It is widely know that Jeremy Clarkson is an opinionated right-winger. But does Britain’s embrace of the Winner of the Special Recognition Award in 2007 indicate our own national superiority complex?
On the recent Top Gear feature in India, the BBC were forced to defend the programme against criticism from the Indian High Commission, which deemed Clarkson and his duo lacking in cultural sensitivity.
Though the programme argues that they merely showed the country ‘warts and all’, their proclamation of the motto ‘Bring Britain Back’ in a country which was only freed from British occupation in 1947 was unsettling to say the least.
Boyish banter, or something more sinister?
Yes, they branded this catchphrase with the mild emphasis on marketing British products to help the economy, but this was not explained on the enormous banners flaunting the British flag that covered the trains for local people to gasp at in horror. And to be honest, the highlight of the show was the cricket match (note, a colonial sport) played against the locals. Gandhi would certainly not have been impressed.
We can appreciate the show’s banter, but what we should be doing is questioning ourselves; having a think can go far. Why did 5 million viewers tune in to see what we knew would be another Clarkson catastrophe on the diplomacy front? Why do we all revel in rebelling against the politically correct?
Clarkson and the opinions which have made him such a lot of money obviously hit home to a huge audience: is his appeal vicarious or even nostalgic, for the good old days when men were men, cars were cars, and “abroad” was populated by inept stereotypes with funny accents?
No other country has coined such a term ‘politically correct’ and we seem to have forgotten why it was needed in the first place: to prevent the deep seated arrogance of the Brits from humiliating us in front of the international community, who see us as a small island that still mistakes imperialism for patriotism.
I think if there was less left-wing writing beating everyone around the head with its racial oversensitivity it is likely that fewer people would be interested in Jeremy Clarkson.
But no one reads the left wing press. The Guardian and The Independent have a combined circulation of around 400,000. The Sun, The Daily Mail and The Express have circulation of almost 6,000,000. If you count the lowbrow left-wing press (The Star and The Mirror, which don't like political correctness either), it's a bit more even, but with the Telegraph, and Time and FT and Standard included it's fairly clear that the non-PC press dwarfs the PC press in every way.
Erm, that's no what they were saying…
I'm not sure people buy The Sun to read it…
India belongs to the Nords!
This is precisely the problem with the British…the embarrassingly high positive votes on your comment prove the articles point! I recognize this is a joke to you, but I truly am sorry to say that I am genuinely disgusted…
do you even get that joke?
He got so many positive votes because Cambridge is full of nerds, not because it's full of racists…
Though I guess it could be full of racist nerds.
Joking aside, this is exactly why people like Clarkson never go away. Every time someone well meaning but hypersensitive wades in and starts professing disgust at something fairly innocuous, you give Clarkson more ammunition for his claims that he's just providing the remedy to political correctness gone mad.
(Oh and "This is precisely the problem with the British"? Way to open with a line that was actually more biggotted than the comment you were taking issue with.)
im not sure that people realise the implication of these kinds of jokes: it just implies that india should 'belong' to someone, which would only be the view of those who see themselves or the skyrim 'nords' as superior to the indians. that is the meaning. you only think it is 'fairly innocuous' because it is not you or your country. its typical english humour, irony with a hint of superiority.
Of course people get the implication, it's not exactly subtle. They just think it's absurd. People laugh at absurd things. You might as well say that the Lumberjack Song is offensive because it portrays Canadians as homophobes.
And I'm going to assume you're the same guy as Raj above, because both comments manage to be completely oblivious to the delicious irony of including offhandedly prejudiced remarks in their comments against offhandedly prejudiced remarks.
But this is far too much analysis for a joke that wasn't that funny to begin with.
Actually no my logic friend, that was not me……..
This is an anti-colonialism comment. It's the battlecry of the Stormcloaks, the rebels of skyrim, who are rising up to overthrow imperial rule. Maybe you should read up on your elder scrolls lore before you make sweeping generalisations about the integrity of the dragonborn.
Joining up with the imperials in this would probably be taking the metaphor a bit too far in this case though …
you are all just proving the point of the article
"why do we all revel in rebelling against the politically correct?"
I used to watch top gear like you, but then I took an arrow in the knee
"No other country has coined such a term ‘politically correct’"
In Borgen they all say politically correct, Borgen is Danish.
Why does anyone else do this any more?
it's just light-hearted entertainment, what's with all the analysis??
Message to the editors: This article has been wrongly placed in the 'opinion' section. Posing a string of questions to your readers is not the same thing, please bear this in mind for the future.
I am just demonstrating to you what you already know about Top Gear.
That's just what I think you're doing. Nice of you to finally bother writing down your ideas though.
Is this still news? I mean the program was on a month ago.
You realise cricket is the number one sport in India, right? I wonder if you've even watched top gear that often. Or you just need the guardian to tell you when to be offended.
it's fucking shite
Does she know the banner ends up saying "Eat English Muff"? If so what's sinister about Anglo-Indian physical love? Watch the show properly or have a long hard think about yourself.
I'm all up for opinions, but lay-off on the personal abuse…
Clarkson, and to a lesser extent May and Hammond, are just professional contrarians. If they believed half the things they said, they'd be reprehensible twats, but as it is they're just immature twats. Overanalysing their actions, as with the ominous remark 'note, a colonial sport', seems a bit pointless.
hi jeremy
1) Old news
2) Not at all relevant to the Cambridge (note use of the word Cambridge) Tab
3) Several common and downright ignorant errors, including, as others have pointed out, the claim that "no other country has coined such a term ‘politically correct’" – while commonly stated, this is completely untrue, and the term is used around the world in several languages
The amount of poor articles on the Tab is starting to make me consider writing a poor article about how poor all the other poor articles are.
just saying that it was the indian high commission who thought this stuff. so the writer cant be far off.. and to be honest most people outside of the u.k would agree.
Because "political correctness" is starting to take on ever more grotesquely overblown requirements and it's just a pain in the arse. Regarding specifically – if the Brits introduced it and the Indian population hated it they could've stopped playing. What's wrong with continuing to do something that's fun (apparently)? I say this as someone with no understanding whatsoever of or for cricket.
I think calling cricket 'a colonial sport' is totally needless. I doubt anyone in India, where cricket is by a mile the most popular sport, would even notice a reference to colonialism, let alone be offended, if foreigners played cricket with them.
There really wasn't anything offensive in this episode. The presenters were clearly parodying themselves, trying to look as stupid as possible. Apart from the toilet joke (which, let's face it has some basis in truth, everyone gets upset stomach when they visit India), there were no jokes at India's expense.
if there wasnt anything offensive then why did the indians get annoyed…
cricket was used as a tool to win over the colonies to make occupation more pleasant. so it is a colonial sport! its not important whether it is liked or not!!!!!!
i remember dara o briain said that as an irishman political correctness is a good thing… unless you are a racist/homophobic/ misogynistic person then why do you defend the politically correct?
Congratulations, you have failed at a chance to prove yourselves anything other than children. It is unfortunate that nobody has taught you the manners needed to respect nations besides your own, let alone to respect the articles of young university students that put hard work into modest attempts at journalism, which may I add are more interesting than most of the media's twisted 'news'. One should comment on the quality of the article, not the author. Shame on you
here here
You're a ball bag.
Whilst I'm not defending the article (given that the author finds cricket so sinisterly colonial, she presumably regards the NFL games at Wembley as a threat to British sovereignty), 'political correctness' in indeed an English concept, albeit one which has been borrowed into many other languages as a recognised 'anglicism'
Political correctness has been, and always will be, British. Sure, you get immigrants coming over here and trying to take our lovely British concept of 'PC' – but we came up with it first because we are unparalleled internationally in terms of culture and emotional intellect.