In the FX show The Bear, a group of highly compromised people make beef sandwiches at a family owned and financially struggling restaurant in Chicago. Against this backdrop, members of their Italian family scream at each other in the kitchen over mundane matters like the knives being too dull or the soup tasting a little off.

The people in the kitchen call each other “Chef”, a term of respect, that also seems to point towards some shared dysfunction and pain. Before work begins they eat “family meal”, the first fruits of what will soon be served to their loyal customers. The Chefs are all members of this contrived kitchen family, a broken household that’s often embroiled in conflict but deep down still loves each other dearly.

What is it about this show that is so utterly mesmerizing? From the very first minutes, I couldn’t look away. It felt like I was watching footage from the angry internal dialogue going on in my brain most days. I hold it in, yet these Chefs were saying it all out loud! It was strangely cathartic.

As hard as it is to believe, I find this racket of people screaming and swearing oddly soothing. Every other word is an F bomb being yelled from the mouth of some red-faced Chef. To me, it’s like sounds from inside the womb, which I’m told are a nearly deafening white noise. Their vicious arguments cradle and rock me like a gentle lullaby.

In a way, the show is emotional pornography, where viewers can live vicariously through the angry disputes of the characters. Far removed from relational reality, we are left to simply fantasize about how it’d be to “live like Chef for a day”.

Yet in my own limited F & B experience, I’ve found real-life Chefs can be insufferably rude and mean-spirited individuals, who are given a pass because of their “Chef” status. They are coddled, held to lower social standards than everyday people simply because they make delicious food and beautiful treats. But this has never, ever made sense to me. How did Chefs manage to find a free zone where their angry words are excused, their need for space honored, and staff are simply told “That’s just the way they are, don’t take it personal.”

It seems we’ve decided the culinary ends justify the otherwise inexcusable social means.

It makes me mad to even think about Chefs. Who do they think they are !?! You’re nobody special, you make fancy eggs and cook pork cutlets to crispy perfection. Sure, they’re delicious, but you’re not curing cancer or flying a plane or painting the next Van Gough. And yeah, there’s high pressure in a commercial kitchen, but nothing that warrants anger or shouting. Why don’t you just hold it in like the rest of us do!?! Be a reasonable human: bite your tongue, pay your taxes, use your turns signals, smoke cigarettes on your own time!!

Oh you work weekends? Who doesn’t nowadays!?

We understand you think you’re a genius. But the rest of us find a way to be civil and I’ll bet you could find a way too Pablo Picasso!

We show grace when the toast burns and show restraint when we burn. And we’re not given a pass because our pastries are “to die for”. (btw, never die for a donut)

There’s so many more mean-spirited, F-bomb laden things we could say to these Chefs, and wouldn’t it be nice to say them all out loud, rather than continue to hold them in?

But we won’t, because that’s the kind of thing that only happens on TV.

And thus we have arrived at the mesmerizing and cathartic appeal of The Bear…