I'm a shock-seeker, I watched Masterchef and chucked my morality away

The Herald Scotland

4 days ago

I've always been drawn to the forbidden. When tabloids scream 'ban this filth', the pearl-clutching works on me like candlelight on moths. The more I'm told something is wicked and depraved, the more I'll have to find out for myself.
I've got Mary Whitehouse to thank for turning me on to the most messed-up material of my teens. Where there's shock value, I'll venture.
In university, my English professor described the Earl of Rochester's Restoration poetry as the most corrupt in literature. By graduation, I was an expert in his work.
Nor do I have any problem separating art from artist. Harvey Weinstein is a disgusting pig who deserves his fate, but I'm not cancelling Pulp Fiction, Shakespeare in Love or The English Patient.
That mix of curiosity, voyeurism and critical detachment informed my thinking on whether to watch the new Masterchef series.
I've followed it since Lloyd Grossman's days. I love cooking and the show gives good tips. However, neither reason is an excuse for watching a series stained by the behaviour of its hosts Gregg Wallace and John Torode.
Though, evidently, that begs the question: is to watch, to endorse; to view, to agree; to tune in, to validate? Some may say yes, others no. Morally and philosophically, I was unsure.
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I've been a TV producer, so was intrigued how on Earth the BBC would reedit the show, as promised, to make it more acceptable to viewers.
However, technical and professional interest isn't a justification either, if you accept that viewing equals approving.
What finally convinced me to peek was the UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy on BBC Breakfast telling us she 'certainly won't be watching'. If politicians say X, I'll do Y.
So I watched the first few episodes. You can watch the lot on BBC iPlayer, if you want.
The experience was, in truth, an exercise in being morally compromised. I'm a big boy, though, so being morally compromised was entirely on me.
The reason I explained my views on art and acceptability was to make the point that nobody made me watch Masterchef, I chose deliberately to seek it out.
However, the method of being compromised is what interests me. I watched the show with my wife and a couple who are friends of ours, a man and a woman roughly the same age. They came for dinner, we turned Masterchef on after the meal was over.
Everyone felt a bit guilty. I guess the other two million people who tuned in were much the same.
The show is down on last year's ratings by about 700,000. So obviously there's a fair chunk of the previous audience who take a different view from me, my wife and our pals. Which is entirely fair and their right.
After the initial ick of seeing the hosts – particularly Wallace – it was strange how quickly we settled in as viewers.
I noticed my wife pick up on a recipe which interested her, and our friends talked about how they would have used a different cut of meat to one of the contestants.
Quite quickly, we weren't sitting in moral judgement, but engaging as viewers.
I mentioned this to the group, and suddenly the ick returned. To be reminded of the scandal, was to be knocked out of the comfort of merely viewing.
But soon the magic of TV was at work again. The contestants were determined, the guest judges were friendly faces from the past, Torode was giving kitchen tips, and Wallace was doing his hail-fellow-well-met act.
The knowledge of what had gone on was swept to the back of our minds once again – because that's what TV does: it's immersive, it takes you out of yourself, it suspends reality.
So the very act of watching Masterchef partly – at least momentarily – erases the knowledge of what the hosts have done.
There's a real risk that over 21 one-hour episodes, Wallace and Torode are effectively rehabilitated simply by the longevity of the process of watching them.
The more you watch, the more you forget. And then, when you do remember, the ick will have lessened a little more each time, until by the show's finale the ick might not even be there at all.
The BBC seems to be playing a morally bankrupt game here, though it's entirely in tune with the times.
There are no real rules in this era. A president who is a predator can be reelected. It is the power of his celebrity which renders Donald Trump teflon.
Are we now seeing that immunity spill down to the Z-listers of British TV? Wallace and Torode were sacked, but they're not off air. If this is being cancelled, it's a weird cancellation.
Racism and sexism no longer hide their faces in our societies. It is somehow okay to once again behave very badly.
Masterchef plays its part in allowing racism and sexism to become enmeshed in notions of acceptability.
Fundamentally, this is an era of no shame and no consequences. We see that in the lofty heights of international politics and now in the tawdry depths of low-rent entertainment.
In that sense, watching the first few episodes of Masterchef was instructive. It was interesting to be subjected to an experiment in compromising my own morality.
But I will drop out now, thank you very much, BBC, and leave the channel's executives to mirror our corrupted zeitgeist so perfectly.
Neil Mackay is The Herald's Writer-at-Large. He's a multi-award-winning investigative journalist, author of both fiction and non-fiction, and a filmmaker and broadcaster. He specialises in intelligence, security, crime, social affairs, cultural commentary, and foreign and domestic politics.