‘The Heat’ doc examines gender barriers for top female chefs
In making a documentary about top female chefs, Toronto filmmaker Maya Gallus noticed an ironic theme emerge.
“Women were fighting for years to get out of the kitchen and now women are fighting to get their rightful place back in the kitchen,” she said in an interview.
“The Heat: A Kitchen (R)evolution,” which opened the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on Thursday, details the gender barriers women have faced in climbing the ranks of the professional culinary world.
Interviewees include chef Anne-sophie Pic, the only woman in France to have three Michelin stars for culinary excellence.
Other chefs in the doc include Victoria Blamey and Anita Lo of New York, Charlotte Langley of Toronto, and Angela Hartnett of London.
They talk about gender disparity in the culinary world, noting the media doesn’t celebrate female chefs the way they do men. They also say female chefs don’t get the same financial backing that men do.
Some also speak to the sexual harassment and assault women chefs face, and a “fratboy culture” that exists in kitchens.
“I think the timing of the film is really crucial right now and that women are willing to speak out in ways that even a few years ago they might have been less inclined to do so,” said Gallus, who co-founded Red Queen Productions and won a Gemini Award for directing the 2007 doc “Girl Inside.”
“Certainly we’re hearing a lot of stories about abuse and harassment in many industries, and of course the culinary industry is not immune from that.”
Gallus shot “The Heat” over a year and considers it a companion piece of sorts to her 2010 film, “Dish-women, Waitressing & the Art of Service.”
A former waitress herself, Gallus has long been fascinated by women working in the kitchen but had to do “some coaxing, in some cases” in order to get them to talk.
“I find that many women who are successful in a male-dominated profession frequently put their heads down and focus on the work and don’t really want to focus on all of the obstacles and any negativity that may be around them,” she said.
“And that, truthfully, is a survival tactic.”
Gallus concluded that women have been shut out of reaching top status in professional kitchens largely due to money.
“When a profession becomes a highly respected profession and when there’s money to be made, it tends to be dominated by men at the top, and for obvious reasons, historically,” she said.
“So even though domestically women are associated with cooking and food and nurturing, as soon as it became celebrated as a profession, it became not only male-dominated, it became macho.
“And it took on a whole other bad-boy aspect to it, which is now being critiqued and questioned and a new generation of people coming up in the restaurant world are saying, ‘This is not OK.”’
Indeed, sexism and sexual harassment in the culinary world have been making headlines lately, with some high-profile male chefs being accused.
Gallus feels it’s all leading to a shift in kitchen culture.
“I think is changing partly because there are just more women populating restaurant kitchens,” she said.
“It’s not there yet. As with many industries, including the film industry, women have trouble getting financing for the big restaurants. Women tend to run the smaller restaurants, the local mom and pop or the so-called ‘ethnic’ restaurant. In terms of fine dining, there are very few women who really can reach that pinnacle.”