A Meditation on Cupcakes

I've started watching a show called DC Cupcakes. The show is about the stresses that two sisters/co-owners of a bakery face on a day to day basis. Needless to say, it's a pretty vapid show. The two women complain about amazingly stupid things like whether or not to use sour cream or full fat cream in their recipes, in addition to having bitch-fests at one another over creative projects. My favorite character is their sweet chubby mother who hangs out in the back office answering phones and screwing up orders.

What's most interesting to me about the show is its focus on the two white sisters as opposed to the full fleet of men and women of color who slave away in the kitchen.

 Of course, the restaurant industry is notorious--whether one cares to know or not--for their racist, classist, not to mention sexist, treatment of it's backbone: people of color and immigrants (or "illegals" if you're so inclined, but that's another discussion on another day). Now, I probably just made a sweeping generalization, and no I've never worked in the restaurant industry (Taco Bell does not count, are you kidding?)--but I am perceptive enough to know that a show like "DC Cupcakes" and any other show like it is completely full of shit when it values the ability of a couple of broads to make a wedding dress out of cupcakes over workers rights and a living wage.

Here's just one of many things that pissed me off with tonight's episode:

1. They hire an Asian dude as a creative architect and sculptor for commissioned work that comes to the bakery. I'm pretty sure the guy knows what he's doing, yet the two sisters talk down to him and treat him like crap. In this episode, he is hired to create the base of the wedding dress that will be  made entirely of cupcakes decorated with cupcakes. (These hags got all fussy over nothing, the cupcakes were just decoration.)

The moment he arrives with his idea--to use foam pool noodles to create the dress--the two sisters deride his idea, calling it "the most ridiculous thing we've ever seen."

Ok, I'm pretty sure in these women's combined 80 years, they've seen things much more ridiculous than a couple of foam pool noodles. It's really not that serious. Seriously. Secondly, if ya'll were gonna bitch at him/not have faith in his creative vision then why the hell would you hire him? Thirdly, I'm pretty sure that this kid was the one who was going to lead the creation of the wedding dress, but he is only featured in the show for a collective 3 minutes, and the wedding dress is purported to be the idea of the two sisters. At the fashion show that the dress is supposed to be revealed at, these two women get all of the praise and nobody mentions that it was that Asian kid who came up with the idea to make the rough sketches a reality.

2. Who bakes all of those fucking cupcakes?

The army of brown people hidden in the back of the shop. They turn out hundreds and hundreds of cupcakes, and gallons of frosting, not to mention tons of fondant flowers, hearts, etc. But the camera will pan to the workforce only in passing. God forbid anyone see the real people who put together these lusciously over-priced treats. Furthermore, you won't see people of color manning the register or the general storefront area. Oh wait--there is one girl, one black chick. Token? Yeah. Token. Other than that, the rest are any combination of blue-eyed and blonde/brunette. Ok, so I'm sure I just made another problematic sweeping generalization because of course, race is more than just skin deep, and you cannot trust your eyes when looking at a person so who am I to judge who these people are when they very well could be multi/mixed/whatever.

Well, you know, I already made that problematic generalization and look at all the fucks I give:

... .... .. .

None.

Fuck DC Cupcakes.