Over the last few weeks, I’ve been chipping away at FX’s The Bear. It’s a show that was always on my radar as something that I should see, and there was plenty of reason for me to be interested in it on its own. After going through all of Shameless, I was high on Jeremy Allen White, and FX has a history of putting out shows that seem to be right up my alley, and furthermore, among the team that was making The Bear reality was Hiro Murai, who directed numerous episodes of Atlanta, another show that I was very high on and enjoyed.
Admittedly, The Bear starts off a little slow, and it did take me a little time before the show clicked and I realized that I did in fact enjoy the show, but I have to also say that it’s a show that’s kind of hard to watch, because how heavy-handed the show feels sometimes, especially from the standpoint that pretty much everyone has their own wars they fight on a daily basis, be it with themselves, their families, from their pasts to their presents, and often times television is supposed to be an escape from the hardships of life, and I find it difficult to instead be watching the hardships of fictional characters instead.
Like, I can’t really binge The Bear. This truly is a show that probably is best watched on a weekly basis, so you can decompress and digest each individual episode, before your energy bar of watching stressful situations is replenished and the following week’s episode can tax you next week instead. Every time Carmy and Richie have a knock-down drag-out screaming match, I can feel my own anxiety rising, and it’s a testament to both actors and their on-screen chemistry that they can do that to viewers with having such explosive arguments that feel genuine and stressful just to watch, but it adds to why I have a hard time watching more than a single episode at a time.
But recently, I got to thinking, in light of hearing of all the Emmy acclaim that The Bear has been reveling in, was to compare the sheer volume of Emmy consideration and success The Bear had, compared to Atlanta. After all, the shows are very similar in the fact that they’re both on FX and considered psychological comedy-dramas, not to mentioned the aforementioned directing by Hiro Murai in both series.
It’s probably not popular, and something that I wouldn’t write out in a public forum, but I would go so far as to say that The Bear is basically the white version of Atlanta, in the way that the show is presented, the style of situational humor, and that both are listed as comedies, but although I do get some laughs from some of the scenarios they present, I usually go to bed thinking about the last episode and how fucking depressing they are.
Frankly the only differences is that one show takes place in Atlanta with black people revolving around a rap career, and the other show takes place in Chicago with mostly white people revolving around a restaurant business.
Needless to say, it was of no surprise to compare the apples and find out that The Bear blows Atlanta out of the water when it comes to Emmy nominations much less actual Emmy wins, and I feel like I’m kind of writing the quiet part out loud a little bit with the not-so subtle accusation of the overtly white-favoritism of The Bear compared to when Atlanta was tearing up FX in their four seasons.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying The Bear, and I still love Lip Gallagher, and I’m very enamored by the many of the other characters and actors in the show. I’m not trying to demean The Bear and say it’s not as good as Atlanta, not in the least bit But I just see a lot of parallel with Atlanta, and feel that without Atlanta, The Bear doesn’t even exist, and I’m more just irked by the obvious racial bias in heaping mountains of praise onto The Bear, when Atlanta was doing the same thing just a few years ago to way less perceptive results.