The erstwhile amusing "Top Gear" does still have its moments; last week's episode (detailed below) was a stark contrast in the different perceptions in irony/humour between rather upper-middle-class, overgrown middle-aged British motoring journalists/entertainers and some parts of America's Deep South - namely, Alabama.
This was actually pretty depressing/scary watching - for that, congratulations to Top Gear (it made a change to yet another inane review of a $200k supercar) - to witness such brain-dead bigotry and aggression when faced with ironic (alebit juvenile) humour was thought-provoking. I have never experienced it on any of my countless business/personal trips to America - still, I can't recall ever visiting Alabama.
And no, from my perspective at least, this isn't a bigoted and patronising lampooning of Americans - there are as many such humour-less bigots in good old England; not that the Top Gear crew (especially Clarkson) would acknowledge that ... in fact, Borat would make a fine addition to the Top Gear team, thinking about it.
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On land-of-the-free Top Gear, we spent the whole show in the good ole US of A, as we sent Jeremy, Richard and James across the pond on a massive interstate road-trip.
Our presenters touched down in sunny Miami amid a heady cocktail of bikini-clad beach babes, colourful art deco buildings and drug-related gangland violence. They were each given an extremely tight budget of $1000 and told to go off and buy themselves a car in which to embark on an epic road trip, stopping along the way to compete in a series of challenges.
It turned out that finding a car for that sort of money is pretty tricky. Especially if your picky about such things as bullet holes in the windscreen or shrubs growing through the radiator grille. Eventually, though, Jeremy managed to lay hands on a Chevrolet Camaro, Richard landed himself a very utilitarian Dodge Ram pick-up, and James turned up in a Cadillac as large and wobbly as Liberace's waterbed. The target destination was revealed to be New Orleans, which was over 700 extremely hot, red neck-strewn miles away.
The first stop along the way was the Moroso Motorsports Park, which is unusual in the US because it's a racetrack that has both left and right hand turns. Each car was put through its paces by none other than the Stig's super-sized US cousin.
The next challenge was simply to camp out for the evening. There was, however, a small catch - they were only allowed to eat road kill. After several hours of foraging, all they managed to turn up was one slightly mouldy squirrel.
The next morning the presenters faced their final challenge: to drive their cars across Alabama without getting shot. This might sound relatively easy, but before they set off they were allowed to paint slogans on each other's cars. James ended up with 'Hilary for president' scrawled along the side of his Caddy, Jeremy's Camaro had the words 'Country and western is rubbish', and Richard's pick-up bore the legend 'Man love rules OK'. These sentiments didn't go down too well with some of the locals and, to cut a long story short, we were lucky to make it to New Orleans with our lives.
BBC - Top Gear - Episode Archive - Series 9 - Episode 3
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