Now that
Clarkson has now been sacked, where could he best reinvent his career? Why in the far-flung Colonies, just like every member of the middling class during the heyday of British Imperialism. This is a chance to actually improve or simply amplify the reality stupidity that has become the History Channel. This is a chance for him to continue to ridicule Yanks as he has for years in a situation more suited to his Bravo Channel Real Housewife antics.
Sack the lot of talentless white hipsters on US Top Gear and put Clarkson on US Top Gear with a person of color and a woman. Actually May, Hammond, and Clarkson were pretty funny in their US-themed segments being chased by rednecks in Alabama and making fun of US gun culture and Hammond's solo US program didn't make it. C'mon, PBS, hasn't the US TV audience been tortured enough by Edwardian dramas about classism?
One could claim that since the existing US show was renewed five times that nothing need be changed. OTOH, it hasn't stopped the History Channel from flogging multiple shows on the failures of gold mining. Hell, have Clarkson pan for gold, host a singing competition, or even better, host a late night talk show on CBS.
The A.V. Club gave the US show an overall rating of C, lamenting that Season One of the series ended with a clip show, and not liking host Adam Ferrara. The review compared both the BBC and History Channel versions, and claimed that History's version borrowed "the graphics, music, and editing...." of the original, but that the show felt like it was "imported from a 1980s beer commercial."
In 2005, Discovery Channel made a pilot for an American version of the show featuring actor and IHRA driver Bruno Massel as one of the hosts, but it was not picked up by the network. A short time later Discovery Channel began airing a slightly "Americanized" version of the British Top Gear show with presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May. This show featured clips of features and challenges from Series 1–5 from the BBC Two show with introduction segments recorded by Clarkson, Hammond and May at the Dunsfold Aerodrome studio especially for the US audience. Regular features like "The News" and "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" were not shown on the Discovery Channel version.
Commenting on the second season renewal, UK host Jeremy Clarkson noted, "Top Gear is our baby so you can understand why Hammond, May and I were anxious about passing it on to the presenters of the US show. We needn’t have worried because Top Gear is clearly in safe hands, even if they do insist on speaking in those stupid accents. Watching an episode from series 1 with Richard and James, we found ourselves in a genuinely heated debate about which of the presenters’ cars was best. We were just three ordinary chaps watching a car show and loving it, which is exactly what Top Gear should be. Bring on series 2.
If you had 19 March in the “When will someone respond to Jeremy Clarkson’s latest controversy by turning his head into a 3D-printable part for Hungry Hippos?” sweepstakes, this is very much your lucky day.
3D printing firm CEL has found one of the more inventive ways to capitalise on the TV presenter’s suspension from Top Gear for marketing purposes, releasing a 3D-printable version of Clarkson’s head.
The part can then be printed in multiple colours and used to replace the hippo heads in the classic children’s game.
CEL has made the design available on 3D printing community My Mini Factory to promote its Robox printer. It’s a free download, which is frankly sensible given the likelihood of lawyers for Clarkson and/or the BBC coming calling.
http://www.nytimes.com/...=
Rules about acceptable speech have, over the past three decades, become increasingly significant forms of social regulation. From bans on hate speech to the policing of offensive language, the management of how people talk to each other has become an important means of supervising social relations and establishing moral boundaries. The fact that codes of speech are enforced in this way has led many to push back against them.
This is not simply a case of left vs. right or liberals vs. conservatives. Certainly, political correctness has come to be associated with the left, and many liberals have come to view the appropriate use of language as key to social change. But many conservatives are equally censorious and keen to use speech codes as a way of regulating social relations.
In this struggle over speech, those who protest against restrictions are often characterized as bigots who want the freedom to use racist, misogynistic or homophobic language. But many free speech campaigners, myself included, view the right to freedom of expression as central to the struggle against bigotry. And then there are those who feel marginalized and voiceless, and express their estrangement from mainstream institutions by rejecting what they see as the liberal consensus.