From Gordon Ramsay to The Apprentice: why bullying business TV must end | Reality TV | The Guardian — theguardian.com

As much as we often grumble about work bleeding into all aspects of our lives, when it comes to TV, demanding bosses and relentless hustling are rarely off our screens. Dragons’ Den and The Apprentice have been going strong in the UK since 2005, while in the US there are several similar shows, from Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch and Billion Dollar Buyer to The Partner and Shark Tank.Now, after one of the most difficult years for the hospitality industry, Gordon Ramsay, the baron of business programmes, will return to our screens with a new, almost certainly sweary, reality contest.Fittingly titled FFS – Future Food Stars – the show will give 12 entrepreneurs the chance to win a lifechanging investment in their company. The entire thing will probably play out as a longer version of the hypercritical interviews portion of The Apprentice, in which Lord Sugar’s aides tear finalists a new one in the penultimate episode, but with some added Kitchen Nightmares-style blunders.There is clearly an appetite for this format – Channel 4 recently launched The Money Maker, fronted by the entrepreneur and former Barack Obama aide Eric Collins, who set out to transform struggling British businesses by injecting his own cash.Despite their popularity, series about work can feel slightly out of step next to other reality shows. In recent years, reality TV has detoxified; makeover shows now go further than skin-deep transformations, while dating shows attempt to have a bit more heart and empathy and singing contests offer constructive criticism rather than Simon Cowell-style barbs and putdowns.It will be interesting to see how FFS fares and whether business shows will also start to change. After a year that has seen us reflect on toxic work culture and reject rampant capitalism, it seems like a good time for a shift in the way that such programmes work, with the glamorisation of browbeating and burnout best left behind.In The Apprentice, cut-throatedness and cruelty have long been praised as the ideal attributes for a businessperson. It is not just Lord Sugar and his aides who are abrasive; the contestants themselves are cartoonish parodies, battling it out to be top dog, throwing one another under the bus along the way. As enjoyable as these shows can be, the formula has barely budged in almost 20 years, even as the world has changed considerably.The “good twin” to this type of show is kinder programmes such as Undercover Boss and The Secret Millionaire. However, while benevolent, they can cause their own type of damage. In creating a warm, fuzzy feeling without much thought, they usually gloss over myriad meaningful conversations. I defend the right for reality TV to be mindless, but this type of show increasingly jars.In The Age of Static: How TV Explains Modern Britain, Phil Harrison describes such series as having “no polemical or political dimension” – systemic and institutional issues are rarely broached, in favour of watching a millionaire entrepreneur cosplay as fairy godmother to a handful of staff and the public. Once upon a time, this was perceived as poignant and perhaps even educational, but, with work and business culture under more scrutiny than ever, it no longer cuts it.If FFS follows Ramsay’s usual formula, it will probably be shouty and condescending. However, it would be nice to see some growth, from the man himself and the programme-makers. The Money Maker, for instance – more documentary than competition series – was at its most interesting when it went beyond TV-ready, teachable moments. Its first episode focused on a repair and restoration company called Prymo; Collins removed the names from new recruits’ work, so the business owners, Jasen and Steve, could judge staff solely on the quality of the repairs. The results were, in their own words, “eye-opening” and led to a conversation on unconscious biases, the sort we rarely see in this type of programme – rather than a roar of “you’re fired”.

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