If you’ve noticed an increasing number of people in your life saying “yes boss” or calling each other “cousin,” it’s probably because they’re fans of the recently returned FX series “The Bear.” for its third season.
The sometimes dramatic comedy tells the story of chef Carmy Berzatto, who takes over his brother’s struggling Chicago restaurant after his brother’s death, forcing Berzatto to deal with an unruly staff and equally unruly memories he’s long avoided.
“The Bear”’s blend of comedy and intense family drama has delighted some critics and baffled others. And that mix of emotions extends into conversations about the show beyond its characters and story.
The show’s lead actor, Jeremy Allen White, received critical acclaim and won an Emmy for his performance in “The Bear.” He was also dubbed a “rat man,” a viral social media term used to describe unconventional, attractive male actors.
The combination of all these factors fascinates Amanda Kehrberg, our next guest and resident expert on film, media and digital culture.
Amber Victoria Singer/KJZZ
Full conversation
AMANDA KEHRBERG: When did we define the person everyone was craving at that moment in the celebrity world by such an unattractive, horrible, mean moniker?
SAM DINGMAN: I’ve been thinking about it and because we’ve had other moments like this in the past, the whole “dad bod” phenomenon comes to mind. And you know, when Seth Rogen first became famous, that kind of slacker, stoner stuff was really popular.
KEHRBERG: Judd Apatow kind of guy, like I could fix him. Yeah.
DINGMAN: Well, maybe you just answered my question. What do you think accounts for this surge in interest in celebrities when someone who is not conventionally attractive becomes like a new standard-bearer?
KEHRBERG: I think in some ways it’s the industry that’s surprised and confused and trying to, you know, there’s them, there’s this argument that one of the things that we all do every day in digital culture is simply trying to find patterns, as we have been so trained to work, much like computers in the sense that we were desperately searching for meaning in life and that certainly cuts across all time, not just digital, but I think that’s a little bit of it.
It’s just the industry that behaves this way. It’s really weird what’s going on here and can we figure out how to make sense of this as a pattern that we can capitalize on and maybe know, you know, how to recognize the next guy that we’re looking for?
DINGMAN: Well, to illustrate how far this debate has gone to the upper echelons of American thought. There’s a big conversation about this in the New York Times and there were a few arguments I wanted to present to you to see what you thought.
One of them was, Stella Bugbee said this, and it’s a quote, “to covet so-called rodent men is to reject AI.” What do you think ?
KEHRBERG: Oh my God. I love it because you could say it’s like celebrating this kind of raw, unconventional authenticity that goes so against the grain where we have all these filters and tools that can turn us into the most conventional stock footage that looks human. Yeah, I think there’s something quite beautiful about that.
DINGMAN: Yeah, I mean, I really reacted to that when I saw it too, because it seemed to suggest something about this idea that maybe there’s some appetite in us to reject these supposed standards that AI seems to accelerate.
KEHRBERG: Yeah, I wish we had a trend like that for women. But yeah, I wish, I wish I had a dad bod some days, you know, to be, to be sexy, but…
DINGMAN: Absolutely, absolutely. But I think there’s also the idea that, as you pointed out, by giving a hashtag to this phenomenon we’re somehow avoiding talking about the creative art itself. I wanted to ask you what you think about the consternation you’re seeing in some critical circles around “The Bear,” where it seems like some critics are so frustrated because they can’t figure out what genre this series belongs to . And they wonder if this is a comedy? A tragedy? What is it about ? This annoys me greatly.
KEHRBERG: I love that. And I know that every time I’m here, I tell myself that this goes back to digital culture. But I really think that, you know, when we’re on social media, there’s a collapse of context. So it makes sense that we create programs where there is a collapse of context beyond traditional genres.
Everything that happens online is decontextualized. It’s slippery. So there aren’t these classic boundaries that would separate drama from comedy, and I think that allows for very rich programming, but it can also make it difficult to label and categorize and sort into a box.
And when we look for role models, yeah, it’s not always helpful because, again, of course, if you think about it from an industry perspective, how do we recognize the next “The Bear” when is this a spec script? through our office? Yeah.
DINGMAN: What do you think about the fact that we’re sitting here talking about shows like “The Bear” when at the same time, you know, Jake Gyllenhaal is in this new adaptation of “Presumed Innocent” that just came out on Apple TV. Also, earlier this summer, Colin Farrell was in a limited series. These are huge movie stars, but we’re not sitting here talking about those shows. What do you think about that?
KEHRBERG: I think one, one mega star doesn’t do it anymore. We have so many options and our time is not expanding to accommodate the amount of choice that we have. And so I think, yeah, you can’t just put a big name on a poster and put something out and expect everyone to come and that has a lot to do with it too, we see that in terms of the big concert industry as well.
And I think the movies and the concerts kind of looked at last year and thought, OK, OK, the Eras tour. OK. Beyoncé. OK. Barbenheimer, I think we get it, everybody’s back, right. They all want to go to stadiums, they all want to see big acts. They all want to, you know, go back to the movies for blockbusters.
And then all of a sudden, oh, “Fall Guy” with Ryan Gosling is a flop, even though Ryan Gosling is in it. And then all of a sudden, Jennifer Lopez has to cancel her tour. There’s definitely a resistance to embracing who we’re presented as mega stars and not just showing up, you know, for everybody.
DINGMAN: Well, no conversation about big celebrities and our TV screens this summer would be complete without one of the biggest names getting ready to appear on those screens. And it’s Sir Anthony Hopkins. What do you think it will be?
KEHRBERG: I’m so excited. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know how it’s going to go. I know I’ll be there, glued to my screen because when I saw the movie “Gladiator”, it was over for me. It was just the rest of my life. I think about the Roman Empire every day and am excited to have more of it on my screen.
DINGMAN: So we should tell people what this show is that he’s going to be on?
KEHRBERG: So, “Those Who Are About to Die.” And it’s another “Gladiator” farce, you know, just a mashup of “Gladiator” antics with Anthony Hopkins joining the cast as Emperor Vespasian and we’ll see how much screen time he actually gets. I hope, I hope they didn’t use him in the trailers because I absolutely love him. Yeah, losing Donald Sutherland has been tough lately, but Anthony Hopkins is one of them, just…
DINGMAN: Let’s talk about a man, Donald Sutherland. I hope this won’t be taken as a slander against the dead.
KEHRBERG: He is still an interesting and interesting person.
DINGMAN: Well, we’ll see how that goes.
Transcripts of The KJZZ Show are created on time. This text is edited for length and clarity, and may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ programming is the audio recording.