Usually, when I sit back and think about a TV show and deconstruct it in my mind and consider its social implications and just apply basic critical studies to it, it's well after the fact of watching it. When I ingest entertainment, I do it for the entertainment. I enjoy it or don't enjoy it based on pure emotional response and how well it creates it. Sometimes, though, the damn criticism keeps in during watching ti and I enjoy things less because of it. How dare thinking critically about something and its implications remove my enjoyment. Jerks.
Anyhow, it happened tonight with Top Gear. Top Gear is, usually, immensely entertaining to me, though I acknowledge its problems.
I mean, first, it's on the BBC. Which means it's partially funded by taxpayer money. Taxpayer money going into having three rich white dudes do stupid things with cars. I don't really have anything against taxpayer money going into stupid things. And a government could be doing way worse with its money than making a TV show- at least it's not killing anyone. Of course, it's not really saving anyone either. It could go into education or healthcare or infrastructure or any number of things. But, entertainment is something nearly every civilization has devoted a sizable about of time and money to. I'm not saying it's right or even okay, but shoot, it's hard to fight and if we stopped I'd have nothing to talk about anymore. So this problem hardly ever bothers me.
Second, the chaps are somewhat racist and xenophobic. This is just known as a matter of course. They got into a huge kerfuffle involving Mexicans a couple of years back and as least once a season they make some dumb comment. They have the kind of racist attitude that seems uniquely British- not any inherent belief in the inferiority of a different race, just a nationalistic belief that not being British is a terrible thing and you have some adorable flaw. Britain seems to exist with a sort of quantum nationalism: inerrant belief that Britain is best, while utterly despising being British. It's cute. Anyhow, they usually get called on it and make apologies and blah blah blah, everyone knows they're a bit daft. It's terrible, but rarely bothersome.
No, my problem rears its head rarely, but goes unacknowledged. See, they often have adventure episodes. And sometimes it's really cool, like when they were the first people to drive a car to the North Pole. Well done, nice show of automotive engineering. Or it's just good fun, like when they each bought a car for under $1000 in Miami and drove them to New Orleans, along the way painting their car with pro-gay, pro-Hillary slogans as they drove through rural Alabama- a decision which literally caused them to be hunted and followed by hicks in big scary trucks. Fun times. But this season's adventure was indicative of a worse problem.
They went to Africa, to find the source of the Nile River. Okay. Neat. Good adventure. Along the way, they praised Dr. Livingston and the great British adventurers who came before them. They drove through the Serengeti, exclaiming how beautiful it was and how could anyone be afraid to go to Africa. They enlisted the help of friendly locals who dug them out of ditches and push their cars through the deep mud to help them reach their glorious ending.
And, yet, there it is. Because those great and noble British adventurers did view these people as inferior. Maybe they didn't necessarily treat them as such, but they saw their land, their societies, and said "Neat! No one's ever explored this!" Then Europeans came in, found these people, on this land, with their societies, and said "Neat! This is ours now. Oh, you said this is yours? Okay. You're ours now too! Neat!" But that ended way back in the 20th century so it's probably not best to dwell on it. But then, Clarkson, Hammond, and May go out, willfully oblivious to A) the enormous privilege they get from being the descendants of the colonial powers, and B) that they basically do the same thing. Oh, how nice of the throngs of poor Africans to push the noble white men's cars. How quaint that they want biscuits and candy for their efforts, look at them crowd and push. Jolly good show. And then they find their invented source of the River Nile and proudly put up the Union Jack. In the middle of Tanzania. Well done lads. Well done, indeed.
