'MasterChef': 'striptease' in exchange for ingredients

In Masterchef Celebrity Legends on Monday on La 1, they presented an unusual challenge in the final pastry test. The contestants had to prepare select desserts with an added difficulty: since the six contestants did not have all the products or appliances they needed to make the dish, they had to strip to get them. They had to play strip poker with cards that were used to exchange ingredients for the pieces of clothing they were wearing. If they did not do so, they had to settle for supermarket substitutes that did not guarantee the success of the recipe. Santiago Segura even took off his underpants, and covered himself only with his apron. Paz Vega, after giving up her shoes, socks, and trousers, also handed over her panties and bra. Nobody showed their naked body, but the idea of having to expose oneself to complete the test successfully was exploited. It is a scandal that a public television station tolerates the body becoming a bargaining chip. The privacy of the participants is violated for the benefit of the show, with rules that do not fit the dynamics of a gastronomic program.

One of the contestants, the singer Ruth Lorenzo, chose not to enter the game in a discreet way. She played her cards, but she never gave in to the exchange of clothes for ingredients. Not even with her shoes. Instead of wheat flour, she settled for rice flour and used apricots instead of peaches. The recipe did not work out. After the test, she was the eliminated contestant. “What a surprise!”, the contestant ironized. In the farewell video, with a smile she said: “I do not regret not having gotten either the flour or the peach. In the end, we have to be true to ourselves”. As a viewer, you are left wondering if the contestant who makes the least successful dish is eliminated or if they dismiss the participant who does not go along with the show they impose.

MasterChef is a contest that has used the military discipline and authoritarianism that have always surrounded the world of catering as a system to test not the competitiveness but the dignity of the participants. They humiliated a contestant who resigned from continuing with the toxic dynamics of the game; they pushed actress Verónica Forqué, who suffered from serious mental health problems, to the limit, and they tolerated the imitations that exuded homophobia from comedian Florentino Fernández. They also forced a contestant to cook horse meat even though she, before starting that program, had made it clear that she would not do so because she worked with these animals for therapeutic purposes. Beyond the rivalry typical of a television contest, there is the desire to test the personal dignity of the contestants. They explore how far they are willing to debase themselves, to subjugate themselves to orders. A program without principles that forces the participants to lose theirs.