Recently the Top Gear lads went to Alabama. Just for the heck of it, they painted slogans like "Country and Western is Rubbish" and "I'm Bi" on each other's cars and then drove around to see what would happen.
They don't get the warmest of welcomes at one small town gas station. (You know things are bad when a town's own resident calls his home a "hick town" - and when the gas station owner says "I'm callin' the boys!") Cripes.
Jeremy Clarkson finishes the piece with "I'm doing something I thought I'd never do; make a run for the border."
He didn't say which way he was headed. Perhaps he was about enter the Greenest State in the Land of the Free.
Watch the hijinks ensue (via YouTube)...
Hat tip to fellow Southerner and American expat Kathy at What Do I know?
It was all probably just a cultural misunderstanding. Sweet Home Alabama is actually one of the most welcoming states. (Don't let those bullet holes in the "Welcome to Alabama!" sign fool you. Most people keep their guns on safety there.)
Truthfully though, you don't tug on superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, and you don't mess around with cultural iconography... Jeremy might think it's cool to poke fun, but I'd like to see him do something similar in the nastier neighbourhoods of Glasgow wearing the wrong color football strip, or why doesn't he go to certain neighbourhoods of Birmingham still reeling from recent terror arrests with a car painted up with "The Prophet was a pedophile".
8 comments:
Jeremy might think it's cool to poke fun, but I'd like to see him do something similar in the nastier neighbourhoods of Glasgow wearing the wrong color football strip, or why doesn't he go to certain neighbourhoods of Birmingham still reeling from recent terror arrests with a car painted up with "The Prophet was a pedophile".
True dat. He's always been a prat, but a funny one. Now he's just a wanker who thinks it's funny to show Americans in a bad light for comic effect.
If he'd got beat up in Glasgow, he wouldn't think it was quite so funny and television worthy, now, would he.
But I would!
lolol.
I suppose thats a fair point, about walking in the wrong place wearing the wrong football shirt. But if you went round those same places, and wrote: "Sir Menzies Campbell for Prim Minster", "Gangsta Rap Sucks!" and "Man-love is cool ok"
I don't think they would even be touched.
The thing is, their slogans, weren't slanderous, offensive in an insulting meaner to any religious group or race.
It did not need such a violent response.
Of course it didn't warrant violence. And yeah, if people had painted the slogans you suggest -they'd have probably been ok.
But then again - if Top Gear lads had been trying to stitch up each other and rile up the locals those wouldn't have been the slogans they would have chosen. They deliberately chose things that would stir people up - and you know if you watch the clip again - that's what the gas store guy was objecting to - "did you come here to test us?" essentially he was asking "did you come here to make fun of our ways?" The answer to that truthfully was EMPHATICALLY yes. So am I sorry they were run out of town? No. Am I glad they pulled this stunt in Alabama and not my home state? Well, yes.
I think that's the key point. The guys weren't angry because of what was on the cars. They were angry because they were being made fun of, and they knew it - on television, no less.
That'd make me want to throw a rock!
Seems to me the proper response would have been to laugh, and show how the stereotype wasn't true, and make the Brits look like fools, but instead they picked up rocks, thus showing the stereotypes were all too true.
Gee, Vol, sounds to me like it might constitute a HATE CRIME -- or at least warrant a visit from the thought police! Have the authorities assembled a committee to call for the appropriate "if I offended" apologies? Here in the U.S. the next step would be for Jeremy to admit he has an alcohol/drug problem and check into rehab.
Clearly, I'm not going to excuse the behavior of the Alabama tourist welcome wagon - and yes, I agree that the right action would be to rise above it. But they wouldn't have broadcast a lot of rising above (which is what MOST people did).
All I'm saying is that Alabama ain't the only place where you might see that reaction.
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