If you were to follow the same argument, you could also argue that the continued popularity of Top Gear is an equally interesting statement by society about it's stance on (persistent) racial slurs.
I don't think racial slurs are Top Gear's primary appeal. They're just slipped in by the hosts (and clearly with the approval of the production team in some circumstances) as a (quite sinister) wink-and-nod to appear chummy with viewers who "think like them". It validates their behaviour and views.
It's a persistent pattern. Whether that should affect what he's allowed to publish is another matter, but it's probably wrong to say he isn't overtly racist.
He makes comments about every group, I've seen no persistent bias against any group (aside from politicians who make it less fun to drive).
And he certainly doesn't exclude himself/his own type, as there's something negative about the UK practically 30 seconds.
As for "it's just a joke", yes, it is. Pretty much every successful comedian uses ethnicity/race sometimes. Bad ones rely on it entirely (Ex: Carlos Mencia). But as something that should be off limits for humor? No.
Any instances of Clarkson making offensive comments about white people?
Also, when all the presenters are white, it's a little hard to take this "we make fun of everyone" line seriously. If a white British person makes fun of white British people, that's obviously a different dynamic to a white British person making fun of people lower down the social pecking order.
Oh, and then outside the show, there's the times Clarkson has explicitly advocated racism:
> Any instances of Clarkson making offensive comments about white people?
The whole mainstream media makes offensive comments about white people, how they are responsible for slavery, how they are all racists, how they are incompetent husbands, aloof fathers, conspiracy theorists, the list goes on.
But god forbid white people are allowed to watch another white guy crack a few jokes at other races.
> that's obviously a different dynamic to a white British person making fun of people lower down the social pecking order.
That's racist. Wow. True racism right here. Excuse me? So you really think there are groups of people, I assume ethnic groups, who are "lower down the social pecking order"? That is unadultered racism - the belief that another ethnic group is inferior to your ethnic group in anyway.
I have no problem with any word being used by any comedian, but if they ever said "I think black people are lower down in the social pecking order" then that would be a truly unambiguous racist statement.
You should watch the show before you speak about it. They make fun of each other, they make fun of Americans, they make fun of the Welsh, they make fun of people from the North, they make fun of the French, the Germans, Mexicans, Africans, Koreans and many more. Literally everyone. The show was about them pushing limits. They were cast as hyperbole factories. They were caricatures of middle-aged white English guys.
As I said, when you have a group consisting exclusively of middle-aged white English guys, then making fun of "everyone" is not really as equitable as you're making out. Punching down isn't the same thing as poking fun at yourself. If me and my white friends get together and tell some racist jokes about black people followed by some racist jokes about white people to "balance it out", that's not ok.
He makes fun of himself, his co-presenters and basically everything about the UK and British people constantly (especially when it comes to manufacturing).
For that matter, they've done entire episodes about how terrible the UK is at things, like the British Leyland cheap car challenge.
If he made those comments about anything else, someone would call them offensive. I find that double standard and the concept that you can't make jokes about anything far more concerning than the content of his "controversies" aside from the punching.
I don't see how that's comparable. He's used racist slurs against various non-white ethnic groups and explicitly advocated for discrimination against certain (non-white) ethnic groups. If he's done the same with regard to white people, I'd be interested to hear about it.
Yes, I have often heard white Europeans making fun of other white Europeans. The idea that it's ok to tell racist jokes as long as you also poke fun at more privileged groups of people simply makes no sense. That being said, Clarkson's xenophobia is hardly any more defensible than his racism.
First you say you are interested if he makes fun of white people, and when it is pointed out that he makes fun of white people, it is not interesting because then he is just making fun of "privileged" groups.
Clarkson makes fun of everyone, himself more than anyone else (call that privilege). That is why he is funny.
You don't seem to understand why the two cases aren't comparable. There's a huge difference between making fun of a group that you belong to and making fun of other groups. You can't excuse racism just by making a few digs at yourself.
>and when it is pointed out that he makes fun of white people
He doesn't make fun of white people as such. Making fun of Germans for being German is not the same as making fun of white people for being white.
The more I read from this guy, the more I like him.
It's sort of a fine balance - we can't have everybody on tv making fun of gypsies and mexicans. On the other hand it feels too sterile when nobody can say what 90% of the people think.
I nominally agree that I don't think this says much about Amazon, and that Clarkson probably isn't an out and out bigot.
His does have a fairly significant track record of controversy that makes it easy to paint him as such though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Clarkson#Controversy
One thing people have to remember about Clarkson is that he grew up in an entirely different generation. It's not an excuse, but it's plausible that the man simply messed up. In the unfortunate era he was brought up in, the word wasn't tigger.
EDIT: Also, not saying he's not a total arse sometimes. Just saying that I think in this particular scenario he got kind of shafted.
Clarkson made an allusion to the racism in the original rhyme by mumbling something vague, and then got punished by people who didn't distinguish the difference between referring to racism and actual racism.
Most other people don't spend hours and hours in front of camera trying to come up with material that can be brought together to a funny show with lots of jokes.
How many comedians do you know that never make any offensive jokes? Gender, race, handicaps/health etc are very common themes in almost every comedy program I know. I won't judge on the quality of specific jokes and where exactly a bad joke ends and a racial slur begins, but in general it is an accepted part of comedy.
I always thought in HN land you got a certain amount of leeway to complain about how X needed to be better and it was OK. But then at some point -- because we recognize how the world actually works -- if you see that X can be better and nobody else can, the onus is on you to actually do X better and prove it.
In the business world this is a startup.
In comedy, I guess that means being a comedian.
From what I can tell it's about the same as startup-land, there's a power law distribution where a few comedians get really wealthy, a bunch of people get by, and tons of folks fail outright.
Given the very long road that folks travel to become widely known and "successful" I'd guess that the jokes they tell are in some way reflective of society's preferences.
But hey if you know better than all these folks, have at it!
Well, okay. Let's change my question to "Is it fine for me to give my money to comedians I find funny, and not to comedians I don't find funny? And to then tell those comedians why I'm chosing not to buy their product?"
Absolutely vote with your wallet! It's one of the great features of capitalism that few disparage. Avail yourself of the opportunity.
I get the whole "I want to tell people why I'm not buying their product" mentality and whatnot. I feel the same way a lot of times. But complaining in general isn't going to get you anywhere and even if this HN thread totally blows up, it's not going to sway anyone at Amazon or Clarkson, Hammond or May. It'll literally never be on their radar.
So at this point you're complaining for the sake of complaining. Fair enough! I do it all the time too.
But you're not really telling them anything, since they'll never see it.
Maybe it's a statement on how they feel of everything needing to be politically correct. The shows popularity is probably also an indication on how most people feel about needing to be politically correct.
The recent github 'retard' ban is a nice example of forced political correctness.
Precisely. Why must every single show on Earth be politically correct and socially sanitized lest it offends anyone?
You don't like Clarkson, turn the TV off. It's not hard at all. But to go on and on about a show you dislike, is to be a serf to the zeitgeist of Political Correctness and Cultural Marxism that has been progressively censoring so many aspects of our life, culture and history.
This is being done on purpose, but most of the public will never see it or admit it if they see it because most people are programmed to follow the leader(ship) whatever they do.
For instance, the Confederate Flag was banned, but the sickle and hammer flag which killed upwards of 100 Million people isn't. So you can tell who is doing the censoring.
I must assume you consider it a non-issue because you didn't see a clip of, e.g., the "slope" incident, which is unmistakeably a racial reference. The shot in question makes no sense otherwise. Allowing "clever" references like this continue to signal that it's A-OK to use these terms casually.
It is not a non-issue. And I suggest you would not consider it a non-issue if it were the word "nigger".
I did not see it - but I read the Wiki article about his controversies.
All of them appear to be no more than play on words, there is never any ill will or desire to humiliate anybody.
The reason these particular jokes get noticed is because some people are obsessed with crying foul when certain groups are offended. He could make 10 jokes about the English/Scotts/Welsh and nobody would bat an eyelash.
So a play on words with the word "nigger" would be ok by you?
"...never any ill will or desire to humiliate anybody" - this is the sort of very flimsy faux-naivity that I come to expect in these debates - especially on technical forums with a very literal-thinking crowd.
"He could make 10 jokes about the English/Scotts/Welsh and nobody would bat an eyelash."
Context. You cannot ignore context as much as you try. In the modern day, the English, Scots and Welsh are not typically discriminated against for their racial "traits". Certainly not in any serious way.
The word nigger still has pretty heavy connotations in our society so I don't think it would be ok. As you said yourself - context matters.
Likewise, I'm not aware of asians being discriminated in our modern day. That's really the point - I don't have a problem with Clarkson's play on words because to me it's a meaningless sound. And the fact that an asian guy might be called slope/slopes (?) and that's a feature of the bridge is a pun - hence it's funny.
They probably make an average of one joke/pun for 30 seconds of the show. Some of them may be unfunny or crude - but unless you can actually demonstrate ill will (simply alluding to the naivette of your interlocutors isn't sufficient) - it's ok.
Any word he wants to use is OK. He's on TV, he's an artist, it's his art. You don't get to decide which strokes he can make or which brushes he can use or which words he can paint an idea with.
If you don't like a car show with a racist guy, make a better car show and don't be a racist.
But understand, if you want to convince people of a position, you can only do so by being an example to them and hoping to change their mind; you cannot censor, ban, fine, imprison, commit violence against those you disagree with, and then expect people to convert to your opinion.
For the record, I care not an iota about a show about cars made by a comedian. I do appreciate Clarkson when he is on Quite Interesting.
Honestly, what do you think you are accomplishing by sitting and criticizing someone that is out in the world doing something? Either do it better or shut up.
Just regarding that "context": Clarkson never used the word "nigger" in show, let alone made a play with it. But depending on context, I think it might be okay.
However, publicly calling Gordon Brown a "one-eyed Scottish idiot" certainly was intentionally offensive, which you can conclude from the Royal National Institute of Blind People being offended by the comparison, the Scots being offended by the comparison, and the association of idiots probably being somewhere trying to prepare a statement about being offended. Guilty as charged.
On the flip side, making a big deal out of an attempt at comedy shows the world that these words bother you, which gives malicious people more ammunition to attack you with.
Did you know the word idiot used to refer to someone with a mental handicap? They stopped using it because it was being used as an insult and was no longer politically correct. The new politically correct term was "retard", which of course became an insult as well, so the term had to be changed again. And these days, no one would cover their child's ears if someone said the word "idiot" on television.
Either everything can be made fun of or nothing can. Where do we draw the line? Family Guy makes jokes about Catholics vs Protestants, but South Park gets censored when talking about Muhammed. Chris Rock can say "nigger" in his comedy, but no one else can? Gabriel Iglesias is "fluffy". Can I, a city-dweller, make jokes about rednecks like Jeff Foxworthy?
No one watches Top Gear and says "oh hey it must be okay to commit violent acts against people who are different than me". At worst, it's a tasteless joke that some might find funny and others might roll their eyes at. Or maybe people like Clarkson are removing the power of the word much in the same way words like "idiot" or "lame" are no longer pejoratives against the handicapped.
It's a shame they went to Amazon instead of Netflix since Amazon's video apps universally suck in comparison (I'm especially looking at the Xbox 360 and Xbox One Amazon apps). Heck, you can't even watch Amazon Prime Video on your Android device without compromising the security of the device and enabling untrusted app installs.
Pretty much the only acceptable way I've found to watch is via their Fire TV Stick. I don't understand why their apps for other platforms is so bad; they are literally the last place I look before I give up.
That's my guess. Especially since they hold Amazon Prime Video hostage from Android users - even though we've already paid for it - until you install the Amazon App Store on your device and give it every permission under the sun.
Yep. I live in the UK, have a Prime subscription, yet I'm probably just going to get it off the Pirate Bay because their software is such an ass to use.
Seems to be the case all around - I have a "smart" TV and the Amazon video app is astonishingly bad. As a big fan Top Gear, I was really hoping the gang would end up on Netflix.
As much as I enjoy watching those three mess around on TV, I'm not giving tax-dodging Amazon £80 (~$125) a year for the privilege. Prime seems to have a poor UI (and from what I've read has an inferior service in the UK in terms of apps and content). I wouldn't benefit from the next day delivery because I don't order enough from them.
Their (Clarkson, Hammond, May) audience will decrease wherever they ended up, but Amazon is probably their worst choice in that regard (compared to Netflix or even Sky). All I can assume is a lot of money was given to them, which suggests Amazon is aggressively expanding into Europe (where C, H, M are popular).
Amazon might be looking to expand Prime Video into Australia as well, where Clarkson, Hammond & May have just finished touring Australia with their live arena show. They're so popular, they could sell tickets at $89 - $399 each:
Are they doing anything illegal in their "tax-dodging"? If not, why would they ever choose to pay more? I've never understood the point of vilifying companies for using "loopholes" to pay less taxes. If there was a loophole that allowed me to pay less income tax, I would absolutely take advantage of it. Why give away more of my money than I have to? If you want them to pay more, close the loophole that allows them to pay less.
The tactics that some companies (I don't know about Amazon) use verge on abusive. I remember hearing about Vodafone being subject to a tax investigation regarding billions they had in accounts in Luxembourg. They hired key people in the investigation to hamper progress. E.g.
Almost certainly it was illegal, yes, certainly highly dubious process which at one point threatened to being down the European Commission president. The European Commission is investigating eg see [1] and Amazon have stopped doing it. Oh and Amazon's head of tax was Luxembourg Honorary Consul to the Seattle are, hum.
"Almost certainly" apparently means that no one was able to conclude that it was illegal. If crimes had been committed, they would have been prosecuted, but there were no grounds. However, companies may still decide to change the way they do things, e.g. for PR reasons.
No, "almost certainly" means the preliminary ruling found against Amazon/Luxembourg [1] but the final ruling has not taken place yet. It is not a matter of prosecution, they will have to pay back the money to Luxembourg.
Actually, the ruling is against Luxembourg. Not against Amazon.
I just wish EU courts were even remotely as efficient in acting against states and enforcing the EU treaties in cases where the state is collecting tax more aggressively than what EU rules would allow.
I've fought this battle for a long time. It seems for most it's just a way to speak of their grievances against a company they don't like. It's just pointing their finger at the company saying they obviously are an evil corporation because they choose to take advantage of stupidly written tax laws that are totally legal yet I choose to define them as something only bad people do. Despite the fact they likely use similar "loopholes" in their own taxes and justify it in some way.
Imagine an English person running an English business (eg, a tea shop with a single store and no online presence) in England. They want to advertise to people so they contact Google's English ad division and buy ads to be shown in England. They pay using English money, from their English bank account to Google's English bank account.
Somehow this doesn't count for English tax, somehow it's Irish tax.
If it's covered by law and you qualify, you most certainly can use similar loopholes. That's the thing, many times what people call "loopholes" are actually badly written tax laws. Sometimes it is by mistake, sometimes it is intentional for potentially nefarious reasons. But if you qualify, you can do it.
Otherwise, there are similar "loopholes" in complex tax codes. You just need to find them.
You're treating it as binary - compliant or not compliant. But laws are tested in court. These companies claim to be compliant, but we don't know because UK tax authorities avoid court for all bit the most flamboyant evaders. No case law means we don't know if they're complying with law or not.
Tax systems are complex. There are deliberate loopholes - a company can register for VAT, for example - and there are unintended loopholes.
Amazon, Google, Starbucks etc engage in very aggressive tax planning. They say it's all legal - they're not trying to evade tax, just avoid it. But because their schemes are so aggressive it might be illegal. We don't really know because the cases would have to go to court. Sometimes tax authorities will investigate, and will persuade a company that their aggressive tax plannin was unlawful, and then get some repayment of the missing tax. This usually means that the company avoids the court case and doesn't have to repay the total tax they avoided.
No-one expects them to pay all their tax burden. People in the UK recognise that tax planning is a useful important activity.
What we don't like is companies taking the piss.
And as to why they should pay tax: they get the benefits from society that flow from taxes - educated workforce, police, road infrastructure, healthcare, etc etc. They should pay their share.
Finally these companies will sometimes mention other taxes. So they'll talk about VAT or PAYE. But VAT is a tax the customer pays. The company collects it, but it's collected from the customer. And PAYE is (apart from the employer's contribution) a tax that the employee pays, again collected by the company. It's a scumbag move to reduce your tax payments to the minimum you can and then talk about the tax other people pay as if it's tax you pay.
It woudo be interesting to find out how many production staff they poach.
Perhaps they used a lot lf contract staff anyway and won't be a big deal.
Either way, with Andy Wilman in charge and undoubtedly a bigger budget, I would say it will improve, if anything.
That said, I doubt it will be a clone of TG. They probably have had some ideas they have wanted to try, but couldn't because of the BBC and because they wouldn't be 'top gear'.
While the lads are great, the cinematography, writing, crazy ideas (eg attack-helicopter race) - and actually making them happen - are what make the show IMHO. The hosts surely contribute a lot of the writing and ideas, though I don't know how much, but much less execution.
I understand the show runner also left with them.
Unfortunately, they can't copy the format of TG due to copyright (eg game-show formats are protected copyright subject matter). It's possible they'll come up with something even better, but more likely to be like Titanfall after CoD.
It'll be interesting to see how Amazon respond to the inevitable complaints when Clarkson does a "Clarkson". The BBC used to fall over themselves to apologise and give him another final warning - you'd have to assume this was discussed by both parties. Personally I hope Amazon just stay out of their way and let them get on with it.
I don't know, they stopped selling the confederate flag stuff, but they used to be renowned for selling books regardless of controversy of the content. So it could fall down either way.
Both incidents the BBC have him for he was coerced into situations (singing a song he didn't want to sing because he only knew the racist version from when he grew up and didn't want to say the word, then being kept up for 24 hours, and made to drink profusely as part of a show stunt) he wasn't comfortable with. They were looking for reasons to cancel such a popular show because it had such a disparate budget from the rest of their shows and that was upsetting parties within the BBC.
> Both incidents the BBC have him for he was coerced into situations
There are many more than two incidents!
> They were looking for reasons to cancel such a popular show because it had such a disparate budget from the rest of their shows and that was upsetting parties within the BBC.
Surely they could have just pointed to the money it made back? "We give it huge budget because it earns more money for us than anything else we produce".
The BBC has a history of poor management of talent. See eg Chris Evans getting sacked from the Breakfast Show after making demands.
The scripts are written by the cast & the script editor (Richard Porter).
> made to drink profusely as part of a show stunt
It's well known that Clarkson is a fan of the booze to the point where you could reasonably categorise him as a functioning alcoholic. He recently publicly announced after the death of Charlie Kennedy that he was giving up. So I'm pretty sure that no-one was making him drink..
He likes to paint himself as the last bastion of free speech, innocent victim of the facist Big Brother Corporation, and a lot of other things inbetween; but the reality is that he's just that embarrassing Uncle who you have fond memories of when he used to let you smoke his cigarettes and drive his car around the block when you were 10, but now you're all grown up, going through your contacts, deciding who to invite to your wedding; you just skip past because you just know he'd end up shitting in the font and asking anyone with a tan what weddings are like where they're from.
He assaulted a co-worker. I'm sorry but he only has himself to blame.
I genuinely don't understand why people think his sacking was part of some grand BBC conspiracy. He was good for ratings, they paid him well, it was in both parties' interests to keep him around as long as possible. Remember we're talking about the most popular TV show in the world here.
Unfortunately he put them in a situation where they really had no other choice.
If he wasn't on BBC (which as a state broadcaster has far more political sensitivity) it probably wouldn't have been so much of an issue in the UK.
Most of his "controversies" would not even be news in the US. A person on a humorous show cracking a racial/ethnic joke is on TV every night.
We have nothing like OFCOM where you could actually get in trouble with the government for being highly offensive either.
And celebrities behaving badly is typical, so assaulting someone probably wouldn't lead to any major public outcry for his firing. It's not as though Sean Penn has trouble finding work.
How do you square these claims with the public outcry over a brief glimpse of Jannet Jackson's tit? There are plenty of examples of similar controversies in the U.S. media.
It's not violence that's the real issue with Clarkson, it's racism. Yes, he ultimately got fired for doing something violent, but not on TV. If you say something (that could be interpreted as) racist on a mainstream US TV show there is also a backlash. E.g.:
There's a huge difference between being considered a "serious" TV personality and an "unserious" one, and what your public image is.
And even then, it depends on audience. FOX News personalities express far worse sentiments daily and mean them than Clarkson ever has. Their audience is fine with that.
Paula Deen was supposed to be a nice upstanding older woman showing people cooking. Even the claim that she might have used a racial slur in the past torpedoed her career.
Clarkson's public image, and one that he intentionally curates, is one of being bombastic and politically incorrect. He can crack whatever jokes he wants without it going to hurt his career in the US. In some respects, Howard Stern might be a good comparison of someone with a fairly similar type of image.
There is no comparable mainstream show in the US with a presenter as openly racist and offensive as Clarkson. Nor could there be, because they would be fired (as my and your examples show). I wouldn't necessarily say that the US is "less racist" than the UK on the whole, but to the credit of the former, it is hard to imagine a US show about cars being presented exclusively by openly bigoted white dudes.
I've yet to hear an actual propf of him being openely racist. There was that outtake never shown on tv when he said thw n word as part of an old rymhe that was what it was.
Can't find much more beyond that. Some wanton racism on their trips, played on stereotipes and misunderstanding, but critiquing vietnamese cousine or italian way of driving doesn't sound openly racist.
Clarkson acknowledges that racial profiling at airports is racist, and says that we should do it anyway. If that isn't advocating racism, then what is? You are defending the indefensible at this point:
> ...the only possible solution is to introduce a bit of racism. Nobody likes a racist. Nobody likes prejudice. It has no place at work, at play, or in government. But at Heathrow airport? Hmmm.
By the way, you are mistaken if you think that a large number of other airports systematically engage in racial profiling as a matter of policy.
just because TSA doesn't collect data doesn't mean it hasn't been all over the news for being stricter in searching people of particular ethnicity
moreover if the main smoking gun is a quote by Clarkson himself I'm not really impressed, I mean, what Clarkson DID matters. He's a comedian and you hear far worse things coming out; I mean Colbert said far worse thing and I don't see people screaming and kicking at his door.
at the end of the day one has to distinguish what's fiction and what's reality. can you blame Clarkson for being in character on it's own satirical column? it's not like it happened in an interview.
I suppose it depends on the show. The Superbowl is widely considered to be a family friendly event with lots of children watching. I can see a nip slip being more of an issue with that audience.
If we happen to see Jeremy's gentleman's sausage, we can worry about it then. Doesn't change the fact that South Park and Family Guy are two extremely popular shows in the US. And one of them is on network television. I mean, Game of Thrones has plenty of full-frontal nudity and lewd acts, and no one cares. Because it's not network television.
My opinion? The people who care about such things aren't likely to be watching shows on Amazon anyway, so they would never even see them. Compare to the BBC where someone could be flipping through a channel and find it accidentally.
In the same way as House of Cards isn't exclusive to Netflix, "Top Gear 2.0" will be sold to multiple broadcasters and distributors all over the world.
Top Gear was worth about $80m a year to the BBC in selling the series globally.
Now if only they'd fix their apps so A) could easily find shows they offer B) won't play a video and just shows a spinning circle if the app sits idle for 5 minutes or just finished playing another video and going to the next episode (always have to restart the app to fix it, happens on PS3/4 and Roku). I have a great experience with Netflix, YouTube, even CrunchyRoll (for my anime watching kid) and every other video platform.
I want to use their app more, I even buy seasons of shows off of it, but the persistent problems make me hesitant to buy more.
Feeling half and half on this... Good cause the lads are back... Bad because its Amazon Prime... I'm an Amazon Prime customer, but live in Ireland... Which means i can get stuff delivered (with the help of a UK address) for free, but i cant stream content... Keeps telling me about "Licensing issues". So, VPN will need to be used then...
"Amazon can also license rights to the show to broadcasters or streaming services in other territories around the world where Prime video isn’t available."
Everybody loses with the Clarkson fiasco. The Amazon deal will garner fewer viewers and lack the production quality that the BBC offers. The BBC reboot will have fewer viewers (from what I am told by British friends) and lack the brand personality of the former three hosts.
Perhaps this could be likened to Howard Stern moving to satellite radio. Is he as popular as he was when he was "free." The once self-declared "king of all media" is rarely talked about now.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 184 ms ] threadhttp://i100.independent.co.uk/article/here-are-all-the-nonra...
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Here's a useful Graniad opinion piece about Clarkson: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/08/not-eno...
It's a persistent pattern. Whether that should affect what he's allowed to publish is another matter, but it's probably wrong to say he isn't overtly racist.
Some people say "it's just a joke" - fair enough. Here's Stewart Lee responding much better than I can. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7CnMQ4L9Pc
And he certainly doesn't exclude himself/his own type, as there's something negative about the UK practically 30 seconds.
As for "it's just a joke", yes, it is. Pretty much every successful comedian uses ethnicity/race sometimes. Bad ones rely on it entirely (Ex: Carlos Mencia). But as something that should be off limits for humor? No.
Also, when all the presenters are white, it's a little hard to take this "we make fun of everyone" line seriously. If a white British person makes fun of white British people, that's obviously a different dynamic to a white British person making fun of people lower down the social pecking order.
Oh, and then outside the show, there's the times Clarkson has explicitly advocated racism:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9247835/J...
The whole mainstream media makes offensive comments about white people, how they are responsible for slavery, how they are all racists, how they are incompetent husbands, aloof fathers, conspiracy theorists, the list goes on.
But god forbid white people are allowed to watch another white guy crack a few jokes at other races.
> that's obviously a different dynamic to a white British person making fun of people lower down the social pecking order.
That's racist. Wow. True racism right here. Excuse me? So you really think there are groups of people, I assume ethnic groups, who are "lower down the social pecking order"? That is unadultered racism - the belief that another ethnic group is inferior to your ethnic group in anyway.
I have no problem with any word being used by any comedian, but if they ever said "I think black people are lower down in the social pecking order" then that would be a truly unambiguous racist statement.
For that matter, they've done entire episodes about how terrible the UK is at things, like the British Leyland cheap car challenge.
If he made those comments about anything else, someone would call them offensive. I find that double standard and the concept that you can't make jokes about anything far more concerning than the content of his "controversies" aside from the punching.
(Or Germans, for that matter.)
Clarkson makes fun of everyone, himself more than anyone else (call that privilege). That is why he is funny.
>and when it is pointed out that he makes fun of white people
He doesn't make fun of white people as such. Making fun of Germans for being German is not the same as making fun of white people for being white.
The more I read from this guy, the more I like him.
It's sort of a fine balance - we can't have everybody on tv making fun of gypsies and mexicans. On the other hand it feels too sterile when nobody can say what 90% of the people think.
I'm glad he exists.
I think a lot of people like to think that 90% of the population have the same rather twisted prejudices as them.
EDIT: Also, not saying he's not a total arse sometimes. Just saying that I think in this particular scenario he got kind of shafted.
The 'slopes' thing was racist though.
Is it fine for me to call Roy Chubby Brown lazy and stupid and unfunny because of his bad jokes?
Is it fine for me to ask people providing me content to try harder to be funny, rather than just flinging shit and calling it a joke?
In the business world this is a startup.
In comedy, I guess that means being a comedian.
From what I can tell it's about the same as startup-land, there's a power law distribution where a few comedians get really wealthy, a bunch of people get by, and tons of folks fail outright.
Given the very long road that folks travel to become widely known and "successful" I'd guess that the jokes they tell are in some way reflective of society's preferences.
But hey if you know better than all these folks, have at it!
I get the whole "I want to tell people why I'm not buying their product" mentality and whatnot. I feel the same way a lot of times. But complaining in general isn't going to get you anywhere and even if this HN thread totally blows up, it's not going to sway anyone at Amazon or Clarkson, Hammond or May. It'll literally never be on their radar.
So at this point you're complaining for the sake of complaining. Fair enough! I do it all the time too.
But you're not really telling them anything, since they'll never see it.
Still, implying that Amazon is ok with "racial slurs" is not quite the same than saying that Amazon is ok with "bad comedy".
I'm pretty sure some of the existing Amazon Prime original productions will fall into my personal "bad comedy" category already.
The recent github 'retard' ban is a nice example of forced political correctness.
You don't like Clarkson, turn the TV off. It's not hard at all. But to go on and on about a show you dislike, is to be a serf to the zeitgeist of Political Correctness and Cultural Marxism that has been progressively censoring so many aspects of our life, culture and history.
This is being done on purpose, but most of the public will never see it or admit it if they see it because most people are programmed to follow the leader(ship) whatever they do.
For instance, the Confederate Flag was banned, but the sickle and hammer flag which killed upwards of 100 Million people isn't. So you can tell who is doing the censoring.
Meet the new censors, same as the old censors.
It is not a non-issue. And I suggest you would not consider it a non-issue if it were the word "nigger".
All of them appear to be no more than play on words, there is never any ill will or desire to humiliate anybody.
The reason these particular jokes get noticed is because some people are obsessed with crying foul when certain groups are offended. He could make 10 jokes about the English/Scotts/Welsh and nobody would bat an eyelash.
"...never any ill will or desire to humiliate anybody" - this is the sort of very flimsy faux-naivity that I come to expect in these debates - especially on technical forums with a very literal-thinking crowd.
"He could make 10 jokes about the English/Scotts/Welsh and nobody would bat an eyelash."
Context. You cannot ignore context as much as you try. In the modern day, the English, Scots and Welsh are not typically discriminated against for their racial "traits". Certainly not in any serious way.
Derogatory racial terms are not ok.
Likewise, I'm not aware of asians being discriminated in our modern day. That's really the point - I don't have a problem with Clarkson's play on words because to me it's a meaningless sound. And the fact that an asian guy might be called slope/slopes (?) and that's a feature of the bridge is a pun - hence it's funny.
They probably make an average of one joke/pun for 30 seconds of the show. Some of them may be unfunny or crude - but unless you can actually demonstrate ill will (simply alluding to the naivette of your interlocutors isn't sufficient) - it's ok.
If you don't like a car show with a racist guy, make a better car show and don't be a racist.
But understand, if you want to convince people of a position, you can only do so by being an example to them and hoping to change their mind; you cannot censor, ban, fine, imprison, commit violence against those you disagree with, and then expect people to convert to your opinion.
For the record, I care not an iota about a show about cars made by a comedian. I do appreciate Clarkson when he is on Quite Interesting.
Honestly, what do you think you are accomplishing by sitting and criticizing someone that is out in the world doing something? Either do it better or shut up.
However, publicly calling Gordon Brown a "one-eyed Scottish idiot" certainly was intentionally offensive, which you can conclude from the Royal National Institute of Blind People being offended by the comparison, the Scots being offended by the comparison, and the association of idiots probably being somewhere trying to prepare a statement about being offended. Guilty as charged.
Did you know the word idiot used to refer to someone with a mental handicap? They stopped using it because it was being used as an insult and was no longer politically correct. The new politically correct term was "retard", which of course became an insult as well, so the term had to be changed again. And these days, no one would cover their child's ears if someone said the word "idiot" on television.
Either everything can be made fun of or nothing can. Where do we draw the line? Family Guy makes jokes about Catholics vs Protestants, but South Park gets censored when talking about Muhammed. Chris Rock can say "nigger" in his comedy, but no one else can? Gabriel Iglesias is "fluffy". Can I, a city-dweller, make jokes about rednecks like Jeff Foxworthy?
No one watches Top Gear and says "oh hey it must be okay to commit violent acts against people who are different than me". At worst, it's a tasteless joke that some might find funny and others might roll their eyes at. Or maybe people like Clarkson are removing the power of the word much in the same way words like "idiot" or "lame" are no longer pejoratives against the handicapped.
I assumed it was to push people to the FireTV.
The android thing is annoying.
Their (Clarkson, Hammond, May) audience will decrease wherever they ended up, but Amazon is probably their worst choice in that regard (compared to Netflix or even Sky). All I can assume is a lot of money was given to them, which suggests Amazon is aggressively expanding into Europe (where C, H, M are popular).
http://www.clarksonhammondandmaylive.com.au/
http://www.accountancyage.com/aa/news/1774186/top-taxman-dit...
I think in the end the HMRC took a deal on Vodafone's terms. Nothing illegal but I think you could vilify that behavior.
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/15/amazon-lux...
[1] http://ec.europa.eu/competition/state_aid/cases/254685/25468...
I just wish EU courts were even remotely as efficient in acting against states and enforcing the EU treaties in cases where the state is collecting tax more aggressively than what EU rules would allow.
Imagine an English person running an English business (eg, a tea shop with a single store and no online presence) in England. They want to advertise to people so they contact Google's English ad division and buy ads to be shown in England. They pay using English money, from their English bank account to Google's English bank account.
Somehow this doesn't count for English tax, somehow it's Irish tax.
Otherwise, there are similar "loopholes" in complex tax codes. You just need to find them.
Amazon, Google, Starbucks etc engage in very aggressive tax planning. They say it's all legal - they're not trying to evade tax, just avoid it. But because their schemes are so aggressive it might be illegal. We don't really know because the cases would have to go to court. Sometimes tax authorities will investigate, and will persuade a company that their aggressive tax plannin was unlawful, and then get some repayment of the missing tax. This usually means that the company avoids the court case and doesn't have to repay the total tax they avoided.
No-one expects them to pay all their tax burden. People in the UK recognise that tax planning is a useful important activity.
What we don't like is companies taking the piss.
And as to why they should pay tax: they get the benefits from society that flow from taxes - educated workforce, police, road infrastructure, healthcare, etc etc. They should pay their share.
Finally these companies will sometimes mention other taxes. So they'll talk about VAT or PAYE. But VAT is a tax the customer pays. The company collects it, but it's collected from the customer. And PAYE is (apart from the employer's contribution) a tax that the employee pays, again collected by the company. It's a scumbag move to reduce your tax payments to the minimum you can and then talk about the tax other people pay as if it's tax you pay.
Every quote from those three is internally in their voice and cadence. I find that quite amusing.
Anyone have some links or keywords I could look up to read more about that phenomenon?
Is that any different than those who refuse to subscribe to Netflix, HBO or Showtime, etc...
I would have no problem subscribing to a company that provides access to TV shows, movies etc.
I would have a big problem subscribing to Jeff Bezos' attempt to control the entire commercial world.
Perhaps they used a lot lf contract staff anyway and won't be a big deal.
Either way, with Andy Wilman in charge and undoubtedly a bigger budget, I would say it will improve, if anything.
That said, I doubt it will be a clone of TG. They probably have had some ideas they have wanted to try, but couldn't because of the BBC and because they wouldn't be 'top gear'.
I understand the show runner also left with them.
Unfortunately, they can't copy the format of TG due to copyright (eg game-show formats are protected copyright subject matter). It's possible they'll come up with something even better, but more likely to be like Titanfall after CoD.
Both incidents the BBC have him for he was coerced into situations (singing a song he didn't want to sing because he only knew the racist version from when he grew up and didn't want to say the word, then being kept up for 24 hours, and made to drink profusely as part of a show stunt) he wasn't comfortable with. They were looking for reasons to cancel such a popular show because it had such a disparate budget from the rest of their shows and that was upsetting parties within the BBC.
There are many more than two incidents!
> They were looking for reasons to cancel such a popular show because it had such a disparate budget from the rest of their shows and that was upsetting parties within the BBC.
Surely they could have just pointed to the money it made back? "We give it huge budget because it earns more money for us than anything else we produce".
The BBC has a history of poor management of talent. See eg Chris Evans getting sacked from the Breakfast Show after making demands.
The scripts are written by the cast & the script editor (Richard Porter).
> made to drink profusely as part of a show stunt
It's well known that Clarkson is a fan of the booze to the point where you could reasonably categorise him as a functioning alcoholic. He recently publicly announced after the death of Charlie Kennedy that he was giving up. So I'm pretty sure that no-one was making him drink..
He likes to paint himself as the last bastion of free speech, innocent victim of the facist Big Brother Corporation, and a lot of other things inbetween; but the reality is that he's just that embarrassing Uncle who you have fond memories of when he used to let you smoke his cigarettes and drive his car around the block when you were 10, but now you're all grown up, going through your contacts, deciding who to invite to your wedding; you just skip past because you just know he'd end up shitting in the font and asking anyone with a tan what weddings are like where they're from.
I genuinely don't understand why people think his sacking was part of some grand BBC conspiracy. He was good for ratings, they paid him well, it was in both parties' interests to keep him around as long as possible. Remember we're talking about the most popular TV show in the world here.
Unfortunately he put them in a situation where they really had no other choice.
Most of his "controversies" would not even be news in the US. A person on a humorous show cracking a racial/ethnic joke is on TV every night.
We have nothing like OFCOM where you could actually get in trouble with the government for being highly offensive either.
And celebrities behaving badly is typical, so assaulting someone probably wouldn't lead to any major public outcry for his firing. It's not as though Sean Penn has trouble finding work.
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/mar/13/univisio...
And even then, it depends on audience. FOX News personalities express far worse sentiments daily and mean them than Clarkson ever has. Their audience is fine with that.
Paula Deen was supposed to be a nice upstanding older woman showing people cooking. Even the claim that she might have used a racial slur in the past torpedoed her career.
Clarkson's public image, and one that he intentionally curates, is one of being bombastic and politically incorrect. He can crack whatever jokes he wants without it going to hurt his career in the US. In some respects, Howard Stern might be a good comparison of someone with a fairly similar type of image.
Can't find much more beyond that. Some wanton racism on their trips, played on stereotipes and misunderstanding, but critiquing vietnamese cousine or italian way of driving doesn't sound openly racist.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9247835/J...
suddenly one point out what other airport are doing calling it by its name and he's racist.
> ...the only possible solution is to introduce a bit of racism. Nobody likes a racist. Nobody likes prejudice. It has no place at work, at play, or in government. But at Heathrow airport? Hmmm.
By the way, you are mistaken if you think that a large number of other airports systematically engage in racial profiling as a matter of policy.
moreover if the main smoking gun is a quote by Clarkson himself I'm not really impressed, I mean, what Clarkson DID matters. He's a comedian and you hear far worse things coming out; I mean Colbert said far worse thing and I don't see people screaming and kicking at his door.
at the end of the day one has to distinguish what's fiction and what's reality. can you blame Clarkson for being in character on it's own satirical column? it's not like it happened in an interview.
This is not the policy of the TSA. The only people who advocate such a policy are racists like Clarkson.
>can you blame Clarkson for being in character on it's own satirical column?
It's not a satirical column. If you think that Clarkson is doing a Colbert-like performance, you've just got the wrong end of the stick.
>moreover if the main smoking gun is a quote by Clarkson himself I'm not really impressed,
What kind of backwards logic is this? Clarkson's own words are (obviously) the most reliable source of information regarding his beliefs.
"America", perhaps? Clarkson is racist and violent; Jackson is a human being with human body parts - the latter crime is far more severe.
My opinion? The people who care about such things aren't likely to be watching shows on Amazon anyway, so they would never even see them. Compare to the BBC where someone could be flipping through a channel and find it accidentally.
Top Gear was worth about $80m a year to the BBC in selling the series globally.
I want to use their app more, I even buy seasons of shows off of it, but the persistent problems make me hesitant to buy more.
Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/07/30/former-top-gear-ho...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7CnMQ4L9Pc
Perhaps this could be likened to Howard Stern moving to satellite radio. Is he as popular as he was when he was "free." The once self-declared "king of all media" is rarely talked about now.