Part of the joy of watching Top Gear, the BBC's outrageous car program whose new season starts this weekend, is that it's a droll, politically incorrect antidote to the stifling sanctimoniousness of rules-mad Labour apparatchiks. The Guardian, though reliably left-wing, recognizes that. Or, in this profile, at least the paper doesn't try to gloss over it. Says James May, one of the three hosts:
"We don't like being told by other people how we should live and how we should think."
As for the underdeveloped environmental sensitivity of his colleague Jeremy Clarkson,
During filming for Top Gear, it was claimed he damaged a peat bog in Scotland. On another occasion, the BBC was forced to apologise after he rammed a pick-up into a chestnut tree to test the vehicle's strength. He rails against political correctness and health and safety regulations, and earlier this summer was accused of calling Gordon Brown "a cunt" in unbroadcast comments to his Top Gear audience, whom he has also referred to as "oafs". He has been condemned by chief constables for glamorising speeding, has joked about truck drivers murdering prostitutes, and said a woman presenter would be "a disaster" on Top Gear.
He sounds like a sexist monster and a bully, but then Clarkson's reactionary opinions are probably the calculated wind-ups of a professional stirrer.
Precisely.
Undaunted by the criticism of reflexive nannies and professional sourpusses, the show's stars tear up the world's asphalt in clunkers and supercars alike, with so much good cheer and studied carelessness and schoolboy charm as to constitute a Jackass for doughy white men and the women who love them.
Another joy of the program is that it results in enraged comments by Guardian readers, such as this one by "jonnyhaw":
"I don't like cars and their effect on our lives and our cities, so obviously can't stand Top Gear. When is the BBC going to produce an hour-long, primetime programme for public transport users?"
When indeed. Really, that's almost as funny as the show itself.
Not yet familiar with the program? Right this way.
Or enjoy the Top Gear team doing the American South in sub-$1,000 jalopes, pranking each other almost to the point of death-by-angry-mob:
"When is the BBC going to produce an hour-long, primetime programme for public transport users?"
But wait Roj! That DOES have legs! Ass-uming the same cheeky attitude as Jeremy Clarkson; The scene, Jeremy skulking in trains, buses with a shoe-cam upskirting unsuspecting women or James, letting loose surreptitious egg-gas farts on a station and standing there all innocent looking, awaiting reactions...hmmm, maybe just a one off episode, it might get tired quickly? But at least it would still be non-PC!
Posted by: GreginOz | Sunday, November 15, 2009 at 11:02 PM