It’s a series of puns:
Top gear = the highest gear (on a transmission)
Top gear = highest-quality goods or equipment
Top Gear = a television show featuring automobile enthusiasts
And then there might be other meanings, literal or metaphorical.
You and Clarkson can be locked up in the same room for a month. You’ll have plenty to discuss.
What would we discuss?
Maybe you can try to figure out how much oxygen is in the room? Is it ventilated? What are those strange noises? Is that water dripping and if so, why does it smell like that?
Having found a copy of the Sun article, I didn’t think it was that much different from many other columns Clarkson’s written. Many have been collected and published in book form and the hyperbole displayed is fairly typical.
Worth considering that there must have been an editor at the Sun who read through the proof and decided, “Yeah, our readers are going to like that paraded naked gag - no reason to reign Jeremy in for going a bit overboard.”
I think you meant “rein” unless Clarkson is joining the royal family.
And if he is, you can look forward to some really juicy new articles soon!
Cheap cuts of beef that can be drawn, quartered, and BBQ’d on a budget?
No one will believe that.
Okay, this is the pit, but I’m still going to lay out my feelings and interpretation rationally, at least as much as I can.
I was a fan of Top Gear with Clarkson, Hammond, and May. But even then, watching you had to acknowledge that Clarkson (or the character Clarkson to the extent that they are different) is at least 50% more a jerk than either of the others, even at their worse. [ side, Hammond is barely .2 Clarkson’s on average, and May .1 ]. It was his role to be the foil, but several times, especially in the interviews, it seemed to go a lot further than the artificial conflicts needed for entertainment between the hosts. And as the show went on, it was increasingly obviously fixed and scripted to the point that when there was the Clarkson induced changeover, it felt that it was probably for the best.
Grand Tour felt like an effort to turn up the gags to 11, and even more artificial in nature, which may well have contributed to it’s quickly declining quality and quantity.
I watched Clarkson’s farm, and enjoyed him acting the buffoon, with predictable consequences, but I don’t think anyone believes that any of those costs were born by him. And while it may well have done a good job of bringing the work inherent in even (or especially) small scale farming to light, it doesn’t seem to have been the intent, so I’m not giving him credit for it.
And @Ferris is correct, this column, while worse than most, is not anomalous for Clarkson’s bombastic writing style. I have from years ago, a collection of his work on various vehicles that I enjoy, in much the same way I might enjoy a Dave Barry collection.
But, and this is key, IMHO (again IMHO), Clarkson’s jabs and japes have a very bad overall tendency to be mean-spirited. It’s one thing to be be edgy, or unpopular, or shocking if it’s all an act (although it’s not a good thing), but I’ve always felt there was an actual edge of malice in a lot of his acts and speech. And this last apology, even more so than his many in the past, felt insincere. Not even a half-assed “I didn’t think it was offensive, but in retrospect, it could be taken that way.” but a “So Sorry [smug grin, mouthing ‘not really’]” sort of apology.
Still none of us have likely met him in person, much less spent enough time with him to be able to evaluate his sincerity. The fact that his daughter, who most certainly would be in the position to do this, seems to have found the remarks well above and beyond, is probable the best evaluation we could ask for on his actual intent.
At which point, lacking any better or ‘objective’ POV to fully evaluate him through, I’ll reluctantly, due to years of past enjoyment, join @Stranger_On_A_Train in a quiet “Fuck that guy.” [ although while I know his reasons for disliking Cruces, I’m still a former resident, so let’s change that to public access television in Lubbock TX, which is a more worthy hellhole of traditional Texas Panhandle shittiness ]
Aside, I’ve read threads here, as well as the more general interviews and information coming out regarding the Royal Family in MSM, and while I don’t have enough information to say one way or another with any certainty, it sure looks like there was fuckton of quiet, genteel bigotry in a lot of the longtime staff and retainers. And it was also likely that Meghan reacted to it quite poorly, which may have created a horrible feedback loop.
Not my society, and again, we’re lacking enough information to make judgements, but it was enough for Harry to leave his family and stay loyal to her. As he had the most to lose, and was in the best position to judge, I’m going to err on taking their side of the story, although I fully acknowledge that plenty of people are blind when it comes to the flaws of the one they love.
So TL;DR - Clarkson is a pig, but if this had been in any way an isolated incident, it could have been just poorly chosen hyperbole. However, in light of his entire body of work and actions, all signs point to chronic jerkishness, the sort that would likely have been familiar on this board of some of our long term skating trolls that finally get banned for one final step in light of years of abuse.
Well reasoned and I agree.
Well said, @ParallelLines , and this is pretty much my impression, too, from many years of watching Top Gear and The Grand Tour by osmosis (they’re among my wife’s favorite shows).
When it comes to TV personalities, whose on-screen personas is ostensibly “themselves,” I try to remind myself that they may well be nothing like that when they aren’t on-screen. I can’t stand Guy Fieri’s over-the-top dude-bro TV persona, but for all I know, he might be a different, awesome (and less loud) person away from the screen.
But, when it comes to Jeremy Clarkson, I, like you, have long had the sense that the snide, mean-spirited asshole that’s the on-screen Clarkson persona isn’t that different from the real Clarkson.
This is true - for instance, Gordon Ramsay’s US TV persona and his British one seem to be night and day - the shows where he’s with his family, or teaching prisoners to be cooks, or even the British Hell’s Kitchen, were nothing like the aggressive foul-mouthed asshole on the US version.
But - the asshole things Clarkson’s done (such as the assault) have been away from the cameras as well as in front of them. So I’m also happy concluding it’s not just an act in his case.
I think he is because I remember on one occasion he had his Tournament of Champions show (a huge March Madness style bracket competition show between celebrity chefs) and a younger chef started to have a serious anxiety attack. He took him aside and spoke gently to him mostly off camera, while a camera caught it in sort of a candid view. He was really calm and normal, and seemed extremely human chatting with the guy, until he got through it. I suspect that’s who he is when he’s not yelling at a camera doing his schtick.
He did something similar a couple of times on another show where a handful of up-and-coming chefs competed to earn a chance to run one of his new fast food chicken franchises. Again, these were people struggling with the pressure and he acted like a normal person. And not always as a gentle benevolent person, a couple times he had to knock a person down a peg or two who was really full of himself. Essentially, it was a speech like, “You are supposed to be a professional and you’re just being a asshat, straighten up or you’re out of here.”
Guy also had a sister who died of cancer and he adopted his nephew as one of his own kids. He seems like a real person who just plays a California Dudebro version of Billy Mays as a character on Food Network. Personally I don’t blame anyone who has a dislike for him based on his TV performance, but I don’t think that’s really how he is off camera.
I’ve never watched anything with this guy and could not have picked him out of a line-up prior to this. I have to say that this is certainly not a good first impression and I have no desire to get to know him better.
It was truly an ugly sentiment he expressed. Meghan seems to bring out some very strong feelings in some people. I’ve never watched anything with her either, but geez oh Pete, I can’t imagine wanting to see her treated in the manner he described. And I really can’t imagine that he thought everyone was going to just be okay with it.
Celebs who “play themselves” eventually turn into the character they’re playing. Add in the old adage about power (or money / success) corrupting, and pretty quickly somebody who plays an asshat turns into a giant asshat even if they were merely a minor asshat at first.
Clarkson’s been playing that role for what, 35 years now? Good bet that whatever fraction of his behavior was an act then is now a bone-deep feature of his personality.
c.f. William … Shatner.
You are who you pretend to be
— K. Vonnegut
Sounds profound but, upon examination, it doesn’t make sense. If you are what you are pretending to be, then you are not “pretending” in the first place. LOL
Sorta. I see Vonnegut’s comment as a variation on:
Be the change you want to see in the world.
But on an individual level.
IOW, you will over time become the thing you’re pretending now. And of course as long as we’re alive and pretending that process will continue.
With a side order of
Perception is reality.
Meaning that people will treat you based on what they see you pretending, not on what you may actually be underneath. So from their POV, you are what you pretend.
So pretend thoughtfully, not randomly.
The other element here is that, as comedian Stewart Lee said he has
‘outrageous politically incorrect opinions he has every week to a deadline in The Sunday Times’
With the proviso that he now writes for a different paper, the fact of his financial interest in saying things he thinks his readers want to hear is quite an important one. Less for what it says about Clarkson than for what it says about the whole team of people who got those words into the public arena. There is a market (or at least, people who’s job it is to know believe there’s a market) for this shit and if Clarkson had different attitudes and opinions he wouldn’t be being paid by the Sun for them.
Also, if you’ve got 14 minutes, the Stewart Lee routine I quoted above is a pretty good takedown of both Clarkson’s bullying attitude and the “it’s just a joke” defence.
Not really ironic but all these people claiming Markle is being overly sensitive to media criticism are just openly giving away evidence that they really do have a personal agenda against her.
Many times when public figures complain about such, it’s part of the game, but whatever anybody’s personal opinion of her, the Sussexes clearly had the right of it in this case - there really were elements of the British press with axes to grind who abused their power of the pen out of personal animus.