong there. Next to the other women in formal evening ware and expensive shoes — she’s in a pink slip dress and black leather heel boots. I thought there was something larger being said about her role as an exception to class immobility. But that doesn’t particularly work well the more the plot goes out of it’s way to depict Slowick’s own rags to riches transformation. Is she a foil to Slowick? The simple self-made wealth versus the self-made wealth that drinks the kool-aid?
I figured that was just grasping at straws. Especially provided the thematic role that all the other guests (and servers) have to the narrative. While an important character for the audience, the more the movie is about Margot, the less it’s about what it wants to be about.
I also considered that this is about class conflict. We have a collection of rich people being held hostage by an allegory for a socialist movement, with a madman figurehead hellbent on ‘destroying the systems of oppression’ (think what CNN says about Bernie Sanders). Margot represents the ‘doing okays’ kind of people who need to decide what side they want to be on. With the film’s resolution indicating that ‘politics aside, some people just want to live their lives.’ I became unsettled as I thought about this, so for clarity I looked into the writers’ credits and—
… yeah one of them is a writer on Succession.
That particular reading didn’t really make use of symbols or language to draw comparisons to these political movements so I was comfortable setting it aside. But I was still getting the sense that this was very clearly trying to say something, but was lacking a structure for how to go about analyzing it.
Rather than observe this as allegory for wealth as a whole, I went back to observe deeper meaning in what it was pushing to the front — food. Observing The Menu as a commentary about haute cuisine opened up the applicable readings of characters and symbols. I mean… this one’s on me for trying to read too deep into it in the first place because the dishes themselves have a symbolic meaning that is literally read to the characters.
Unfortunately, in order to analyze this media, one is required to deeply empathize with chef Julian Slowick, to understand why he has orchestrated a mass murder-suicide. What caused him to see this as an acceptable solution to the problem of his own disenfranchisement? The guests all represent something to Slowick personally, each one of them highlighting a factor of why he no longer feels joy from preparing food. He’s very vocal and clear what each of them mean to him, and why he vindictively brought them here. Bearing in mind that he views himself as a monster — he has been participant and a leader in developing this tainted culinary culture.
But, perhaps rightfully, he does not bear the sole weight of what he has become. Instead he has invited those who have pushed him to foster this environment.
The wealthy regulars who, in spite of a single trip to Hawthorne being a once-in-a-lifetime expirince, have eaten with Slowick eleven times and cannot name a single dish they have had. Why bother to go to all the effort of cooking something so exquisite if the people you serve it for won’t bother trying to remember it?
The food critics, whose scathing, self-serving reviews caused some restaurants to shut down. In spite of the fact that many restaurants of this calibre are serving food many would be grateful to eat — in fine dining, we are held against impossible standards. The inability to reach it is a matter of life or death. Can you really say you enjoy food if you spend your whole reviews trying to find something wrong with it?
The fan, Hoult’s character, who makes a display of food with an array of photographs. Putting food preparers on the spot and reducing good food from a taste to a look. The memory of food should be a taste, not a photograph — if a chef wanted you to take pictures of their craft, they would have chosen a different art.
The bros. They’re in finance. They work for someone and think they’re hot shit. They don’t care about the experience, they want the exclusivity. They’ve got money, and no frame of reference on what to spend it on. So they buy expensive things. If you don’t care about food — why don’t you stick to Boston Pizza if the experience is going to be about the same?
And finally, the has-been. Probably the most personal invitation to Slowick — this comedic actor has followed the path of making movies that were once entertaining, and now make nothing but drivel. He signifies a reflection of that Slowick sees himself becoming — he’s following the steps because it’s what he knows, but has no love for what he does.
The first thing Chef Slowick does is advises his guests not to eat. He doesn’t want food so carefully and methodically prepared to just slide down someone’s throat. Everything is prepared for optimal taste — if you just wanted a meal, as I said, there’s Boston Pizza. What he is trying to afford is… perhaps an opera of flavour that is meant to be just as intellectually stimulating. Something, it seems, nobody is really willing to engage with.
One of the first courses is called ‘The Island.’ It’s a collection of herbs and vegetables that naturally grow on the island the restaurant is on. It’s a reminder that the consumption of this food is consumption of nature itself. These things took months, weeks, or even years to reach harvestable maturity. Meanwhile, many guests put it in their mouth while bickering, trying to think of which hellenic term to describe it, or just over-enthusiastic about being part of the experience without giving a thought to what the experience actually is.
Presented here are two layers. The more clear is the weird ‘waste’ that fine dining is — the kind of people that culinary refinement is wasted on. If the objective of making food is to satisfy people, why is the objective to build yourself to a point where the only people you serve are those for whom satisfaction is impossible.
These people exist in such privilege that a night at Hawthorn, where they smoke their meat using Nordic methods, is unremarkable. To the rest of us, we may not be able to tell the difference — those that could would cherish that for their lives, regardless that they could almost never be able to afford this opportunity. But for those who can not only take no delight in it, but expect it. And find no satisfaction in it.
Those that can appreciate it
Of course Slowick has lost his joy for cooking because he is trying to present culinary art to people whose sole objective is to consume. Analogy: If you put the Mona Lisa — a tiny painting — in the Sistine Chapel, people are going to be staring at the roof.
Slowick’s whole life was dedicated to serving people, and giving joy to them with culinary delight. His career progresses, as we are told careers must or else there’s no point, to the degree where he may exclusively serve the upper echelons of society and wealth. And then he is shocked and disappointed to the point of murder when it turns out he cannot delight people for whom delight is the bare expectation of their privilege?
It isn’t until he finally has another server at a table. Someone who isn’t there for theatrical displays, tweezer work, attention to detail, to think about what it means to have a bread course with no bread — she just wants a good fucking meal. He finally gets to make food for someone who wants to eat something that feels good. As per what I could read on Fiennes' face, it seems he was portraying the first time Slowik had felt joy in the kitchen in some time.
This island is a microcosm for Fine dining — on the other side of the kitchen. These chefs have sacrificed almost everything about their lives. They have no free time except for food prep. They sleep without privacy. No possessions, no family, no personal relations. Their whole existence revolves around this thankless life in the kitchen. This industry is rife with harassment, mental illness, sexism, and favouritism. And there is no authority over it because the people who would have a hand in changing these conditions through wages, regulations, or ethical standards are the ones being fed.
I’m reminded of a Webcomic called Dr. McNinja. Whimsical 2010s-era absurdism — good stuff. In this comic, the clone of Benjamin Franklin dies. The afterlife begins in Purgatory, which is a fine dining restaurant with horrible service, where you must eat your sins before you can progress to the afterlife proper, whatever it may be. Each of the courses function as a reminder for the wealthy of a particular sin they have committed in making food preparation, which can be one of the most enriching activities someone can do, into an absolute fucking slog for the people doing it.
The second layer from this reading, is about the wealthy, and their approach to consumption. (I knew we’d get there eventually! Sometimes analyzing media is more about the angle you take to look at something, rather than the method.) It is about the way the wealthy consume things. Their brain-dead expectation of consumption. Their lack of thought about what they are consuming. And importantly, the fact that they will consume anything as long as they are made to feel special, exclusive, and elevated while they do it.
It’s why Margot was the only one who actually did anything to escape the island. Because, on some level… a massive murder-suicide meal is exactly what all the rich people came here for. They are complicit in their own execution because they came for the show.
The poor woman wants to eat bread because she came here to eat. The expectation is to have a meal — she has no interest in participating in the theatre of consumption.
It is this theatre, the film says, that is the bane of artists. They want to make their art, and become dissatisfied when their audience cares more about the carnival of self-agrandization.
3 — the consumer
Before Binky, I had some novelty pets before: caged animals to whom I was not the best caretaker. One ended in tragedy — the other I took steps to avoid tragedy. I carry guilt regardless. My harshness comes from recognizing how easy it would be been to just do better. We can only carry the most resentment for things where a great deal of that resentment is directed at ourselves.
Julian Slowik did not harbour secret resentment at the wealthy for his entire career with the grand plan of one day killing a bunch of them. He bought into his own mythology. He welcomed the praise and celebrity, it seems. But one day he made a switch. His suicide was significant in these murders because he recognized his role in contributing to what he now despised.
On the deepest reading, The Menu is about art, artists, and audiences, and the conflict that exists between them. They say that America is a culinary wasteland, but it was never clear to me how that can be. We have access to the same techniques, ingredients, and even an exchange of chefs themselves. The globe is a buffet of ideas — made abundantly clear in the mixed messaging of cullinary philosophies at Hawthorn. Nordic meat preparation for a Mexican tortilla dish. It’s nonsensical and all over the map.
Like posh British people having authoritative opinions about what is or is not ‘quite Mexican indeed’ without the slightest indication of melanin on screen.
The realization that Slowik comes to is not that his art is useless, it’s that his audience does not suit his needs. His audience didn’t want his art, they would have been good handing over their money and getting a commemorative certificate saying that they ate at Hawthorne. For someone whose whole life is improving on their artistic method, what future is there when the only feedback about your craft is entirely fraudulent? Either placative or deliberately critical — you don’t want a critic you want an audience.
Especially when you do get someone giving feedback, its never on the merits of the actual thing — it’s about how close it is to a format. Experimentation and risks are frowned upon in lieu of doing the easy thing and just comparing something that already exists.
There is no lack of great art or artists in America — or the world — but it seems we have a problem with audiences who want to consume, without any interest in savouring it. We’re in an artistic condition where the quality of art is reduced to ‘it made me feel good’ — which, sure feeling good is one thing but simple feelings are a simple task to generate. What world is there for an artist who wants to generate a complex feeling when simple feelings are the format that their craft will be judged against?
On the flipped we live in a culture so obsessed with formats and qualifications that we refuse to see excellence in genres and structures that are considered ‘base.’ We lack abilities that allow us to see layers in media — there is either face-value or there is no value. It is either a loaf of bread that is reduced to the point that it is not qualificably bread anymore — or it’s ‘just’ a cheeseburger.
And that cheese burger looked FUCKING good…
-nth