Clarkson on Brown
Jeremy Clarkson - the kind of man I would cross the street to avoid, even though the size of his head means he'd probably be taking up both pavements and the width of the road - has got himself into a spot of bother with his comments on Gordon Brown. He said:
"[In the UK] we've got this one-eyed Scottish idiot."Which is technically correct. Gordon Brown does only have one-eye, he is Scottish, and he sure as fuck is an idiot. But it seems, more than anything else, the first part of his phrase that has got Clarkson into trouble.
I can't claim to be an innocent here - if you were pre-disposed, I think you would be able to find some sort of reference to Brown's missing eye in the archives of this blog. But I will argue this - to insult Gordon Brown because he lacks an eye is to miss the point of what is wrong with Brown. He could have 20-20 vision and he'd still be shite. His eye-sight is irrelevant - it is his gross incompetence that is the real issue here.
And Clarkson's comment about Gordon being one-eyed (and the casual racism inherent in his citing of Gordon's home nation) is really, really counter-productive. He should be standing up and saying Gordo is shit; his add-ons to his opinions have meant that his obvious (yet, for some people, oddly alien) statement has been swamped by a storm of protest.
Labels: Brown, Brown-bashing
posted by The Nameless Libertarian @ 10:51 am
8 Comments
8 Comments:
What the fuck is racist about calling someone Scottish?
This is just rhetoric. It's well known that you always need three things when you're listing stuff.
e.g. Clarkson is a middle-aged, tall, loudmouth.
The fact that two of those three are merely statements of fact doesn't matter. It's only an insult because of the last one.
If he'd said that Gordon Brown was a partially-sighted, Scottish genius there would not have been queues of people complaining about the implication that all partially sighted people are budding Einsteins.
I don't think it is racist; some might conclude that it is meant to be as it is part of a statement that is insulting. It is like the final insult taints the rest of the words - because he is calling Brown an idiot (which is total fact) the other words automatically become insulting.
Clarkson would have been better off calling Brown an incompetent, egregious idiot. No-one would have objected or argued that. Well, they might have done, but their case would have been indefensible.
"Clarkson would have been better off calling Brown an incompetent, egregious idiot." but few would have noticed, nor would the BBC still be quoting Clarkson
"( Brown ) keeps telling us everything's fine and he's saved the world and we know he's lying"
Bravo Jeremy.
Its only racist if your mind works that way.
This says more about you than it does about Clarkson.
Mitch: Its only racist if your mind works that way.
This says more about you than it does about Clarkson.
Actually, if you read the comment above, you'll note that I don't think if was that racist, but am simply pointing out that since it was in a phrase that ended in Clarkson insulting Brown that it could be interpreted by some as using Scottish as an insult and therefore being racist. I don't think Clarkson was being racist intentionally, but I think that charge of casual, unintentional racism could stick.
And this is the real problem - Clarkson is undermining his entirely relevant criticisms of Brown with his citing of "one-eyed" and "Scottish".
Makes me laugh that every radio broadcaster in the land repeated the phrase in mock condemnation as often as possible.
"Jeremy Clarkson has apologised for his remarks after calling the Prime Minister A ONE EYED SCOTTISH IDIOT (pause ), in the rest of the news..."
In just the same way that they all said gollywog this and gollywog that during that phoney farrago.
Ha Ha Ha, own goals for The Innapropriatte
What makes me laugh is that no-one commented on the idiot part of the phrase - it was the other words that were controversial. It is like the whole country is prepared to accept that Gordon Brown is an idiot.
Which, when you think about it, is completely understandable.
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