Top Gear: is it just car porn?

Snickers Man

The Top Gear trio are in town today looking down their collective noses at the peasantry and basking in the smugness that comes of knowing their four-day appearance here is already a sell out.

Now credit where it is due. Top Gear is a well produced show. The standard of its editing, as it switches backwards and forwards between different views of the car being driven, and/or the cyclist/skateboarder/parcour runners/hang gliders it is racing against, is extremely high. The challenges are invariably funny and riveting, the lads obviously love their chariots and can wax lyrical about them in fine fettle.

But....

maybe I've seen it too often but much of the attitude of the show has been pissing me off for some time. You can only take being told what your opinion should be on anything ranging from congestion charges to your fashion sense to where you'd like to go on your holidays for so long before you begin to question just who is the saddest bastard here between the four of us: Clarkson, Hamster, May or me.

At one level Clarkson is self effacing and down to earth. He was once asked by, I think, Pat Kenny whether his reviews ever had an effect on a car's sales. "None whatsoever," he harrumphed proudly. "I've called the Toyota Corolla the most boring car ever and it is one of the best selling cars in the world and always wins customer satisfaction surveys."

But that is absolutely not the point of Top Gear. It doesn't do reviews of the sort of car most people might consider buying; instead it plays around in the sort of muscle machines that most of us only dream about.

Now there is nothing wrong with this. It can be great TV. Who wants to watch lots of film of an Opel Vectra or a Toyota Avensis when you can watch the Stig bomb around the track in a Ferrari? It's a bit like the choice between loooking at naked pictures of a supermodel or similar shots of a woman you might actually have a chance of sleeping with: the supermodel is always going to be more photogenic. (maybe that's just me)

But it quickly becomes car porn: instant gratification but in the long run pretty forgettable. There has to be a limit to the number of times the boys do features on Aston Martins without it becoming just a little repetitive. Have they ever done a program that DIDN'T mention Aston Martin at least once? I doubt it.

Clarkson also has a flair for language and for comic timing. I would never have thought of Isambard Kingdom Brunel as being one of the greatest ever Britons (he was half French for a start) until I saw Clarkson's program suggesting him for that title. It was brilliant.

I just think of late that Top Gear has started to get a little too far up its own backside. Maybe it's my own fault for watching too many repeats on Dave but then, I have been watching reruns of Fawlty Towers for 30 years and can still find them funny.

The presumptuous humour of the Top Gear Trio on such diverse topics as people with red hair, caravans, those who occasionally use public transport is just not funny after a while.

Hammond may have the sort of doe-like eyes that make young girls weak at the knees, but he reminds me too much of every self-important little pipsqueak I have ever met at school or at work and has the sort of face which, allied to his manner, that one would never tire of punching.

May comes across as an amiable upper class twit whose time at public school has taught him to grin and bear whatever it is life thrusts at him. His delivery is as wimpy as his hair style.

Clarkson's ceaseless battle to be "cool" quickly wears thin for a guy as old as he is. Not being at the cutting edge of what OTHER people think seems to terrify him to death.

And Hammond, as the youngest, would seem to be the arbiter for what is cool in today's world.

Think about it: Clarkson's father in law was a paratrooper in the last war who won the Victoria Cross which is only awarded to men who perform feats of bravery above and beyond the normal call of duty in the face of the enemy.
Yet his daughter married a man who is afraid of the opinion of a Hamster!!!

That's one old soldier who must be spinning in his grave.

Basq

Moved to 'Top Gear' forum

amacachi

Snickers Man wrote: »

The Top Gear trio are in town today looking down their collective noses at the peasantry and basking in the smugness that comes of knowing their four-day appearance here is already a sell out.

Now credit where it is due. Top Gear is a well produced show. The standard of its editing, as it switches backwards and forwards between different views of the car being driven, and/or the cyclist/skateboarder/parcour runners/hang gliders it is racing against, is extremely high. The challenges are invariably funny and riveting, the lads obviously love their chariots and can wax lyrical about them in fine fettle.

But....

maybe I've seen it too often but much of the attitude of the show has been pissing me off for some time. You can only take being told what your opinion should be on anything ranging from congestion charges to your fashion sense to where you'd like to go on your holidays for so long before you begin to question just who is the saddest bastard here between the four of us: Clarkson, Hamster, May or me.

At one level Clarkson is self effacing and down to earth. He was once asked by, I think, Pat Kenny whether his reviews ever had an effect on a car's sales. "None whatsoever," he harrumphed proudly. "I've called the Toyota Corolla the most boring car ever and it is one of the best selling cars in the world and always wins customer satisfaction surveys."

But that is absolutely not the point of Top Gear. It doesn't do reviews of the sort of car most people might consider buying; instead it plays around in the sort of muscle machines that most of us only dream about.

Now there is nothing wrong with this. It can be great TV. Who wants to watch lots of film of an Opel Vectra or a Toyota Avensis when you can watch the Stig bomb around the track in a Ferrari? It's a bit like the choice between loooking at naked pictures of a supermodel or similar shots of a woman you might actually have a chance of sleeping with: the supermodel is always going to be more photogenic. (maybe that's just me)

But it quickly becomes car porn: instant gratification but in the long run pretty forgettable. There has to be a limit to the number of times the boys do features on Aston Martins without it becoming just a little repetitive. Have they ever done a program that DIDN'T mention Aston Martin at least once? I doubt it.

Clarkson also has a flair for language and for comic timing. I would never have thought of Isambard Kingdom Brunel as being one of the greatest ever Britons (he was half French for a start) until I saw Clarkson's program suggesting him for that title. It was brilliant.

I just think of late that Top Gear has started to get a little too far up its own backside. Maybe it's my own fault for watching too many repeats on Dave but then, I have been watching reruns of Fawlty Towers for 30 years and can still find them funny.

The presumptuous humour of the Top Gear Trio on such diverse topics as people with red hair, caravans, those who occasionally use public transport is just not funny after a while.

Hammond may have the sort of doe-like eyes that make young girls weak at the knees, but he reminds me too much of every self-important little pipsqueak I have ever met at school or at work and has the sort of face which, allied to his manner, that one would never tire of punching.

May comes across as an amiable upper class twit whose time at public school has taught him to grin and bear whatever it is life thrusts at him. His delivery is as wimpy as his hair style.

Clarkson's ceaseless battle to be "cool" quickly wears thin for a guy as old as he is. Not being at the cutting edge of what OTHER people think seems to terrify him to death.

And Hammond, as the youngest, would seem to be the arbiter for what is cool in today's world.

Think about it: Clarkson's father in law was a paratrooper in the last war who won the Victoria Cross which is only awarded to men who perform feats of bravery above and beyond the normal call of duty in the face of the enemy.
Yet his daughter married a man who is afraid of the opinion of a Hamster!!!

That's one old soldier who must be spinning in his grave.

Seriously? Stop watching it if it offends you that much. Read back over what you said, it's BS. Top Gear is about entertainment, the presenters are basically acting most of the time. In my opinion the quality has dipped for the last two series but it's still great television.

anonymous_joe

Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May as you, I and the world knows them are not real. At the end of the day, they're highly exaggerated caricatures.

I've been watching Top Gear as long as I can remember, because my dad used to watch the old version religiously. It was good back then, but was growing tired.

Clarkson left for that reason - he was good enough to do something else, but his style doesn't work in many fields. Hence the chat show failure. Similar enough with the others.

The real Jeremy Clarkson is clearly a much calmer man than the beast we see on tv, same for the others. And, at the end of the day, it's entertainment, not documentary. A programme on cars is just not interesting enough in this day and age. What they do has been going on for a long long time now, but that's only because they've been massively successful. The constant repeats on Dave indicate they're one of the few shows of their ilk people actually like. I don't think they'd have survived if they weren't so popular.

At the end of teh day, I'd still go out of my way to watch Top Gear, and there's probably no other programme on tv I could say that about. That's why they're still successful.

Snickers Man

anonymous_joe wrote: »

Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May as you, I and the world knows them are not real. At the end of the day, they're highly exaggerated caricatures.

I've been watching Top Gear as long as I can remember, because my dad used to watch the old version religiously. It was good back then, but was growing tired.

I used to love it too. The current incarnation that is. But, like you said about the last version, this one is beginning to get a bit tired. And Clarkson's quip in the Times today about "you're a failure if you still take public transport after the age of 26" is just another groan-making presumptuous piece of pomposity.

So what if it's not the opinion of the REAL Jeremy Clarkson. It's the idea that he thinks there's an audience for this sort of unfunny condescension that irritates me. And maybe what rankles is that I'm the sort of person who used to love the show and that therefore he must think that I think it's funny. I don't.

Maybe I'm suffering the age-old phenomenon of realising that I no longer see eye to eye with these I have loved.

Am I alone in this?

tdc

Emmm...don't agree with much you say. The characters have their own personalities and thats what makes them funny ie. Clarksons public transport comment at the press conference the other day was typical Clarkson, very funny I thought. I don't agree with their views and opinions a lot of the time, especially the constant bias towards "British" cars like Aston, Jaguar and TVR.

I just watch it because it is really entertaining, plus I love watching almost anything about cars. The attempt to make the Renault as quick as an Evo was really good, as was the review of the new Lambo and the V8 blender!

mike65

The "real" Clarkson is both the man who makes the superb historical docs and goes POW-WARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR around the TG track, that why he is actually so good most of the time.

TG as Car Porn makes me go "....and?"

Sure it could rebalance elements or drop stuff or indeed reintroduce bits that got dropped alog the way (whatever happened to the Modern Classics feature and TG Dog?) but as 60 mins of eye and ear candy its still pretty good.

It would be great in HD 3D though I'd prolly wet myself if that happened.

Mike