Who’s Ready for an Eco-Feminist ‘Top Gear’ Sans Jeremy Clarkson?

A good headline goes a long way in telling me if I need to read something that will make me smarter or if I can just accept that headline has already shared everything worth knowing.

Take, for example, a headline I read a while back that said, “Salt Only Bad for Some People.” I automatically knew I was one of the lucky ones they were talking about, and so, ever since reading that headline, I have been eating plenty of salt, guilt-free.

Related: Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson Suspended by BBC >>

Zoe Williams’ recent article in The Guardian has a similarly useful headline: “With Jeremy Clarkson suspended, here’s my vision for an eco-feminist Top Gear.” See, I already know, at headline level, everything I need to know about the least entertaining car show imaginable.

But since I was asked to give a counterpoint to the article, and not just the headline, I have gone against my better instincts and read Williams’ yammering. I have done this so you do not have to. Because if you love Top Gear the way it is, there is not one reason to entertain the maniacal ramblings of Ms. Williams. Here’s why…

1. In the first paragraph Williams uses the word “anthropogenic.” What in the wide world of sports does that even mean? Obviously she’s trying to talk over me. Obviously she doesn’t get why Top Gear is funny.

2. In the next paragraph, Williams writes “The coolest car in the world right now is the BMW i8, a part electric, part petrol dreamscape of silent majesty.” Obviously she doesn’t understand why Top Gear is also really cool. And obviously she hasn’t seen the new Corvette C7 Z06.

3. Williams then labors about how neat hybrids are, and remarks that a “true programme about cars would be one that roped all this like a steed, and said: look. Look at what we’ve discovered.” Actually, if you’re wondering what a true program about cars would be like, it wouldn’t have an extra “m” and “e” in the word “program,” and the content would be pretty much everything Top Gear covers.

4. Here’s the crux of Ms. Williams’ argument: “Feminism is relevant because only a macho culture would have allowed a bunch of idiots to elide heedless fossil fuel use with mindless racial slurs and scientific illiteracy. I wouldn’t accidentally call someone a slope. I wouldn’t charge around Argentina spewing asinine triumphalism about some long-gone war. Why not? Because the impetus behind those actions is territorial, and that’s not what feminism or, for that matter, human beings are about.”

OK, fine, she’s probably right. She’s an adult, a feminist, a peace-maker, and all that good PC stuff. But the fact of the matter is PC is boring. And Jeremy Clarkson may be a world-wrecker, but at least he’s an entertaining world-wrecker.

via [The Guardian]