WTF News

[Ibby]

I'm conflicted about Clarkson, cause, I LOVE Top Gear... and hating every word he says on top gear makes the show BETTER not WORSE. His bullshit about, like, strikers being shot, or his usual offhand racism and sexism and homophobia, matches perfectly with his rhetoric about all bicyclists being shot. Jeremy Clarkson IS a character, and I enjoy the character even though I disagree with him.

[Gravdigr]

I would pay a fair amount of money to see Morgan have the ever-loving shit slapped out of him.

Or fucked by a grizzly bear on bath salts...either/or.

[Gravdigr]

Merc, that Cleese bit was very funny.

These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

[Blueflare]

Ian Histlop is my hero.

Piers Morgan is always "misspelled" as Piers Moron in Private Eye.


I like Jeremy Clarkson and I think that people take him too seriously. He reminds our society that we need to get the fuck over ourselves sometimes and remember how to take a joke.

[DanaC]

Yeah. It's good we have a middle-class, middle aged white man to make sure the rest of society can take jokes at their expense.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Yeah. It's good we have a middle-class, middle aged white man to make sure the rest of society can take jokes at their expense.

Victim....

[Blueflare]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Yeah. It's good we have a middle-class, middle aged white man to make sure the rest of society can take jokes at their expense.

Yeah. It is.

People get "offended" by ridiculous things. As Stephen Fry says, it has no purpose, it's just a whine. "'I am offended by that', well so fucking what?" Haha, that man is a legend too.

There's a difference between simply making a joke and actually being derogatory or inciting hatred.
I'm not saying Clarkson never crosses a line, sometimes he does, but for the most part he really doesn't. I think we need people like him so that we can have a discussion about where the line is between what it's okay to say and what isn't.

[DanaC]

Says the middle-class, middle aged white man :P

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Says the middle-class, middle aged white man :P

Middle class? Bwahahahahahahahahahaha

[DanaC]

I actually don't mind Clarkson so much. He's quite entertaining, and as ibs suggested is a character. He plays up to his image of a curmudgeonly Little Englander.

But I don't really think that we need racist, anti-poor or misogynistic jokes to make us take ourselves less seriously. I'd be more impressed if he targeted some of his ire on those who aren't already the butt of everyone's jokes and occupy a stronger place in our society not a weaker one than him.

[Sundae]

I have no real beef with Clarkson. He sends himself up too. Get what you say about criticism from a point of privilege though, Dans.

And yes, I know Cleese can be funny, but I just compare him to Michael "nicest man in the world" Palin. Same wife, same house (albeit extended), same values as when he started out. And some cracking travelogues to boot. Dinner party invite already written for when my boat comes in. His diaries reveal somewhat of a gourmand, but I bet I could serve up sardine and tomato paste sandwiches and still get a positive response.

Do we have a dinner party thread here?
I know Limey, DanaC and myself discussed a Dwellar version when in Glasgow. Don't think it made it to the board. Surprisingly for three women of a similar age and overlapping politics and humour, we had quite varying opinions on who we wanted to eat with. we kept cancelling out eachother's suggestions from what I remember.

[DanaC]

Michael Palin is the shiznitt. I used tohave a major crush on him when i was in my teens :p

[DanaC]

Yes, people get offended by ridiculous things. But they also get offended by stuff that isn't ridiculous. Tell you the stuff that does offend me, is the anti-poor rhetoric. But that isn't specific to Clarkson, it's a pervasive thing at the moment. I am generally offended by the idea that people in a position of social power feel comfortable in making other people with much less social power the butts of their jokes. It's not really specifically racist, or bigotted humour that worries me, it's the general tone of the stronger in society mocking the weaker and then expecting the weaker to suck it up and have a sense of humour about these things. It's comedy from an unkind place. I don't like it. It makes me feel uncomfortable, because it feels wrong. At a gut level. Not offensive, but just wrong.

I personally am rarely offended by Clarkson. And I think the outcry that regularly goes up when he, as you say, crosses a line is fucking ridiculous. Why? because he's Jeremy fucking Clarkson, that's why. We all know what and who he is. The people who employ him know what and who he is, that's why they employ him. And in fairness to him, the lines he crosses are a damn sight less objectionable than some of what was considered mainstream acceptable a few years ago.

[Sundae]

What makes me scoff is those who are offended by other people being offended.
Political correctness gone mad!!!!! And yes, those exclamation points are justified. Because that's how they think.

Stop being offended being other people's sensibilities, then.
And as an added extra, go watch a few episodes of On the Buses or Love Thy Neighbour. And imagine your daughter or friend being treated like that because of their gender/ race.

During our Queen's reign, America has progressed from a legal citizen with black skin not being allowed to choose where she sat on a bus, to a mixed race man in the Whitehouse. The world doesn't change because people accept bigotry. It changes because people notice it, decide it's wrong, and point it out to other people.

[DanaC]

Ahh, I'm forgetting. Middle class means something different over there. Here it means fairly affluent.