Why the world needs Jeremy Clarkson's Top Gear
Top Gear's not just any other TV show is it? A show catering to the whims and fancies of a crazed but relatively tiny bunch called petrol-heads should have equally limited appeal. The kind of show that should only be relevant to folks who bore you to death the moment you mention the word 'car'. Yes, just like this author.
But reality is rather different. Top Gear is not only the most popular automotive show in the world, not only the most watched 'factual' show (long time fans will snigger. Top Gear American Special anyone?) or even the most famous British TV show. It is, Ladies and Gentlemen, the most watched TV show in the world with an estimated 750 million viewers across 170 countries. In case you are wondering, there are only 26 countries that don't watch Top Gear and I'm willing to bet it's because we haven't bothered checking if they do since no-one's heard of them. The countries of course;)
Top Gear the most watched TV show in the world? That's baffling. Are people more fond of cars than we think? Are those who call automobiles a waste of space and polluting monsters a very vocal minority? Do we all secretly have petrol running in our veins?
Not a chance! The fact is that Top Gear's mass appeal has little to do with cars. Possibly nothing actually. And has everything to do with the subject of this article. A certain Jeremy Clarkson
To the unacquainted observer, Mr. Clarkson would not seem very special. A self proclaimed middle-aged balding man with bad teeth and about as much practical sense as Mr. Bean (another British icon), clearly he is clearly not your average superstar. So is his success due to his encyclopaedic knowledge of all things four wheeled? Well, the man is well informed but then so are several other automotive Youtube channels who barely scrape a hundred thousand hits .On a good day. Ah, you say after some thought. Clarkson is funny as hell. I agree, we get closer to what I am poking at. But comedians are dime a dozen too, with Youtube stars again serving as ample reminder.
Is Top Gear famous because Clarkson courts controversy? Insulting Mexicans one day, Indians the next and of course the French at the slightest excuse. Cyclists and Lorry Drivers aren't exactly friends with him either. Well I won't deny that his verbal diarrhoea has grabbed a few headlines now and then. But to fixate on that, as the media seems to do, is completely missing the point.
Jeremy Clarkson's Top Gear is irresistible because it represents a dream world. Not just a car lover's wet dream (which it is of course) but a fantasy with universal appeal. A world where you do whatever the hell you want, say whatever comes to your mind, have shit loads of harmless fun without thought of propriety. Childhood basically.
Want to call your co-presenter short and insult his suspiciously white teeth? Go right ahead and do it and throw in an incredibly offensive WWII reference into the mix. Wonder whether a car or a train would be faster across Europe? Let's just have a race. And why not include an aeroplane while we are at it. Want to ride small scooters the length and breadth of Vietnam in silly outfits? Sure, that sounds hilarious and not dangerous at all. And later let's see if the scooters can swim.
But sadly real life is very different from Top Gear. In real life, if you make a comment with the slightest racist reference, even if it is clearly a joke and you are about as bigoted as Kofi Annan, pray to God you didn't do it on social media. For the armchair activists and keyboard warriors shall descend on you in the millions and shame you so bad that you wish you were lynched instead. Just ask Justine Sacco.
In real life, you don't play jokes like painting gay slogans in pink on your colleague's car as he drives through an intolerant part of the US Bible belt. And then afterwards clamp on a dead cow you found on the road on your roof.
In real life, you don't say what if I could turn my car into a tall house, complete with a oriental contemplation space. Or alternatively a five bedroom condo.
Top Gear is silly. Clarkson, May and Hammond are idiots. Happily clowning about, falling over and making fun of anything and everything under the sun including themselves. As Clarkson put it, 'three badly dressed middle aged men with the mental age of 9 year olds'.
But that's the whole point. The world does not need more seriousness. It does not need people to encumber themselves with a false sense of self-righteousness, pointing fingers and reporting transgressions as a trigger reflex. Getting offended at anything that references something we hold dear in a manner we don't see eye to eye with. If all the debate about free speech that has happened over the last year or so has taught us anything, it's that, we, humanity as a whole, could do with some chilling. Be less sensitive. Laugh a little.
So dear British Broadcasting Corporation, please do not take away the last bastion of the nonsensical. We all need to be a bit silly sometimes without fear of consequences. Say what comes to our mind every now and then without having to dab on multiple layers of political correctness. Learn to laugh at ourselves and get off of our high horses and pillars of propriety.
Let Jeremy Clarkson keep making bumbling fool of himself on the most watched TV show in the world so that we can all remember to take life a little less seriously.
But reality is rather different. Top Gear is not only the most popular automotive show in the world, not only the most watched 'factual' show (long time fans will snigger. Top Gear American Special anyone?) or even the most famous British TV show. It is, Ladies and Gentlemen, the most watched TV show in the world with an estimated 750 million viewers across 170 countries. In case you are wondering, there are only 26 countries that don't watch Top Gear and I'm willing to bet it's because we haven't bothered checking if they do since no-one's heard of them. The countries of course;)
Not a chance! The fact is that Top Gear's mass appeal has little to do with cars. Possibly nothing actually. And has everything to do with the subject of this article. A certain Jeremy Clarkson
To the unacquainted observer, Mr. Clarkson would not seem very special. A self proclaimed middle-aged balding man with bad teeth and about as much practical sense as Mr. Bean (another British icon), clearly he is clearly not your average superstar. So is his success due to his encyclopaedic knowledge of all things four wheeled? Well, the man is well informed but then so are several other automotive Youtube channels who barely scrape a hundred thousand hits .On a good day. Ah, you say after some thought. Clarkson is funny as hell. I agree, we get closer to what I am poking at. But comedians are dime a dozen too, with Youtube stars again serving as ample reminder.
Is Top Gear famous because Clarkson courts controversy? Insulting Mexicans one day, Indians the next and of course the French at the slightest excuse. Cyclists and Lorry Drivers aren't exactly friends with him either. Well I won't deny that his verbal diarrhoea has grabbed a few headlines now and then. But to fixate on that, as the media seems to do, is completely missing the point.
Jeremy Clarkson's Top Gear is irresistible because it represents a dream world. Not just a car lover's wet dream (which it is of course) but a fantasy with universal appeal. A world where you do whatever the hell you want, say whatever comes to your mind, have shit loads of harmless fun without thought of propriety. Childhood basically.
Want to call your co-presenter short and insult his suspiciously white teeth? Go right ahead and do it and throw in an incredibly offensive WWII reference into the mix. Wonder whether a car or a train would be faster across Europe? Let's just have a race. And why not include an aeroplane while we are at it. Want to ride small scooters the length and breadth of Vietnam in silly outfits? Sure, that sounds hilarious and not dangerous at all. And later let's see if the scooters can swim.
But sadly real life is very different from Top Gear. In real life, if you make a comment with the slightest racist reference, even if it is clearly a joke and you are about as bigoted as Kofi Annan, pray to God you didn't do it on social media. For the armchair activists and keyboard warriors shall descend on you in the millions and shame you so bad that you wish you were lynched instead. Just ask Justine Sacco.
In real life, you don't play jokes like painting gay slogans in pink on your colleague's car as he drives through an intolerant part of the US Bible belt. And then afterwards clamp on a dead cow you found on the road on your roof.
In real life, you don't say what if I could turn my car into a tall house, complete with a oriental contemplation space. Or alternatively a five bedroom condo.
Top Gear is silly. Clarkson, May and Hammond are idiots. Happily clowning about, falling over and making fun of anything and everything under the sun including themselves. As Clarkson put it, 'three badly dressed middle aged men with the mental age of 9 year olds'.
But that's the whole point. The world does not need more seriousness. It does not need people to encumber themselves with a false sense of self-righteousness, pointing fingers and reporting transgressions as a trigger reflex. Getting offended at anything that references something we hold dear in a manner we don't see eye to eye with. If all the debate about free speech that has happened over the last year or so has taught us anything, it's that, we, humanity as a whole, could do with some chilling. Be less sensitive. Laugh a little.
So dear British Broadcasting Corporation, please do not take away the last bastion of the nonsensical. We all need to be a bit silly sometimes without fear of consequences. Say what comes to our mind every now and then without having to dab on multiple layers of political correctness. Learn to laugh at ourselves and get off of our high horses and pillars of propriety.
Let Jeremy Clarkson keep making bumbling fool of himself on the most watched TV show in the world so that we can all remember to take life a little less seriously.
Comments
Post a Comment