Okay, so I’m officially done with My Kitchen Rules.
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I would have pulled the plug halfway through the first episode had I not planned to review it for this column, so I’d decided to watch a whole week's worth.
I’m not a historic MKR hater, I like watching it each year. Though to be honest I skip those stupid “lets cook for a whole street”-type of challenges in the middle.
What’s done me in is the abhorrent behaviour of brothers Josh and Austin. They came out all guns blazing in the first episodes, throwing out remarks with racist and homophobic connotations.
Josh hit social media to say “I’m not a racist” but, when you make derogatory remarks about a foreigner in a tacky impression of their accent, it’s hard to come to any other conclusion.
That’s like addressing an Asian person by slitting your eyes and talking in a disgraceful “ching-chong-Chinaman” voice.
The brothers go out of their way to say nasty things to others, all under the claim of “hey, I’m just telling it like it is” (apparently because Josh foolishly thinks antagonising the people who will be scoring his cooking is a winning strategy).
That’s always the coward’s justification for being rude, because they don’t accept it when its turned around and the insults are hurled their way.
When that happens, their love of "honesty” suddenly goes missing and they start looking upset. Well, Josh does, Austin seems clueless as to what’s going on around him.
Speaking of Josh, despite being a kid sitting at the adults’ table, Josh has decided that he’s the smartest person in the room and is so totally manipulating everyone to his own advantage.
Problem is, he's not very clever at all and everyone else at the table can easily see what he’s trying to do – and see that it’s not going to work.
I found the brothers so reprehensible that it stopped my enjoyment of the show. I didn’t wish for their comeuppance and wasn’t looking forward to seeing them fail when it was their turn to cook.
I just wanted them gone. And the only way to do that was to stop watching.
So, congrats to MKR for casting a team so odious I was driven to turn off the show.