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Jeremy Clarkson Dismissed From Top Gear
An anonymous reader writes According to BBC News, Jeremy Clarkson, longstanding main host for the automobile television show Top Gear, will not have his contract renewed. This decision came about two weeks after he was suspended due to an altercation with a Top Gear producer involving catering during filming for the show. Admittedly not the nerdiest news of the day, but it can be said that his thirteen-year run on the new format of Top Gear has interested many Slashdot users who love their cars and the entertainment that the show has brought to them.
End of show.
Are people really going to miss yet another totally fake show pretending to be reality? Is it just because this one combined cars and Daily Mail-style politics?
Sorry, but I have no sympathy for a primadonna for whom curses at an employee for 20 minutes and then physically assaults him up for half a minute (without any resistance from his victim) before someone pulled him off, all because the Clarkson's food wasn't warm. And this is hardly the first time Clarkson has behaved like this, he was already on "final warning" after a string of other incidents. What befalls him is his own bloody fault. And all of the abuse that the victim got over this whole thing... my favorite tweet on the subject was:
"Man assaults another man and victim receives abuse because people can’t watch a TV show about cars. Bravo society. "
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
The BBC is a public broadcaster, funded and owned by mandatory license fees in the UK.Clarkson was on contract to the BBC. Once the organization confirmed that unprovoked verbal and physical abuse had occurred, they had to take action or leave the corporation open to an indefensible lawsuit from the victim. They can't exactly say, "Yeah, get stuffed. We have extensive policies promoting equality and prohibiting harassment and violence in the workplace, but we're ignoring them because the presenter is popular and profitable."
No doubt Clarkson and pals will make a profitable jump to Netflix or Sky to make a similar motoring comedy show. Meanwhile, the BBC has a chance to reinvent Top Gear with younger presenters and a reinvigorated format (there are only so many new Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Aston Martins that can be driven around a track in a cloud of smoke every week and only so many routes for contrived road trips through war zones in ancient sports cars).
Even if the guy intentionally put his food in the refrigerator, it would not justify flipping out and yelling for 20 minutes, let alone punching the producer in the face.
No, people do realize what a "pompous asshat" Jeremy Clarkson is, and they either don't care given how good he is at what he does, or they admire those traits. Large segments of society are not on board with the PC, wimpy, constantly-whining-about-bullying-and-____ism that is pervasive in media, especially an institution like BBC. Clarkson is a figure who pushes back at that trend, and many see him as a hero (now perhaps a martyr) for it.
The correct headline would be "Millionaire Celebrity Thug and Bigot Finally Dismissed by BBC."
The correct subhead would be "Assault on staff last straw, after insults to Mexico and use of n-word insufficient to force BBC executives to punish their cash cow."
If I show up to work drunk and beat on someone, I would expect to get fired.
Well, yes, he'd have still got sacked, if that's what you're saying about it not making any difference.
But are you implying that verbally and physically assaulting a colleague aren't grounds enough for dismissal?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Punching people is not protected speech in the US.
What planet do you come from, and how do i get there?
On this planet greed is one of the main things people are more than willing to shove their ethics aside for. Most companies if they can choose between the ethical thing (throwing JC out), or keep profiting from him since he's one of the main stars, will choose the latter. Greed and ethics often conflict, and it's nice to see a big company go for the ethical option.
Comments that, according to what I heard, may not have happened because it wasn't exactly clear what he said. Also they never went on air with the comments. Lastly the racist remark was in completing a certain nursery rhyme in a way that I'm everyone reading this has done at least once in your mind if not verbally. It's something that can't be avoided when the N word is being mentioned all the time either as something not to be said or as something that comes up all the time in rap and common conversations involving black people (yes, I know it's not supposed to be the same word but it sure sounds the same.)
I'm not suggesting that racist comments are something that anyone should indulge in whether in public or private, but given the context and Clarkson's tendency to try and be funny on camera I can see him saying it as part of the rhyme knowing that it won't make it on air. At worst someone should have said don't do that, but that he got a warning from the BBC seems overkill to me. It would be entirely different if he did that in front of an audience and not just while recording some set piece that they were probably working on all day long. From what I read they had already filmed the same segment three times so he was probably a bit bored.
That's obvious, but it still doesn't clarify whatever point it was you were trying to make.
He punched a colleague. He got sacked. Seems pretty reasonable. But it's also pretty much the ultimate sanction the BBC can impose on him, so I'm really not sure what you're trying to say by comparing it with a much worse hypothetical assault which would still have resulted in him getting sacked, albeit with perhaps a little more alacrity.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Is your entertainment more important than someone being assaulted?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Even if so, there's very probably enough provocation on the failing there by the Producer alone.
Bollocks. Instead of turning up at 8pm for dinner at the hotel, Clarkson stayed at the pub drinking. Then he turned up at 10pm, probably pissed, and demanded a hot meal. The cook had already gone home, so Clarkson abused the producer for 20 minutes then assaulted him.
What an entitled prick who deserves not only sacking, but criminal prosecution.
It's good luck to be superstitious
It's the same as how the US went through a phase of people suing for the most ridiculous reasons before it mostly calmed down to a sensible level. Of course most of those lawsuits were thrown out at the early stages, or if not turned out to have merit (like the infamous McDonald's "hot coffee" incident).
Uh, what? The McDonald's "hot coffee" incident was decided in favor of the customer. That's the opposite of not having merit. McDonald's served coffee at a temperature above their own published standards, which were set in part because they knew that the cups become inadequate at doing their job when used at those temperatures. The coffee was hot enough to cause substantial burns to the woman's flesh, which is not the case if they follow their own guidelines. The case might have been decided the way you imagine absent those guidelines, but it proved that McDonald's was aware that there was a legitimate danger.
Care to try again?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"