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Clarkson has a bad day behind the wheel I love the BBC TV programme Top Gear but even great men have their weaknesses. Jeremy Clarkson takes the ‘Borat’ route by making fun of folk in America’s Deep South. How jolly original of you, Jeremy. Is not the whole “These guys from the South are thick, whisky-swilling in-breds with mullet haircuts and guns” a bit tired?
Oh well, even the good guys have their off-days (thanks to Andrew for the link). Clarkson should stick to driving insanely quick Bugattis and cheering us all up.
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I watched the segment on Top Gear. The funny thing is that I drove pretty much exactly the same route (except the other way around) about ten years ago. I didn’t have any trouble apart from the fact that the FL pan-handle is pretty deserted and my stomach was in the process of starting to digest itself before we spotted a Subway.
People were friendly, helpful, witty and I had a really nice time. The only problem was the Lilt-Lady proportioned black women (with incredible talons) who manned service stations and their totally impenetrable accents. Admittedly, they probably felt the same about my Geordie.
We were speaking the same language but communication was not happening. Fortunately, Mastercard solved that problem.
Those bridges along the gulf-coast are just awesome.
I love it when folks make fun of the South, in fact, I try to pitch in when I can. I always go with the theme: Bugs, Heat, Racism. Each time this occurs it becomes just a little bit less likely that the very people we Southerners do not want living here will move here. Believe me, we’re all crying a river that effete europeans and leftist twats of all stripes would never consider moving here.
Dag burn it! YogSothoth – don’t give the game away! 😉
Clarkson’s pretty equanimous in his treatment of anyone he holds in contempt and especially English Ford Focus-driving, caravan-towing stereotypes more than anything the USA has to offer.
If I was going to offer any sexual or social stereotype from Louisiana I might just point people at Britney Spears’ latest demonstration of how God endowed her (Google it – I have no wish to put people off their evening meals). Clarkson is very mild indeed compared to the anti-South commentary I’ve seen regarding those photos.
Despite what I previously said, as I’m currently listening to Tom Lehrer:
I Wanna Go Back to Dixie
But then I’m a huge fan of Tom Lehrer. If you haven’t already done it, get a CD.
If it wasn’t for Clarkson’s anti-American streak he’d have been sacked from the beeb long ago. Clarkson doesn’t like America so he and the rest of the Top Gear production team can provide us with the one programme in the £4bn-a-year organisation that is to the right of the Socialist Workers Party!
“I prefer the term Appalachian-American”
James G hankers for the south lands.
Please sign:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/
It’s 1.235 million and climbing. Either they listen or they end up dangling from carpentry. Just do it. Just show the fuckers.
Didn’t watch tonight’s Newsnight then? The Labour government’s mouthpieces showed exactly how much contempt they have for the public and especially for Blair’s petition project. Those petitions are now just a sign of how desperate Labour are to be ‘seen’ to want to listen, while the true intention is as far from that as can be.
My take on the Top Gear “holiday” is that they were expecting to debunk their own stereotypes, take the piss out of themselves, and get something they could show to their huge US audience… that the plan was the ordinary decent redneck would be mildly pissed-off, yet bemusedly tolerant of the funny foreigners.
That was certainly what I expected at the start of that segment. The consequence was educational. The world is a very scary place outside tube zone 1.
It wasn’t as well-planned or thought out as Borat, plainly. Or the pre-planned ‘naivety’ of Broomfield or Theroux. Gonzo is a subtle skill requiring prior understanding of the target.
Nick M, I already own the entire box CD set of Lehrer. “Ven ze rockets go up, who cares ver zey come down, zat’s not my departments,” says Werner von Braun”.
Genius.
Clarkson isn’t having a bad day, he’s just finally showing us what’s been thinking for years. This article from the Times last year illustrates that fact nicely.
For starters, everything in the paragraph is a lie:
“You need a permit to do everything in America. You even need a passport to buy a drink. But interestingly you don’t need one if you wish to rent some guns and some bullets. I needed a 50 cal (very big) machinegun. “No problem,” said the man at the shop. “But could you just sign this assuring us that the movie you’re making is not anti-Bush or anti-war.”
And I especially like this one:
“Today the average petrol pump attendant is capable, just, of turning on a pump when you prepay. But if you pay for two pumps to be turned on to fill two cars, you can, if you stare carefully, see wisps of smoke coming from her fat, useless, war losing, acne-scarred, gormless turnip face.”
How cute. I haven’t watched his show since I realized he was a rabid bigot, and, thankfully, the satallite channel I had been viewing it on cancelled it two months later. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
I saw the piece on You Tube. My thoughts can be summed up as ‘If you poke somebody in the eye with a sharp stick’ don’t be surprised if you get a reaction
I have to say that the new series of Top Gear has been mostly cack. I think someone is deliberately tossing a spanner in the works to see if they can finally kill it off. Just contrast the under £10k used supercar segment of a few years back with that clusterfuck of program on Sunday.
They could have saved themselves a lot of money, and got a very similar reaction, by driving through Belfast in cars painted with messages such as “Ian Paisley is gay!” Alternatively, how about driving through Glasgow bearing the message “Rangers suck?”
*wipes tear of laughter from my eye*
Ohhh that was funny!
Clarkson may be anti american (so? personal opinion and all that) but that segment set out to prove certain predudices and it did so with remarkable effect!
If the people of the south dont want to be thought of that way, maybe they should not act like sh*t kicking rednecks so predictably. That said, im from Birmingham (UK) so I know what its like to have the rest of the world thing you’re slow and stupid.
Gawd, what a bunch of tools. The idiots need to stick to talking about cars (and doing cool stuff with cars, like blowing them over with a 747) and quit with the political schtick. There are assholes in every country and the lady at the gas station saw right through the fact that they were just trying to be assholes. They earned their near-asswhipping.
Clarkson is probably just pissed because Top Gear didn’t get picked back up by Discovery Channel.
I loved the cowardly running away, while moaning to the camera: “I’m actually afriad now”. It’s great TV insult people and then drive away. Nothing like a little class warfare to obtain that frisson to reaffirm your middle class sense of superiority. Sadly they did not try this stunt at night. Listen to that quavering voice, sounds like a crier.
I am awaiting, no doubt, the follow up episode where they paint minis with the slogans ‘Jesus Saves’ and ‘Olmert forever’ and drive through Bradford. However, that would probably be illegal and dangerous.
Heck,
I’m beginning to wonder about how genuine those rednecks were: any good ole boy’ll tell you that NASCAR does suck, now that they’ve gone all yankee…
Yeah, James G. Maybe one day #17, our local boy from up the road a piece (here in Wisconsin) will learn how to drive well enough to put a car in the top ten. Of course, one driver finished ahead of him last year. And that other driver was from way down south. In Indiana.
If you want stock car racing to come back to the (little bit farther) south, bring back the prohibition. That will solve the regional good driver shortage. 🙂
Depends what part. About half the population would agree with you.
Actually, come to think of it, right now all of us would probably agree with you. Rangers were rumoured to be considering former goalkeeper Gordon Ramsay as their new manager. They’d heard he works wonders with mince.
As for Top Gear, I enjoyed it up to the “let’s poke the natives with sticks” part. Shame they had to spoil it.
Don’t believe a single word of it, it was all a complete set up from start to finish. What, they really turned up in Miami without a clue, and managed to buy cars for less than $1000? we didn’t actually see them do it did we? What, Clarkson just happened to find a dead cow by the roadside? How the fuck did he get it on to the roof of his car? What, the scary rednecks chased them out of town for having stupid slogans painted on their cars? Did they fuck. What, the locals will shoot us because we are behaving like naive dicks in rough neighbourhoods? Try doing the same thing in Moss Side and the same thing will happen.
The programme was lazy anti-American bullshit, and more to the point nothing much to do about cars, which is the only reason I watch it. If the bone idle bastards keep this up, then Hammond should have stayed in hospital, because the show is as good as dead.
Clarkson has the brains of a turnip. He once concluded that the whole Black Hawk Down incident was thanks to brave somali warlords “stopping americans from stealing their oil”
Midwesterner:
LOL!
🙂
But proves my point, I think those rednecks were ringers.
Well, as someone who learned stock car racing watching guys named Cale and Dale and Benny, and who knew that ‘The King’ was a driver not a singer, I feel for you.
As for the video, I think one of the production planning sessions must have begun with “Has anybody seen the Blair Witch Project? Well I got this idea for a segment…”
I seem to recall that last June you were all falling over yourselves to defend Jeremy Clarkson and castigate any heartles enough to criticise him and his Top Gear programme. Of course he’s a clown; he always was. Why the change of heart, boys. So fickle, or is it a convenient short collective memory?