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If it's ambiguous if Chief Gordon isn't using a fake personality on camera, it's best to lean on no, consider him to be not a character and everything else that follows.
I haven't seen the show, so I have no idea how much is exaggerated.
Edited by Amonimus TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
Doing a bit more digging and looking at pages for his other shows:
- Characters.Kitchen Nightmares specifically excludes him from the page and points back to his Creator page
- Characters.Hells Kitchen covers Ramsay as a fake persona and gives him his own character sheet, separate to the Masterchef one
- Hotel Hell and Gordon Ramsay's 24 Hours to Hell and Back don't have Characters pages but link back to his Creator page
And then there's documentary Ramsay's Boiling Point, which clearly isn't a scripted Reality Show but still covers him as an Angry Chef with Cluster F-Bomb, and a Jerkass with a Berserk Button. It directly says he's "at perhaps his angriest in this series" and "a touch more vitriolic in Boiling Point than usual", but otherwise "only big difference between the 1998—2000 Ramsay and the modern-day one is that he doesn't own quite as many restaurants".
(Some of that may also need NRLEP cleanup, but it's useful context in its current state)
All of that convinces me that there's no clear line between Ramsay the real chef with a short fuse and Ramsay the reality TV host/judge with his exasperated, angry style. Yes, he's probably hamming it up for the cameras in later shows because that's long been his personal brand, but it's not an invented fictional character.
On that basis I'm personally comfortable cutting the character sheets for Ramsay (and the other real chefs supporting him as judges and hosts on these shows - if he's not "in character", why would they be?) and applying some NRLEP cleanup to whatever's on the main works pages for him unless anyone objects in the next day or so.
Edited by Mrph1
Going to disagree. This was brought up in a related thread
about troping contestants of Game Shows. After the crowner that made contestants of game shows not tropable under NRLEP, it was brought to the thread's attention that reality competition shows (like Masterchef, American Idol, America's Next Top Model, etc) are kind of in a weird grey area and that the NRLEP designation for contestants on these shows should likely be done on a case-by-case basis. Fighteer actually suggested a blanket ban that included such shows that was rejected (here's his post and you can follow the convo from there).
I think even more than contestants, hosts of such shows are tropable because hosts are either selected because they fit the overall show concept or the show was created around the host's public persona anyways, making that public persona a central part of the show as a piece of media. Whether or not Ramsay's persona is fake or real to who he is doesn't matter. The fact that this is how he is presented in these shows and how these shows are built around his angry Caustic Critic persona does.
Edited by amathieu13
^ As it stands, though, the Administrivia exception is written for Reality Shows on the basis of manipulative editing and the producers representing people in a particular way in the created narrative.
If a show's host is using a persona that's much the same as we see in documentaries (Boiling Point) and their wider career, I personally think that's Real Life Troping, whether they're hosting a game show, a talk show or a reality show. Fighteer's guidance in the original post seems to reinforce this view, and doesn't seem to be contradicted by the 'keep NRLEP tropes' decision for the cases that do qualify.
Choosing someone to host because they're already well known as an Angry Chef and fit the show's concept doesn't make them fictional or immune to NRLEP, in my opinion.
As the star of the show Ramsay's not being edited in a way he can't control, unlike his contestants and the restaurants he visits. Again, I think that the reality show exception breaks down here.
Can we show that there is "clearly an intent to portray a fictional narrative" for him, as required by current policy?
(Edited for clarity)
Edited by Mrph1
^The Administrivia page policy doesn't specify reality competition shows, which have been acknowledged in that thread by other tropers and mods (speaking w/o Mod Voice just as Fighteer was in previous discussions) as being different from reality TV and game shows. So I don't think using it to determine this particular case makes sense considering we're 1) in the realm of reality competition shows and 2) we're talking about hosts and not contestants. What we know of Gordon Ramsay is his public persona. He's known as an Angry Chef / Caustic Critic because that's how he's been sold to the TV watching public from his first public appearance. Like I said, whether it's close to his true personality or not matters less than the fact that he's been sold to us in this particular fashion.
"As the star of the show Ramsay's not being edited in a way he can't control, unlike his contestants and the restaurants he visits." This is part of my point. His appearance on the show is curated by him, the editors, and the producers, and the casting director to fit a particular tone and concept in a way that the contestants are not as the host/star. If we have already largely agreed that contestants of competitive game shows should be decided on a case-by-case basis, that should probably be doubled for the hosts of such shows since they are far more connected to the creation / curation of a show's concept than the contestants that change with each season.
Simply put, I think this is a question that should be brought to that thread on Game Shows for a wider discussion at the very least since it's clear there's conflicting precedent on how to treat it.
Edited by amathieu13
I mean, like I said at the other thread we talked on (not sure which one at this point), I do think Ramsay is probably a character if only because his hot-headed and angry attitude is definitely more exaggerated in the shows, it has to be, I'm pretty sure he's just a regular, somewhat emotional chef when he's not involved in these shows, where his persona is going to be dialed up for entertainment — even if he's not actively putting on a character, the editing will present him as being an angry guy 24/7.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Back here because I'm really struggling to get a consensus on the wider issue on the forums, so might be simpler to tackle it case-by-case here...
Gordon Ramsay is a real-life Michelin-starred chef. He's also a TV chef and judge on shows like Masterchef, famous for his sweary, take-no-nonsense style.
Masterchef is a Reality TV show, so contestants potentially fall under a specific Real Life Troping exception: "using casting decisions and selective editing to create narratives that may not be true to real life".
But Ramsay is a TV host and judge, not a contestant who's being edited by others to shape a contest's narrative. And it also says:
Way back, on the RL troping thread, the mod steer from Fighteer ( from here
) regarding VTubers was this, and I'd argue it applies to TV hosts who may have an exaggerated stage presence as well:
Can I cut Ramsay and the other judges (all RL chefs) from the 'Characters' page on that basis?
Edited by Mrph1