TRANSCRIPTION 🔗
WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.230 --> 00:00:03.250
So there's an event coming up in Baton Rouge tomorrow
2
00:00:04.469 --> 00:00:08.640
that talks about Anthony Bourdain and the author of Anthony
3
00:00:08.660 --> 00:00:12.660
Bourdain Filmmaker is on the hotline with us right now.
4
00:00:12.740 --> 00:00:16.420
He is Todd Kennedy, a professor over at Nichols State University.
5
00:00:16.460 --> 00:00:16.980
How are you, man?
6
00:00:17.980 --> 00:00:19.170
I'm doing great. How are you doing, Brian?
7
00:00:19.390 --> 00:00:22.230
Doing very well on this end. What made you want
8
00:00:22.250 --> 00:00:23.570
to write about Anthony Bourdain?
9
00:00:24.690 --> 00:00:26.969
Well, first of all, thanks for having me on. But no,
10
00:00:27.050 --> 00:00:31.089
I like Bourdain fine. I never imagined myself as a
11
00:00:31.410 --> 00:00:33.829
major fan. I'm a professor at Nichols State University in
12
00:00:33.890 --> 00:00:37.219
film in Thibodeau. And when he died, it floored me
13
00:00:37.350 --> 00:00:39.270
in ways I never kind of expected. I think like
14
00:00:39.310 --> 00:00:41.399
it did a lot of people, but it surprised me more.
15
00:00:41.420 --> 00:00:43.500
And I started working through why. I taught a class
16
00:00:43.640 --> 00:00:47.299
with viral people, USA Today, nationally. And I decided to
17
00:00:47.320 --> 00:00:48.600
try to write a book about it, try to figure
18
00:00:48.619 --> 00:00:50.820
out why I was so floored. And for me, it's
19
00:00:50.880 --> 00:00:52.939
really just how much he stands out as a filmmaker.
20
00:00:54.420 --> 00:00:56.439
Talk to me a little bit about the connections there,
21
00:00:56.479 --> 00:00:58.460
because there's a lot that goes into what Anthony Bourdain
22
00:00:58.479 --> 00:01:04.180
was all about, that Louisiana's culinary scene overall, it vibes with,
23
00:01:04.219 --> 00:01:06.700
it matches with. Absolutely.
24
00:01:06.739 --> 00:01:08.620
I mean, he did several shows in New Orleans. He did,
25
00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:11.060
I think, a really interesting show about Cajun Mardi Gras
26
00:01:11.469 --> 00:01:13.980
in southwest Louisiana very shortly before he died. He was
27
00:01:14.060 --> 00:01:16.849
clearly drawn here. I think he was drawn to unique
28
00:01:16.890 --> 00:01:18.930
cultures in general and cultures that kind of keep their
29
00:01:18.969 --> 00:01:23.219
identity in the face of globalization and homogenization. And South
30
00:01:23.239 --> 00:01:25.459
Louisiana has that, right? We have several distinct cultures that
31
00:01:25.480 --> 00:01:27.140
are distinct from each other that are down here that
32
00:01:27.180 --> 00:01:29.200
are unique. And I think he revived with that in
33
00:01:29.239 --> 00:01:29.760
a lot of ways.
34
00:01:31.939 --> 00:01:34.359
The verbiage he would use to describe food and people
35
00:01:34.700 --> 00:01:38.299
was borderline lyrical. He is a man who would put
36
00:01:38.359 --> 00:01:41.879
things into words that you wouldn't think those words would
37
00:01:41.920 --> 00:01:47.239
be used to describe like culture overall. It just, he
38
00:01:47.260 --> 00:01:49.359
had a different way of putting things. How are you
39
00:01:49.379 --> 00:01:51.299
able to capture that and put it in your book?
40
00:01:52.560 --> 00:01:55.459
Yeah, so I really look at the way he approaches everything,
41
00:01:55.500 --> 00:01:59.269
but I think especially food, but architecture, history, politics, everything
42
00:01:59.340 --> 00:02:02.930
kind of in conversation with each other. He's less interested
43
00:02:03.090 --> 00:02:05.670
in just how food tastes or where you should eat
44
00:02:05.730 --> 00:02:07.829
the way a lot of travel shows are. He's more
45
00:02:07.849 --> 00:02:10.789
interested in what about that culture, it's politics, it's history,
46
00:02:10.810 --> 00:02:13.569
it's economics. team together to put that food on your
47
00:02:13.620 --> 00:02:15.840
plate to make to make you know creole gumbo have
48
00:02:15.879 --> 00:02:18.960
tomato for instance or or agent gumbo to never have
49
00:02:18.979 --> 00:02:22.680
tomato um and and i i think that's central to
50
00:02:22.759 --> 00:02:24.870
everything he did and he brings it together in a
51
00:02:24.870 --> 00:02:26.650
way that only way it can happen in film where
52
00:02:26.750 --> 00:02:29.389
multiple texts are coming together to make one meaning and
53
00:02:29.430 --> 00:02:31.189
he saw the world that way and i think that's
54
00:02:31.229 --> 00:02:33.819
why he saw food differently from so many people how.
55
00:02:33.740 --> 00:02:35.659
Hard is it to tell a story about a storyteller
56
00:02:36.930 --> 00:02:37.250
I think.
57
00:02:37.169 --> 00:02:40.789
It's really tough, and I think it's particularly because he's
58
00:02:41.030 --> 00:02:42.969
a better writer than I'll ever be, but also just
59
00:02:43.009 --> 00:02:46.210
because I'm very much trying to talk about the way
60
00:02:46.229 --> 00:02:47.909
he told his story, which is not the way we
61
00:02:47.949 --> 00:02:50.810
normally talk about him. Food people talk about him for food.
62
00:02:51.150 --> 00:02:53.689
Travel people talk about him for travel. I'm really trying
63
00:02:53.710 --> 00:02:55.169
to look at how all that came together to how
64
00:02:55.229 --> 00:02:58.469
he made, as he called them, independent films every week.
65
00:02:59.150 --> 00:03:01.030
And I'm trying to do that really for a mainstream audience,
66
00:03:01.129 --> 00:03:03.050
which is not what a lot of academics try to do.
67
00:03:03.340 --> 00:03:04.969
So it was a challenge, but I'm glad I did it.
68
00:03:06.840 --> 00:03:10.580
The, um, the legacy of Anthony Bourdain might be bigger
69
00:03:10.620 --> 00:03:13.060
than Anthony Bourdain himself. I think that those that have
70
00:03:13.139 --> 00:03:15.490
kind of picked up on him either through social media
71
00:03:16.099 --> 00:03:18.569
or going back, I mean, whenever there's
Load full transcript
reruns and he's,
72
00:03:18.789 --> 00:03:22.530
he's on, um, his, just his very, like his connection
73
00:03:22.550 --> 00:03:25.449
to humanity along the way. Uh, do you see his
74
00:03:25.530 --> 00:03:28.250
legacy tapering or fading at any time in the near future?
75
00:03:29.550 --> 00:03:31.860
I see it changing. I think right now he's probably
76
00:03:31.900 --> 00:03:34.020
no more as the travel mean guy, like telling you
77
00:03:34.039 --> 00:03:36.280
where to go, which wasn't really what he was. Um,
78
00:03:37.330 --> 00:03:38.949
And I also think that for a lot of people
79
00:03:39.009 --> 00:03:41.650
that were really invested in him, the death is very
80
00:03:41.689 --> 00:03:43.650
traumatic for a lot of people. So I see his
81
00:03:43.789 --> 00:03:46.879
name recognition fading, but I'm not sure I've seen a
82
00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:49.860
food or travel show post-Bourdain that doesn't take kind of
83
00:03:49.919 --> 00:03:53.039
a documentary aesthetic. They're very different. They're not as successful,
84
00:03:53.060 --> 00:03:55.379
in my opinion, as Bourdain. They're not as complete. But
85
00:03:55.400 --> 00:03:57.919
it completely changed how we look at food and travel
86
00:03:57.960 --> 00:03:59.780
on TV in a way that I think isn't going
87
00:03:59.800 --> 00:04:00.800
to disappear anytime soon.
88
00:04:01.370 --> 00:04:03.810
Well, they've all got their different spin, but they're all
89
00:04:03.949 --> 00:04:07.280
trying to recreate in some form or fashion what he did.
90
00:04:07.819 --> 00:04:09.960
Most of them are like, hey, I'm a celebrity in
91
00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:14.449
this place. Watch me eat things. Oh, goodness gracious. I've
92
00:04:14.469 --> 00:04:16.649
had him on the Dadgum show. The bald guy who
93
00:04:16.689 --> 00:04:17.970
goes places and eats weird stuff.
94
00:04:18.009 --> 00:04:18.389
Stanley Tucci.
95
00:04:18.930 --> 00:04:20.009
No, not Stanley Tucci.
96
00:04:20.829 --> 00:04:22.689
Oh, Zimmerman, Zimmerman.
97
00:04:22.750 --> 00:04:27.759
Zimmerman, yeah. Yeah, Greg Zimmerman. He just goes weird places
98
00:04:27.819 --> 00:04:30.439
and eats weird things. I mean, they all have like
99
00:04:30.480 --> 00:04:34.560
a spinoff of what Bourdain did, but nothing touches like
100
00:04:34.680 --> 00:04:36.600
the true essence of what he was about.
101
00:04:37.540 --> 00:04:39.560
Absolutely. I think that's a great contrast. And they were
102
00:04:39.579 --> 00:04:41.279
friends in real life. They even did a show together
103
00:04:41.300 --> 00:04:43.879
at one point. Right. Zimmer goes to eat the weirdest
104
00:04:43.899 --> 00:04:45.980
thing he can eat wherever he can find it because
105
00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:48.000
it's weird. He wants you to go, oh, my God,
106
00:04:48.019 --> 00:04:51.839
I can't believe you're eating that. Bourdain was willing to
107
00:04:51.939 --> 00:04:54.680
eat weird things if they were culturally normal where he was.
108
00:04:54.740 --> 00:04:57.509
He wanted that food to open him to that culture,
109
00:04:57.850 --> 00:05:00.889
and he didn't think of it as exotic. Nowadays, rabbit
110
00:05:00.910 --> 00:05:03.629
is exotic. If you're from South Louisiana, 50 years ago,
111
00:05:03.689 --> 00:05:07.910
rabbit was a very common protein. Everything that one culture
112
00:05:07.949 --> 00:05:10.550
thinks of as exotic is normal somewhere else. And I
113
00:05:10.589 --> 00:05:12.730
think Bourdain was willing to eat a lot of weird
114
00:05:12.790 --> 00:05:16.339
foods because he wanted to explore another culture. Zimmer, I
115
00:05:16.379 --> 00:05:18.100
like the guy, but he goes out and he seeks
116
00:05:18.139 --> 00:05:19.959
weird food for the sake of weird food.
117
00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:26.670
Which, by the way, the first alligator season, recreational alligator
118
00:05:26.709 --> 00:05:30.189
season in Louisiana netted 1,817 alligators. You want to talk
119
00:05:30.209 --> 00:05:32.860
about something that might've been, you know, uh, considered weird,
120
00:05:32.879 --> 00:05:35.620
but about to be a lot more mainstream. Um, here
121
00:05:35.660 --> 00:05:37.060
we are. Here we are.
122
00:05:37.660 --> 00:05:40.300
Alligator. I just made an alligator sauce last week and
123
00:05:40.319 --> 00:05:42.060
I think it's one of the better proteins for sauce.
124
00:05:42.439 --> 00:05:45.079
I rolled through a blackened alligator not long ago and
125
00:05:45.100 --> 00:05:48.290
I've got plenty more in my freezer. Um, we've got
126
00:05:48.329 --> 00:05:50.750
just a couple minutes left with Todd Kennedy talking about
127
00:05:50.790 --> 00:05:55.620
his book on Anthony Bourdain, Anthony Bourdain filmmaker. Um, Who
128
00:05:55.660 --> 00:05:59.180
have you found since Anthony Bourdain that comes, I mean,
129
00:05:59.319 --> 00:06:02.399
obviously not replicating him, but comes the closest? Who would
130
00:06:02.420 --> 00:06:04.759
you recommend if you're into that genre?
131
00:06:05.879 --> 00:06:07.839
Everybody seems to be trying to borrow from him, and
132
00:06:07.879 --> 00:06:09.680
I think kind of failing in the way you suggest.
133
00:06:09.920 --> 00:06:11.680
And I don't think it quite succeeds. But I do
134
00:06:11.720 --> 00:06:15.160
think Stanley Tucci's show about Italy is pretty good, and
135
00:06:15.220 --> 00:06:17.879
he comes pretty close. But the problem there being he's
136
00:06:17.920 --> 00:06:21.040
just doing one country, right? And I think CNN's had
137
00:06:21.060 --> 00:06:23.240
some spinoffs with, I can't think of her name right now,
138
00:06:23.279 --> 00:06:26.439
but she's Mexican-American. And she did Mexico, and then she
139
00:06:26.459 --> 00:06:28.550
did France. And it's the same kind of thing. She's
140
00:06:28.569 --> 00:06:30.850
not quite as good as Tucci. But again, it's limited
141
00:06:30.870 --> 00:06:34.750
to individual nations. I have yet to see anybody who
142
00:06:34.790 --> 00:06:37.810
really takes the holistic approach he does and really tackles–
143
00:06:38.060 --> 00:06:40.600
he could make South Louisiana feel as foreign as he
144
00:06:40.660 --> 00:06:43.220
could Madagascar. And I thought that that was a really
145
00:06:43.259 --> 00:06:47.350
interesting way to approach documentary subject matter. and I haven't
146
00:06:47.389 --> 00:06:47.990
seen that since then.
147
00:06:48.490 --> 00:06:49.959
I'm going to throw one at you here. It's a
148
00:06:49.980 --> 00:06:52.689
little bit goofy. It's a funny guy that does it,
149
00:06:53.300 --> 00:06:56.759
but he really touches on community and people and bringing
150
00:06:56.800 --> 00:06:59.620
people to break bread together. Somebody feed Phil.
151
00:07:01.040 --> 00:07:03.959
Oh, yeah, you know, I almost mentioned him. I think
152
00:07:03.980 --> 00:07:05.899
he's another one that comes very close. It's really funny.
153
00:07:05.920 --> 00:07:09.540
He pitched his show to the production company and said,
154
00:07:09.759 --> 00:07:12.420
imagine that I'm Anthony Bourdain with all the exact same interests,
155
00:07:12.459 --> 00:07:15.160
but I'm scared of everything. And I thought that was
156
00:07:15.180 --> 00:07:17.180
a very, I thought that was just such a funny pitch.
157
00:07:17.360 --> 00:07:19.139
And yeah, no, he's certainly trying to fall on his
158
00:07:19.170 --> 00:07:19.990
touchdowns in a lot of ways.
159
00:07:20.110 --> 00:07:22.730
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a different vibe altogether, but
160
00:07:22.870 --> 00:07:25.029
at the same time, he's the guy's the creator of
161
00:07:25.089 --> 00:07:27.750
everybody loves Raymond. So it's going to be a completely
162
00:07:27.769 --> 00:07:30.430
different presentation, but it does bring it down to the
163
00:07:30.490 --> 00:07:33.829
human level. It does bring it down to telling people's stories.
164
00:07:34.389 --> 00:07:35.899
We got just a minute left. You've got an event
165
00:07:35.959 --> 00:07:37.839
coming up in town tomorrow, correct?
166
00:07:38.779 --> 00:07:40.550
Yes, I have an event in Baton Rouge tomorrow on
167
00:07:40.579 --> 00:07:43.290
Highland Road at TBR Books at Tea. It's from 4
168
00:07:43.290 --> 00:07:45.050
to 6. It's going to be an interview with an
169
00:07:45.149 --> 00:07:47.050
LSU professor. We're going to try to start that a
170
00:07:47.069 --> 00:07:48.990
little after 5. And if you're rolling late, it's really
171
00:07:49.009 --> 00:07:52.810
not a problem. Also, if you're in the larger audio area,
172
00:07:53.230 --> 00:07:57.610
there's an interview on Thursday at Big Mike's Barbecue in
173
00:07:57.629 --> 00:07:59.569
Thibodeau from 7 to 9. So if you want to
174
00:07:59.589 --> 00:08:01.310
come out and have some barbecue, it'll work there as well.
175
00:08:01.329 --> 00:08:03.709
But TBR and Books in Baton Rouge tomorrow.
176
00:08:04.550 --> 00:08:09.860
TBR Books. That is 7276 Highland Road, 4 to 6 p.m. tomorrow.
177
00:08:09.920 --> 00:08:13.750
He's Todd Kennedy. The book is called Anthony Bourdain Filmmaker. Todd,
178
00:08:13.839 --> 00:08:15.620
I appreciate a couple minutes this morning. Thank you so much.