Top Gear is a British TV show that road tests cars of all types – from Italian Ferraris, British Rolls Royces, and German BMWs to French Citroëns, Russian Ladas, and American SUVs. The premise is to see if the cars perform as their manufacturers claim.
But this is hardly a show just for car geeks – a point the Monty Python-like repartee and driving hijinks of its three presenters (James May, Jeremy Clarkson, and Richard Hammond) make hilariously clear at every turn. It boasts 350 million viewers in 170 countries. I’m a big fan.
Alas, Top Gear has a Keith Olbermann problem: its most charismatic and engaging presenter on-screen (i.e., Clarkson) is an abusive and impolitic jerk off-screen. Olbermann, of course, is ESPN’s most charismatic and engaging presenter. But this sports network suspends him for bad behavior off-screen as often as it promotes him for good performance on-screen.
Affirming this analogy, the March 10 edition of the New York Times catalogued some of the ways Clarkson established his reputation as the show’s enfant terrible.
Most notably, he’s on record demeaning Mexicans as “lazy, feckless [and] flatulent;” ridiculing the gastroenteritis that affects millions of chronically poor Indians living in unsanitary conditions; and singing the nursery rhyme “Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe,” complete with that familiar racial epithet – not unlike those students at Oklahoma University who were expelled last week for singing an equally racist fraternity song.
In fact, Clarkson’s record of shameful behavior was such that, after video of him singing that nursery rhyme went viral, the BBC felt compelled to announce that it had given him a “final warning.”
Now comes this:
The millionaire presenter is said to have verbally abused then ‘smacked’ the producer in the face in the ‘dust-up’ over being offered a ‘cold platter’ instead of a 8oz steak and fondant potatoes…
Top Gear’s co-stars Richard Hammond and James May looked ’embarrassed’ and were forced to sit with him to ‘calm him down’…
‘He was saying: ‘This is not f***** good enough … typical of the f****** BBC; you’re going to lose your job over this, I’ll make sure of it.”
(Daily Mail, March 13, 2015)
I applaud the BCC for promptly suspending Clarkson and canceling the show’s final two episodes of this season. I also appreciate it holding a full inquiry, which convenes today, to discover facts and grant him procedural due process. But, having already made quite a show of issuing Clarkson that final warning, the BBC has no choice now but to sack him.
It might be helpful to recall that the “heiress of Korean Air,” executive vice president Cho Hyun-ah, not only lost her job, but is now sitting in prison for assaulting a lowly steward in similar fashion. Remarkably, she erupted in a “nut rage” last December when he tried to serve her macadamia nuts in a bag instead of on a platter.
The fate that befell her should be instructive. But I suspect the BBC is just doing, in effect, what Clarkson is:
I’m having a nice cold pint and waiting for this to blow over.
(The Sun, March 12, 2015)
Clearly, far from the humility and contrition Cho demonstrated, Clarkson is behaving as if he should be applauded. He seems to be banking on the 350,000 of his 4.8 million Twitter followers who signed a “#BringBackClarkson” petition making BBC executives think they must – institutional integrity be damned. (Such is the impudent support he inspires that B-B-C standing for Bring-Back-Clarkson became a trending meme.)
Never mind the likelihood that 90 percent of his Twitter followers have probably never even watched his TV show. Like most twits, they probably just enjoy his snarky, obnoxious, but often-funny tweets.
Mind you, this online petition should have about as much influence on the BBC as that “#BringBackOurGirls” petition had on Boko Haram. But, given the way social media influence mainstream media these days, the BBC might be more concerned about avoiding viral protest than about protecting its corporate reputation.
Not to mention the perverse reality of other, less scrupulous networks salivating at the prospect of hiring Clarkson if/when the BBC fires him. A reality he seems to be reveling in with trademark arrogance.
As entertaining as he admittedly is, however, Clarkson is no more indispensable to Top Gear than Sean Connery was to the James Bond. In other words, if the BBC were to put another witty, acerbic Brit in Clarkson’s seat, the show would continue to go, perhaps even grow. More importantly, by doing so, the BBC would protect and preserve its institutional integrity.
The way Lester Holt replaced the purportedly indispensable Brian Williams in the anchor chair at NBC Nightly News provides an instructive analogy. There has been no measurable drop in ratings since NBC suspended Williams a month ago, after he was exposed as a serial liar.
(Yes, prime minister, your children’s hearts should be spared. David Cameron chimed in on the fallout from Clarkson’s “fracas,” supporting him rather supinely by whining that his children would be heartbroken if the show itself were canceled.)
What’s more, though, the BBC can ill afford to be seen coddling an unrepentant bully and “casual racist” like Clarkson. After all, it is still recovering from the reputational damage it suffered two years ago, when reports revealed that it had been coddling an equally unrepentant bully and serial pedophile like Jimmy Savile … for decades.
So kudos to the BBC for putting the brakes on Top Gear; and here’s to it making sure that, when the show starts again, Clarkson is no longer one of the three presenters in the driver’s seat.