BOOR GETS THE BOOT
Clarkson got too big for BBC
I suspect that to most Canadians, the British Broadcasting Corporation’s firing of Jeremy Clarkson must seem like much hullabaloo about nothing.
After all, Top Gear, the program he hosts, is but a car show, something normally relegated to the deepest, darkest recesses of cable television here in North America, and then only at the most ungodly of hours. The concept that someone, let alone 350 million someones, should care enough to protest his dismissal for taking a swing at Oisin Tymon, the show’s producer, is unfathomable to those who couldn’t give a fig about a lowly car show.
Of course, that’s because those who haven’t seen the show don’t realize that, just like Survivor isn’t about camping skills and the popularity of Hell’s Kitchen has nothing to do with cooking, Top Gear isn’t really about cars. It’s a character play, plain and simple.
The cars are mere props in the BBC’s automotive commedia dell’arte. There are hundreds of car shows produced around the world and even more car- crazed YouTube snippets. Yet Top Gear remains a worldwide cultural phenomenon in a genre normally known for its obscurity.
One could cite Top Gear’s incredible production values — rumours run rampant that the BBC spends as much as $ 1 million per episode for its weekly reviews — for its success. But then, many TV shows have fallen by the wayside, despite huge budgets. And, yes, its skit- like montages are hilarious, but the show has no monopoly on humour.
The BBC, looking to salvage the show with a new host, will tell you that Top Gear was always an ensemble piece, Richard Hammond and James May equally responsible for the show’s success. But that would be forgetting the lessons of Honey Boo Boo, Richard Hatch and the even more controversial Charlie Sheen. Television likes its characters writ large and Clarkson is, even to his detractors, the largest of them all.
The reason 350 million people — far beyond the number that would normally watch a car show, no matter how edifying — tune in every week is simple; they want to see what the H-E- double hockey-sticks Clarkson is going to say next.
And, of course, he delivers. His affronts are legendary — his last run- in with the BBC’s regulators was when he offended the entire country of Argentina with just a licence plate. He has insulted politicians and foreigners, feigned a Nazi salute and glamorized drunk driving. Even Hammond and May, two friends he clearly adores, are not spared. Clearly the only voice he trusts is his own. It’s a narrowness of opinion that, unfortunately for the BBC in this fracas, 350 million viewers agree with.
And that’s what has fans around the world so baffled. The one question heard over and over in this great debate is how could the BBC risk losing someone with so many loyal followers.
Of course, Clarkson is a boor. No question. But he’s a boor that 350 million people in 212 countries and territories tune in to watch with religious fervour.
That may not be politically correct, but let’s be honest here: nobody is watching Top Gear for the cars.