Jeremy Clarkson suspended from the BBC...

lloyd

koneguitarist;576794" said:

lloyd said:

Loobs;575125" said:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear_controversies



Read this.



What a trio of utter bellends. 

Just a bit of high jinx with the lads surely?



Or 3 cunts stuck in the 70's that think that shits acceptable, can only imagine the hilarious jokes that go on off camera if that's what went on in front of it.



Pretty shit that none of it got pulled up in any serious way-money more important than ethics I guess?



Typical British xenophobic attitude to anything different to us.....and saying it's all just a laugh is bollocks...that's what we said about love thy neighbour and Jim Davidson...



Anyone who watched and laughed at that shit or was an apologist can fuck off too....













I laughed like hell at it at the time, you are obviously a youngster brought up in a different time.

Take a look back at Love thy Neighbour etc, it's all on YouTube and tell me who always came off worse?

It was funny and of a time, trouble is we have forgotten what humour is all about. Making people laugh and forgetting their shit jobs, strikes etc.

top gear was entertainment, some will say they did not find it funny, like some prefer Michael McIntyre to Billy Connoly or Tommy Cooper to Lee Evans, but it always had a lot of people tune in.

I am in no way a petrol head but I watched it. Did you not have a remote or something?

Humour changes @koneguitarist but if you can't see that love thy neighbour had a racist under current then I don't know what else I can say on it. Perhaps it's a generational thing?

I think I'd feel pretty uncomfortable sitting with a couple black guys laughing at it? Especially as whitey only gets his comeuppance at the end so there's basically 20 minutes of ne calling before that. I don't think it or te audience was sophisticated enough and a lot of the giggles were for the funny names he came up with for black people, rather than an uncomfortable laugh at him for holding those views?

I have a remote, and think Michael McIntyre is shit, I don't have an issue with him being on TV, he's popular, inoffensive and makes people laugh. What he doesn't do is make jokes about other ethnicities or nationalities, something I find pretty lazy and offensive....

I'm not opposed to some piss taking either, living in Manchester as a taffy I give as good as I get and that's fine, I just don't think its place is on prime time bbc television?

Danny1969

Personally the less PC Top Gear was The funnier I found it.  I know that probably makes me a bad person but it appealed to my humour 

Drew_TNBD

OH WOE IS FUCKING US!!!!!?!!?!

randomhandclaps

I feel robbed by being born outside the days when you could humorously blame all the world's woes on non-whites, foreigners, gays or women... and they never took any offence because it was all just olden days 'banter' wasn't it?!  It feels like missing out on Sgt Peppers.  The lack of humour around now clearly shows you that all those yellow-bellied liberals who believe all human deserve equal respect have robbed society of any fun.

The likes of Clarkson wouldn't have made comedians in the days when their 'sense of humour' was wrongly acceptable.  The generic degradation of those groups different to them that they fall back on is purely because they lack they wit and intelligence to be funny in a modern context so they just rehash shit that they remember giggling with their schoolmates about when they were twelve and naughtily stayed up late and caught Bernard Manning or Mike Reid on the tele-box.

To be honest though I have more respect for a prime outspoken bell-end like Clarkson than the likes of Hammond and May who just giggle along without the balls to either say it or challenge it.  Clarkson has long come across as a bully, his need to enforce himself and his opinions on others due to his own insecurity all too evident outside 'common room' atmosphere of Top Gear of shows like QI etc. where people may actually be willing to challenge him.

holnrew

boogieman said:

Heartfeltdawn;576816" said:

The problem isn't that people forgot what humour is all about. It's that lots of white chaps never knew what racism was about.

True that. I had Jamaican neighbours from when I was 8. Never thought there was anything offensive about my friends saying that they were monkeys and ate Chappie dog food, it was just accepted wisdom at the time (early 60s). It was only when I became friends with the neighbour's kid and realised how stupid these remarks were that I challenged anyone over it. Even then I was treated as some sort of oddball, softy, liberal twat.

[admin edited] @Holnrew - there was a good chance of your comment being misinterpreted!

LoFi

paulads said:

well...i am comparing it...

is it ok to assault someone if you think they might be going to assault you?

is throwing a punch a reasonable response to someone throwing an egg?

one got assaulted for providing a bite to eat and the other got assaulted for failing to provide a bite to eat

Not really wading into the whole discussion, but:

I've been hit in the head by an egg thrown from a moving car (completely random - was stood having a smoke outside a bar in a town I'd not been to before). Some thoughts:

It hurt, quite a lot - my initial thought was that someone had punched me in the back of the head.

It left a significant bruise.

I've never thrown a punch as an adult outside of a martial arts class, but if the guy that had done it had been standing behind me, rather than veering round the corner in his mate's chavmobile, I would've hit him, hard.

Drew_TNBD

Heartfeltdawn said:

koneguitarist said:

I laughed like hell at it at the time, you are obviously a youngster brought up in a different time. Take a look back at Love thy Neighbour etc, it's all on YouTube and tell me who always came off worse? It was funny and of a time, trouble is we have forgotten what humour is all about. Making people laugh and forgetting their shit jobs, strikes etc.

The problem isn't that people forgot what humour is all about. It's that lots of white chaps never knew what racism was about.

HFD, this isn't me trolling you, but I have to ask... Do you honestly think that racism is solely the domain of white men?

chrispy108

Would Top Gear be easier for people to understand if the characters they played had different names to the people playing them?

Jeremy Clarkson - The character - said and did some silly things on a silly TV - was backed by his employer

Jeremy Clarkson - The person - punched and abused a colleague - was sacked by his employer

Makes perfect sense to me

I don't see what is so difficult about this concept, yet I've seen dozens of posts on facebook/twitter etc both for and against that don't seem to get this point.

Snap

there's not a lot to debate really, in relation to the justification for sacking him. Whether it regrettable or was avoidable is moot, but the facts remain, and in ANY other workplace, that behaviour would be deemed gross misconduct.

TV is a better place without him IMO. One less bell end on display. That's never a bad thing in my book.

boogieman

Drew_fx;578484" said:

Heartfeltdawn said:



koneguitarist said:











I laughed like hell at it at the time, you are obviously a youngster brought up in a different time.

Take a look back at Love thy Neighbour etc, it's all on YouTube and tell me who always came off worse?

It was funny and of a time, trouble is we have forgotten what humour is all about. Making people laugh and forgetting their shit jobs, strikes etc.





The problem isn't that people forgot what humour is all about. It's that lots of white chaps never knew what racism was about.












HFD, this isn't me trolling you, but I have to ask... Do you honestly think that racism is solely the domain of white men?

Don't know if you saw the politics program with Nicky Campbell last Sunday, talking about racism? There was a young black woman on there explaining how black people are inherently incapable of being racist, as they were taken from their home countries and/or oppressed by white invaders. An extraordinary concept. And a racist comment in itself I believe.

I do think we see racism as a white man's problem in this country. And yet the evidence is there; it happens in every country, in every race. It's a universal human issue. I'm not suggesting that immigrants don't get a hard time by the way, but it's not limited to "white men" dishing it out.

crunchman

Anyone can be racist.

I don't know if anyone remembers the story about Craig David's guitarist.  I just found this article on it:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/nov/15/arts.artsnews2

I seem to remember hearing that some US radio stations catering to a black audience refused to play his music when they found out that his guitarist was white.

I need to be careful how I say this but people also "play the race card" when it suits them.  One of my black friends is a school governor and her school always gets her to be involved in any hearings on exclusions when black children are involved because the families often try to make it a race issue.  She gets absolutely incensed by this when it is purely about the child's behaviour.

There has been, and still is genuine racism in this country.  When I was a teacher (quite a while ago now) there was a (white) 13 year old in my class who was due up in court on charges of throwing a brick at someone in a racist incident.  I left the school before that came up in court so I don't know what the outcome was, but irregardless of that I have to say he was one of the nastiest kids I taught.

At the other school I taught in before I quit teaching, there were major problems between different Asian communities.  Some of that may have been religious rather than race as it was Muslim / Sikh problems.  I don't know if it was purely religious or partly because the communities may have originated in different places and been more race related.  The school managed to keep a lid on it inside school, but there were real problems outside.  One of our sixth formers got his fingers broken, and we ended up with police outside the school gates for a while after that incident.

I don't think it is a simple problem, and I'm not sure there are simple solutions.

Getting back to Clarkson, he may be racist, but I wouldn't put him in the same class of people who throw bricks at people because of the colour of their skin.  Maybe he enables that kind of thing to some extent, but I think he's mainly a dinosaur whose mind still thinks in terms that were a lot more mainstream 30 or 40 years ago.

holnrew

You make good points, but I can't give a wisdom point to a post with "irregardless" in it.

Axe_meister

crunchman said:

Anyone can be racist.

I don't know if anyone remembers the story about Craig David's guitarist.  I just found this article on it:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/nov/15/arts.artsnews2

I seem to remember hearing that some US radio stations catering to a black audience refused to play his music when they found out that his guitarist was white.

I need to be careful how I say this but people also "play the race card" when it suits them.  One of my black friends is a school governor and her school always gets her to be involved in any hearings on exclusions when black children are involved because the families often try to make it a race issue.  She gets absolutely incensed by this when it is purely about the child's behaviour.

There has been, and still is genuine racism in this country.  When I was a teacher (quite a while ago now) there was a (white) 13 year old in my class who was due up in court on charges of throwing a brick at someone in a racist incident.  I left the school before that came up in court so I don't know what the outcome was, but irregardless of that I have to say he was one of the nastiest kids I taught.

At the other school I taught in before I quit teaching, there were major problems between different Asian communities.  Some of that may have been religious rather than race as it was Muslim / Sikh problems.  I don't know if it was purely religious or partly because the communities may have originated in different places and been more race related.  The school managed to keep a lid on it inside school, but there were real problems outside.  One of our sixth formers got his fingers broken, and we ended up with police outside the school gates for a while after that incident.

I don't think it is a simple problem, and I'm not sure there are simple solutions.

Getting back to Clarkson, he may be racist, but I wouldn't put him in the same class of people who throw bricks at people because of the colour of their skin.  Maybe he enables that kind of thing to some extent, but I think he's mainly a dinosaur whose mind still thinks in terms that were a lot more mainstream 30 or 40 years ago.

Reverse Racism is very rife, especially in some part of London, where white kids are very much in the minority. Although is it racism or just the fact that kids on the whole can be absolutely horrible to anybody who is different?

Fretwired

Axe_meister said:

Reverse Racism is very rife, especially in some part of London, where white kids are very much in the minority. Although is it racism or just the fact that kids on the whole can be absolutely horrible to anybody who is different?

There's no such thing as reverse racism. There's just racism. It happens all over the world and it's a not a 'white man's' disease - go to India and see how people are treated in the caste system and their views on black Africans or Pakistanis and vice versa. And whilst the BBC is happy to moan about the exploits of Clarkson (he was right to be sacked) and co they are happy to promote Citizen Khan which is a racist TV show.

Heartfeltdawn

Drew_fx said:

HFD, this isn't me trolling you, but I have to ask... Do you honestly think that racism is solely the domain of white men?

@Drew_fx Of course it isn't. The tales told by West Indian immigrants to this country of racism are well known. Similar tales were told by Indian and Pakistani migrants, this time with the black people being the racists and dissing people for their skin and background. Since then we've had Bangladeshis saying the same, the Eastern Europeans etc. 

I have no idea why you think I'm suggesting that racism is solely the domain of white men. My comment above was in reference to 1970's sitcom humour, not a catch all for racism from then to now  

If I met that young black lady who claimed that blacks were incapable of racism, then she is incredibly poor educated and deluded.  

Fretwired said:

And whilst the BBC is happy to moan about the exploits of Clarkson (he was right to be sacked) and co they are happy to promote Citizen Khan which is a racist TV show.

In what way? It portrays the central character to be a bumbling yet slightly lovable oaf and operates a bunch of tame stereotypes. If you're going to call Citizen Khan racist, then Mr Bean should presumably be held up as a case of white man self-hating guilt!  

Fretwired

Heartfeltdawn said:

In what way? It portrays the central character to be a bumbling yet slightly lovable oaf and operates a bunch of tame stereotypes. If you're going to call Citizen Khan racist, then Mr Bean should presumably be held up as a case of white man self-hating guilt!  

The view outside the UK is it's racist and deeply offensive for a number of reasons. In the UK the BBC has had complaints about the depiction of Islam and the racial stereotypes and from India on the jokes about Indians. As many of the cast are of Indian descent people in Pakistan think it's a Hindu conspiracy to make fun of Pakistanis. If Clarkson can be criticised for his slope joke  then this show should face equal ridicule, or are we saying racism is a white man's disease - but Indians pretending to be Pakistanis does cause offence. The guy plays Khan is half Pakistani ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19511191

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/bbc-receives-hundreds-of-complaints-and-is-accused-of-insulting-muslims-with-new-racist-sitcom-citizen-khan-8092543.html

 

crunchman

My big problem with Citizen Khan was that I just don't find it funny.  I think the stereotypes are part of why I don't find it funny but fundamentally a comedy needs to be funny and that one isn't.

breakstuff

I'm pretty certain I don't know a single person who actually watches Citizen Khan.At least not anyone who would admit to it.

GuyBoden

I'm still watching repeats of "Love thy Neighbour"

Heartfeltdawn

'The view outside the UK' - Some people outside the UK view it as racist. Their views do not make up 'The view'. Some newspapers found forums featuring Pakistanis who didn't like it. Most of us are familiar with the idea of the 'professionally outraged'. I would suggest that within Muslim ranks there are more than one or two of those. Big whoop. They seem less concerned with, say, sexism within their own countries. India versus Pakistan cricket clips on Youtube are seldom vetted with such outrage when it comes to the comments section. You will see more death threats, rape gags, insults, racial terms, and abusive language than anything you will see on a bumbly BBC sitcom at 8.30pm. This would be the same Pakistan where members of the population burn effigies of unsuccessful cricket captains, most recently during the 2015 Cricket World Cup. Yeah, hairtrigger outrage there   

The is an obvious difference between Clarkson and Citizen Khan. 

Clarkson - white man on a show makes verbal comment for use in visual gag involving foreigner using derogatory term for said foreigner. There is no parody. 

Citizen Khan - a show written by three men, two of whom are definitely Asian and one who isn't, that parodies elements of the Asian world. They take the piss out of a culture they've always been part of.  

Citizen Khan does what Father Ted did for Ireland and Catholicism. Asian cast and writers for one, Irish cast and writers for the other. Parody in both instances.