:P

[dreamer_easy]

On a quest for Top Gear bloopers, I watched some stuff cut out of the News earlier this year. There are lots of silly lols, as you might expect, and then this really nasty little bit where they slag off a woman for being ugly.

Obviously, the "news" on TG is entertainment, not actual information, as Googling any of their little outrages about the government or environment will quickly demonstrate. But that brief descent into boorishness disappointed me so much that I couldn't help looking up the lady in question, thereby discovering that (a) she probably does know what "novel batteries" means, being a former Director of Advanced Engineering at Rolls-Royce, former chief executive of the Institute of Physics, and so on, (b) her appearance is perfectly normal and in fact she probably looks like your mum and (c) she's around the same age as Clarkson.

They're lucky that bit wasn't broadcast, really: how large a part of TG's audience is made up of perfectly normal-looking women of a certain age? Pissing them off could dent the boys' chances of being voted "weird crush of the year" again. Although I'm sure the ladies would have enjoyed as much as I did what appears to be a helpful offer by Richard to ejaculate into Jeremy's mouth.

(If you're interested, search the PDF of the King Review's Recommendations for Action for the phrase "novel batteries". If you're only slightly interested: cutting CO2 requires r&d to find technological solutions, such as new kinds of batteries.)

ETA: I'm not sure if the TG Australia site provides subtitles / transcripts. If you need one of the bit in question, leave a comment and I'll type it up. ETA: There's a transcript of the relevant bit in the comments.

Comments

[infinitarian.livejournal.com]

That biog sounds familiar -- I'm certainly not going to watch any of Top Gear to find out, but would that be Julia King, the Vice-Chancellor at Aston University?

I've met her. She's really nice. And I didn't notice her being ugly.

[qthewetsprocket.livejournal.com]

this is one big reason why i loathe the 'comedy mother' stereotype in films, tv and books; especially in childrens' stories (where it seems to be most prevalent, for some reason) - it promotes the whole 'har har, middle-aged women are mockable unattractive cyphers with no soul or sexuality whatsoever' idea.

also, alas, i cannot see the vid - it tells me it's unavailable and to check back later. it has been telling me that for the last few hours. :( *is on tenterhooks wondering what jeremy's answer to richard's helpful offer was*

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I get it. Why does this actually surprise anyone?

[the-ladylark.livejournal.com]

Top Gear have a reputation for saying things that are Just Not On. In fact this week they made a joke about it, mentioning a long list of groups that had complained about comments in the previous week, and then proclaiming that they would never offend [single most contraversial group listed].

I'd say that calling a particular woman 'not good looking' is fairly mild for what they get up to! I suspect that none of them are particularly sexist, just as none of them actually believe that lorry drivers all murder prostitutes.

[edorm.livejournal.com]

... aaaand this is why I've missed the whole Top Gear boat - the first time I ever watched it, they were interviewing people in the crowd, and Jeremy decided it would be funny to make fun of how one of the people looked. I just changed the channel and never went back.