America spared Top Gear Mexican quips The BBC has announced that the episode of Top Gear featuring witty analysis of Mexicans will be diplomatically edited before its stateside broadcast next week. Auntie apologised last week for the controversial quippery of presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, which included a description of a Mexican …
Don't be a cupid stunt, LPF... don't paint all us Mexicans with the same brush as the Mexican Diplomat, believe it or not, not all Mexicans agree with him!
Me (Mexican dude!), I've always thought that Jeremy Clarkson was a funny c*nt, and taking anything he says seriously is just folly... he's the human equivalent of the Daily Mail: full of shit and funny as hell.
I think Jeremy and co missed something in the description. How about adding 'humourless' at the end. Seems a done deal bearing in mind their reaction to the show. Amazing how many countries just don't get humour. The Japanese getting upset over QI is quite incredible as well given their well documented 'entertainment' shows normally involving torturing people in all sorts of inventive ways.
Are funny, if you take them seriously they cease to be funny, come fly with me (for example) insults just about everybody, if you treat people like a stereotype then you are not funny, Bruno/Borat are funny because of the stereotype (and pokes fun at those who believe the stereotype).
>>Neither Bruno nor Borat are funny, and they're not as clever as they think they are either.
Sarah, it's unusual for you to express an opinion as "the opinion", as I see it there are four ways of taking SBC;
1. You find him funny, but don't get it
2. You find him funny, and get it
3. You don't find him funny, and don't get it
4. You don't find him funny, but you get it
The only real problem is people #1, I'm hoping that you're a type #4 and your slightly narky response is because of type #1 people, but like biggots who were fans of Alf Garnett their ignorance is not his fault.
I guess all the Emmy nominations, best actor/comedy awards and golden globes in the world don't carry much weight with you if you just don't find him funny? let's hope the judges are type #2 people!
Looks like Mama Beeb is going to make it all better for the Americans. Not that a single viewer hasn't already fucking read the story in the press. Perish the thought that the Americans routinely and very publiclly think even less of their neighbours and say so on the radio/TV there already.
Well that's the intention, isn't it?
If a show is 60mins long and has to fit in a 60min slot, including any advertising, it will be:
About 60mins long on the BBC
About 46mins long on Dave
About 42mins long on US TV
It does help if you create the show with lots of nice "edit points", where you can snip bits out apparently seamlessly.
Which could be where "let's tease the Mexicans" came in ... a minute or so's content ready to be discarded in the sanitized-for-export edit.
Some of you Brits ARE clueless wankers... do NOT assume that the Mexican diplomat speaks for all Mexicans nor for ME (a Mexican living in the UK)... fuck you're as bad as Americans, you Brits assuming we are the MexiBorg or something....
HOWEVER: I do not blame the BBC for editing the episode before sending it to America: the British sense of humor (a la Clarkson) can sometimes be seen as c*nt-like by my fellow Americans (i.e., Ricky Gervais' fail recently on some awards show), and pissing off the Mexican viewing population in the USA (who have not been exposed to Jeremy C*ntson on a weekly basis like I have) would lead to the BBC getting losing business.
(However, I do still think the Americans are overly-earnest wankers, and the British are miserable tw*ts :D
Ricky Gervais' award presentation speech was actually the first time that guy has made me laugh! Up until then I had found his shows about as entertaining at a teetotal funeral. Then again, maybe it was the room full of squirming Americans that made it funny.
Now be a good lad and make me some fart-heaters.
I wholeheartedly agree with you!! I could not be bothered to watch borat and or bruno... I just don't think Sascha Baron Cohen is funny.... He is a big prat! Has the world suddenly stopped turning? Usually i disagree with you...
I love the banter between the lads but when JC starts picking on his European neighbours I just tune out... Someone compared him with a schoolyard bully but i wouldn't go quite that far more a neatherthaler (named after the valley of the Neader and yes thats a river in .... +shock- Germay).
Sips of his superior Belgian beer! (And yes my Blighty bound friends most Belgian beers ARE superior to the colored and flavored dishes water called Lager that you brits drink!
Abu Eireann!!!
Unfortunately superior English beers are in the minority in the UK and superior Belgian beers are in the majority in Belgium. Keep drinking the good stuff!
P.S. Jeremy Clarkson's non car related drivel not worth commenting on. The cars, including the Mexican ones, are the only interesting things on the show.
I'm not a big fan of Sascha Baron Cohen either. I'm aware he had a TV-show once, but only caught a few glimpses of his Ali-G character and I was less than impressed. Bruno is amusing enough, but somehow never achieves take-off.
Borat OTOH is brilliant. The scene where he nude-wrestles his manager (or whatever function the fat guy is supposed to have) after chasing him through the hotel lobby was priceless. His ramblings about the tears from a gypsy curing AIDS can be quite helpful if you have such a disease. So, it is both fun and informative. How can you top that? (incidentally, Borat currently rates a solid 7.5 at imdb.com, so it seems a bit strange to dismiss it outright without even having watched it)
Oh... Also make sure to check out Madagascar 2. King Julien is the type of king we should have more of.
Top Gear should have been taken off the air about three years ago. It has long ceased to be any sort of proper motoring show and is now a poorly scripted attempt at a comedy in the fake documentary style.
I long ago ceased to be a regular viewer, but when I happen to catch the odd five minutes or so now, it makes me cringe.
I totally agree. The American version we get here in the states is junk. I watched about 1.5 episodes before giving up on it. They lost me when they started destroying cars with humor appearing to cater to a demographic I'm not familiar with.
I'm a big car nut.. I love some, hate others.. but none, not even the crappiest deserve be destroyed for the lame attempts of humor and ratings they were going for.
As a Brit living in the US, American TV shows think nothing of using racial stereotypes when portraying the English, from bad teeth,bad food, and always thinking Brits all speak with a Cockney accent to a very badly portrayed Queen Elizabeth on a Hebrew National hot dog advert which i found to be very insulting (Yes I'm a Royalist)
There is far too much PC in the world to day, people just seem to need something to whine about, the Mexican Ambassador should have just shut up and taken heed of the phrase 'Sticks and Stones' , and the Beeb should not have done anything to Top Gear editing wise.
Americans tell me there is a lot of racism against Mexicans in the States. Therefore, if they leave comments in after the Mexican representative complains, the Beeb is seen as supporting the racists.
Also, it isn't feeble to claim that Top Gear is routinely edited for broadcasting abroad; it's accurate (because despite all Beeb's faults, there aren't any adverts during the programmes as shown on BBC1 or 2). And it's usually a bit of the news that gets cut out. Not always because someone complains, but because it's the least "action packed" part of the show.
-A-
In fact, most Mexicans in the US do know English, or at least a bit. Having the US so close means that English creeps a lot into daily language. Hell, a lot of Mexicans *in Mexico* know English as well.
Those who come from South American countries are the ones that will usually be English-impaired, but even they will actually learn English at some point.
So when they shout "shown in their complete uncut glory" then I can nail 'em for false advertising?
What do you expect where the country is completely run by drug lords and all the cops are on the take? I guess all the ones with a sense of humor were shot.
Back a few years ago, we had the "Frito Bandito" (complete with drawn in handelbar mustache). Nobody really complained about that characterization.
Look humor IS legitimate, get over it!
Of course, if this were some tirade about a certain religion, those who spoke bad would be under a death threat, even for drawing a cartoon!
The BBC Canada version has to fit into an hour including about 12 minutes of commercials. The uncut version that we obtain 'from other sources' is about an hour and 2 minutes end-to-end. So there's about 25% of the show that we never see, unless we take matters into our own hands.
Also, BBC Canada is still spooling through Season 15 at this time. Canadians won't see Season 16 until maybe the autumn, unless they take matters into their own hands.
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