Jump to content

Top Gear presenters in legal firing line over anti-Mexican comments


trousers

Recommended Posts

No I think not. The Aussies entered into the spirit of the event and' date=' to their credit, took it all in good humour. I fully expect them to get their retribution, Down Under, upon the famous three in due course. The prison bus as a taxi was funny though.[/quote']

 

Pity it didn't appear in their version of the show

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I find such racial stereotyping offensive, be it against mexicans, french, germans, even americans. The presenters are puerile and a lot of the show depends on schoolboy pranks. It's about time they grew up. There could be a good programme in there somewhere.

 

I completely disagree.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel very sorry for so many people offended by the childish pranks of the Top Gear crew

 

life must be so painful without laughter

 

I hope they also complain to the Beeb about the stereotypes of senile old men or paranoid delusional fools or stereo types of Fuzzy Wuzzies not liking it up them in the endless re-runs of Dad's Army, or the endless attacks on British Sexuality in the Carry On movies.

 

Have they burnt John Inman's photograph at the stake yet?

 

And why have the BBC not apologised for their portrayal of parental abuse in denying a CHild his right to a full and free life so prevalent in the horrific series Steptoe & Son.

 

I assume the East End of London are also marching on Parliament tonight to complain about being steretyped as Dodgy Geezers driving 3 wheeled cars.

 

I think all channels that allow depraved pictures of Animal cruelty when a Japanese fighting Fish is skewered by a pen should be taken off air, and the WWF/NSPCA should be demanding an apology from Leslie Nielsen for his entirely inappropriate Nice Beaver comment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel very sorry for so many people offended by the childish pranks of the Top Gear crew

 

life must be so painful without laughter

 

I hope they also complain to the Beeb about the stereotypes of senile old men or paranoid delusional fools or stereo types of Fuzzy Wuzzies not liking it up them in the endless re-runs of Dad's Army, or the endless attacks on British Sexuality in the Carry On movies.

 

Have they burnt John Inman's photograph at the stake yet?

 

And why have the BBC not apologised for their portrayal of parental abuse in denying a CHild his right to a full and free life so prevalent in the horrific series Steptoe & Son.

 

I assume the East End of London are also marching on Parliament tonight to complain about being steretyped as Dodgy Geezers driving 3 wheeled cars.

 

I think all channels that allow depraved pictures of Animal cruelty when a Japanese fighting Fish is skewered by a pen should be taken off air, and the WWF/NSPCA should be demanding an apology from Leslie Nielsen for his entirely inappropriate Nice Beaver comment.

 

Good luck with the Leslie Nielsen apology....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

it has now got to the stage that if you are easily offended, dont watch tv, listen to the radio or buy a newspaper. in fact, better if you stay in doors and never go out at all.

 

I am not offended by it in a PC way.I dont give a **** about that.Its the tiresome psuedo-controversial cliched ******** they come out with. Plus the presenters are complete cocks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am not offended by it in a PC way.I dont give a **** about that.Its the tiresome psuedo-controversial cliched ******** they come out with. Plus the presenters are complete cocks.

 

So why do you watch it then, find something more suited to your tastes and leave the programme to us peoples that can find the funny side of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Top Gear would be brilliant if they could just stop the stupid, scripted crap that comes out as nothing more than really bad slapstick comedy. Last weeks episode was a prime example. They should get rid of Hammond. No where near as funny as he thinks he is and needs a haircut. His lame attempts at humour are far more suited to the Jeremy Kyle/Loose women type viewers of daytime TV. It's a shame because some episodes have been really excellent. The Winter Olympics they did a few years ago was innovative, informing and at times funny. For those that can't remember, it's the one where they raced an Audi and a Volvo across a cross country skiing course (and had to do the shooting from lying in the back of their cars and launched a mini off a ski jump. The first USA road trip and the Botswana road trip were both brilliant too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So why do you watch it then, find something more suited to your tastes and leave the programme to us peoples that can find the funny side of it.

 

This. If you don't like it, don't watch it.

 

I don't like Eastenders, maybe I should write to the BBC and complain that I don't like it.

 

Jesus!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thought Steve Coogan wrote a very good piece on Top Gear - as somebody who has been on the show three times as a fan, he's not your standard tree-hugging herbivore but thinks it has lost the plot and become a sorry caricature of itself.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/feb/05/top-gear-offensive-steve-coogan?intcmp=239

 

just finished it, fantastic article :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

just finished it, fantastic article :)

 

Isn't it :)

 

And here's an interesting comment from Trevor Phillips, Head of the Equalities Commission:

 

Asked about the Top Gear row - which newspapers suggested could fall foul of the new Equality Act, Mr Phillips said: "I'm not going to get hot under the collar about schoolboy provocation which frankly is organised so that we can get into a ruck and sell more DVDs for Jeremy Clarkson - Jeremy is rich enough."

He said the comments were "juvenile, it's vulgar, it's unacceptable" - but that was for broadcasters and columnists to argue about, it was not a matter for the law.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thought Steve Coogan wrote a very good piece on Top Gear - as somebody who has been on the show three times as a fan, he's not your standard tree-hugging herbivore but thinks it has lost the plot and become a sorry caricature of itself.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/feb/05/top-gear-offensive-steve-coogan?intcmp=239

 

Great article, I think he's got it dead on there. Top Gear tries to be funny, when it just shouldn't. It should be an interesting fact based car programme, but with hints of humour thrown in. When I say interesting and fact based, I don't just mean reviews of new cars, customer performance reviews etc. Stuff like the North Pole expedition and driving cheap cars accross various continents is interesting. I just wish they'd do it as more of a social and technological experiment, as opposed to a set up for a half baked slapstick comedy.

 

Hammond can feck off too. Coogan is right, he's just a lame Clarkson wannabe and he's seldom funny.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great article, I think he's got it dead on there. Top Gear tries to be funny, when it just shouldn't. It should be an interesting fact based car programme, but with hints of humour thrown in. When I say interesting and fact based, I don't just mean reviews of new cars, customer performance reviews etc. Stuff like the North Pole expedition and driving cheap cars accross various continents is interesting. I just wish they'd do it as more of a social and technological experiment, as opposed to a set up for a half baked slapstick comedy.

 

Hammond can feck off too. Coogan is right, he's just a lame Clarkson wannabe and he's seldom funny.

 

He's spot on with regards to Hammond, he's become the worst presenter of the 3 now. He's just a complete tool and is the vainest and most self concious bloke on all TV right now. He's just "look at me, I'm acting like Jeremy Clarkson so I should be paid as much as him"

 

May's alright, Clarkson's just Clarkson - you either love him or hate him, but this part of the article hits the nail on the head with regards to Hammond.

 

Richard has his tongue so far down the back of Jeremy's trousers he could forge a career as the back end of a pantomime horse. His attempt to foster some Clarkson-like maverick status with his "edgy" humour is truly tragic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This country is getting worse.

 

I see a nurse who helped her colleagues to restain a male patient got sacked for making a remark

the drs were trying to give him and injection in his buttocks she was thrus astide of him and quipped its been a few months since I have been in this position with a man underneath me.

 

somone reported her and she was sacked

 

Bloody PC brigade

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This country is getting worse.

 

I see a nurse who helped her colleagues to restain a male patient got sacked for making a remark

the drs were trying to give him and injection in his buttocks she was thrus astide of him and quipped its been a few months since I have been in this position with a man underneath me.

 

somone reported her and she was sacked

 

Bloody PC brigade

 

"thrus astide" - What does this mean?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Isn't it :)

 

And here's an interesting comment from Trevor Phillips, Head of the Equalities Commission:

 

Asked about the Top Gear row - which newspapers suggested could fall foul of the new Equality Act, Mr Phillips said: "I'm not going to get hot under the collar about schoolboy provocation which frankly is organised so that we can get into a ruck and sell more DVDs for Jeremy Clarkson - Jeremy is rich enough."

He said the comments were "juvenile, it's vulgar, it's unacceptable" - but that was for broadcasters and columnists to argue about, it was not a matter for the law.

 

bang on, it's all about provocation, clarksons always been about that and most deepish thinking people just take his views for what they are.

 

It's just a shame Hammond, usually the foil for clarksons buffonish behaviour and May's boring Man in a shed stereotype, has started to be more offensive differing from his "oh god you cant say that" routine that has the viewers going "okay, it's not just topgear being offensive, it's just clarkson ranting"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Clarkson is just a self-fulfilling prophesy. 'You think I'm an outspoken bigot, so I'll pander to your thoughts and become even more of an outspoken bigot'. He's just become a boring caricature of himself.

 

Hammond has only one way of intoning when he's presenting - he does the same on that awful 'Total Wipeout' and I'm bored with him.

 

James May is OK when he's doing his science / tech / boys toys stuff. My claim to fame - he was my ex daughter-in-law's flat mate. Wowee I hear you cry!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just a couple of thoughts, not having seen any TG since the Tom Cruise Cameron Diaz episode.

 

Why are there not regular threads or comments on the other TV based Motoring Shows? I know Tiff Needal (sp?) still does one, but strangely it doesn't seem to be on any of the satellite channels over this way.

 

Clarkson's provocative attitude while being childish in relation to humour is actually a really important attribute of the show. Big Business is about image and about marketing & branding. While calling BMW drivers nasty things may upset some of the keyboard warriors on here protective of their shiny toys in the garage, he DOES blast right through the "old fashioned" sucking up to the manufacturers of the past.

 

Sure it is now dated, but then it's been the highest watched BBC TV show WORLD WIDE for some 5 or 6 years now. Helps keep the licence fee down by earning so much. (Oh forgot, you don't like people making money to subsidise your taxes)

 

OK burn the witch

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well as a guardian reading lefty i personally don't see a problem with what top gear said and for anyone to get offended by it is about as stupid as the Daily Mail getting "offended" by the Brass Eye paedophile special a few years back.

 

In fact to be honest with you i think that you should be able to take the **** out of what ever you want so long as there's no malevolence or hatred in the **** take (and in the case of TG there certainly wasn't). Now the bile and hatred that comes out of the mouth of people like Littlejohn - a frequent user of the PC line - on the other hand.....

 

What does bother me though is this whole PC thing, 9 times out of 10 it just seems to be right wingers complaining that they can't be racist, sexist or homophobic any more, and the rest of the time it's just used by people as a catch all for things they don't like in the public sphere (with little or no thought to what they're saying).

 

It's either the single best piece of propaganda/rhetoric invented in the last 30 years or a catch all term for people that want a cheap option out of a debate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Coogan is a legend and totally correct with his comments. Anyone who created Partridge has my utter respect anyway.

 

That'll be, largely, Stewart Lee and Richard Herring then. They wrote most of the early Partridge material for On The Hour.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This country is getting worse.

 

I see a nurse who helped her colleagues to restain a male patient got sacked for making a remark

the drs were trying to give him and injection in his buttocks she was thrus astide of him and quipped its been a few months since I have been in this position with a man underneath me.

 

somone reported her and she was sacked

 

Bloody PC brigade

 

Source? Or is the ol' two degrees of separation "my mate's brother said" kind of thing?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i say again, if you dont like it, dont watch it then! what they have / do clearly works for it to be as huge as it is.

 

Exactly. Same goes for child pornography, Klan lynchings and gangrape. If you don't like it, just ignore it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That'll be, largely, Stewart Lee and Richard Herring then. They wrote most of the early Partridge material for On The Hour.

 

Lee and Herring both concede that the Alan Partridge we now know is a creation of Coogan, Ianucci and others, notably Peter Baynham and the playwright Patrick Marber.

 

Lee and Herring basically wrote the "comedy sports reporter" bits on On The Hour, which isn't quite the entire Partridge character.

 

It was the source of a lot of friction between L&H and the rest of the OTH team for a long time with OTH CDs released without anything written by L&H on it. But all resolved now.

 

Stewart Lee's book is superb if you like him and hate Top Gear.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

More amazing than the idea of people being offended by Top Gear is the fact that anyone watches it at all.

 

Surely wriitng in to complain about it is a bit like confessing to watching hardcore pornography, or admitting that you own a train set.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

More amazing than the idea of people being offended by Top Gear is the fact that anyone watches it at all.

 

Surely wriitng in to complain about it is a bit like confessing to watching hardcore pornography, or admitting that you own a train set.

 

Deppo - I think that you are almost right. I still watch it, but am waning. I am not sure it is that heinous a crime to admit you watch it. The problem as I posted (and before I read Coogan) are those pathetic acolytes of Clarkson's. Coogan was somewhat more eloquent than me, but he is 100% correct about that little pip-squeak and about May. I have a friend who met Hammond and he said he was the biggest **** you could ever hope to meet. Arrogant, self-important and boring.

 

They need to fire Hammond and possibly May, and bring back Tiff who I think has a lot more class about him. It would change the format from the puerile state that it is in now, but so what? TG is the same old formulaic ******s. The Oz version of the Ashes episode was so much better. Maybe because we hadn't really seen the presenters before, maybe because they didn't have sycophantic sheep doing the presenting. JC makes a "joke" and the other two have to pounce on it and take it further with childish remarks to make themselves look funnier when they aren't.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good to see the COA have reversed the decision of the EAT . that was quick

 

I thought the EAT decision was perverse but now I have read the transript in its totality they were wrong

how could they have taken into account an irrelevant factor with its ‘large proportion of the population’ test.

Basically using LJ Greer comment re the man on the clapham omnibus in a case back in 1933

 

back then in was about common sense , used in todays environment , everyone on the bus is a senior PC marshal

 

I would like to be the nurse who reported her. I have an inkling his/her colleagues have now given him/her the cold shoulder

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Crikey, by the posts on this thread, I don't think I know of a programme where so many people who detest it, presumably actually watch it. Perhaps it's some kind of bizarre masochism? Very strange.

 

Some of us (well, me anyway) have to watch it because our other halves want to. He puts up with stuff I like to watch so vice versa.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As much as I do enjoy watching Top Gear, some of it really has got silly. I think the 3 of them should stick to doing silly specials (like the US trip, or the Vietnam trip etc) as they are genuinely funny, so long as you don't mind it being totally staged.

 

As for the main program, I agree, I'd probably get shot of Hammond, he really is annoying. I like May as a presenter, he's erudite and can be interesting. He also plays the "Captain Slow" act well. Clarkson is, as soneone said above, Clarkson. A Marmite-man, but I like him and find him funny. They probably should bring Tiff out more.

 

Mind you, the "old" Top Gear failed once Clarkson left and they tried various other presenters who were just completely dull. Quentin Wilson, the guy with the beard, the fat guy ... all ZZZZZ.

 

5th gear would be better if they got rid of the fat one. Has anyone ever seen the User Car Roadshow? Christ ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Whitey grandad for posting the link

Perhaps Mao cap might want to comment now

 

Ah OK. Apologies for my scepticism; my job requires wading through endless newspaper reports about MUSLIMS OFFENDED BY PICTURE OF PIG/NOW TIDDLIWINKS FALLS FOUL OF 'ELF AND SAFETY/THEY'VE BANNED CHRISTMAS etc. etc., few if any bear any resemblance to the truth, which is why I instantly doubt any sotry like this.

 

But she was cleared, right? Which surely means that justice was done and the "PC brigade" was told where to go, rather than indulged?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

last nights top gear seemed to have lost some of its sparkle. I think the crew have been told to cut down on their school person brnd of humour.

 

The Albanian bit was quite funny but they were at pains to avoid branding albanians as motor thiefs etc

 

must check what Car and peach mean in albanian. I have an idea

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Miserable , they will be banning chinese whispers next and the dark forces can be construed as racism by the PC brigade.

 

 

sad sad time

 

they'll make it illegal to call it Chinese whispers before they ban them. How do the poor Chinese feel? A few years ago someone apparently got upset about the phrase blackmail. Faux indignation is very boring. Getting upset about Jungle Drums is about as chippy and insecure that I have heard of in a long time. Oh what times we live in. It must be nice to be able to get upset by such minutia as it obviously means that these people's lives are so free of other worry, that they can afford to spend time on such spurious idiocies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have noticed over the last couple of seasons that everything seems far more staged, as if their acting is getting worse, especially when they do 'the news'.

 

Personally, I think some of the silly specials are genuinely laugh out loud funny. The one when they sail the resrvoir was a genius bit of writing, and I implore anyone to watch that without laughing. I feel the show really needs a kick up the @rse, or it will start to lose the charm of 3 normal blokes ****ing around in cars formula, instead trying to be overly funny.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some of us (well, me anyway) have to watch it because our other halves want to. He puts up with stuff I like to watch so vice versa.

 

I think you might have a human rights case here if you are being force to watch something against your will (or do you secretly like it but not wanting to let on)!

 

;-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...