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[16x02] January 30th, 2011

[16x02] January 30th, 2011

  • Total voters
    342
9/10

Pretty funny episode, especially the news segment with the Mexican "tortilla" car joke. If a car supposedly represents a country, nicknamed it the Tortilla is definitely it (though I hope it'll be the flour kind, corn tortillas are too small for me). -1 for the Ashes competition. It definitely felt too edited.
 
Ashes - Mostly boring. Hate to see Jaguars being trashed. They're cars with soul and deserve to die in style, not with a horrible car on top. Great driving in the Protons. Rally deserves to be more popular!

News - Great!

Ferraris - The 288 is my all time favorite car, ever since a read a review when it was new. The new GTO is a disgrace and it made the segment boring. But still, the 288.... Divine!

SIARPC - Surprisingly good

6/10
 
They make fun of the Americans, French and Germans all the time, so I'm surprised at all the press about the Mexican comments.

If I hadn't seen the TG: A episode I would've given this episode an 8, but I gave it a 7 because I know it could've been a lot better.
 
Ugh. Boris Becker. The man is a penis.
So TG forced me to watch a ginger hairy penis.

At least they seldomly invite guests twice(unless they are somewhat interesting) so we got that out of the way.

Been reading up on the Mastretta MXT and I think TG owes us a review. Could be affordable and brilliant. Light, creature comforts, mid-engined, 250ish bhp, rear wheel drive. I think they were a bit lazy. Yes, they definitely owe us a review.
 
Mexico = LDC (Less Developed Country) hence felt to be an unfair target, well my take on it. US and Germany give as good or better than they get.
 
Been reading up on the Mastretta MXT and I think TG owes us a review. Could be affordable and brilliant. Light, creature comforts, mid-engined, 250ish bhp, rear wheel drive. I think they were a bit lazy. Yes, they definitely owe us a review.
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But what if they hate it?

What then?
 
New Stig SUCKS. 1:19.8 out of the 599 GTO? Come on... Sacked Stig could do much better than that.

And my reaction to the Mexican ambassador's indignation was the same reaction I had when Michael Jackson died; I couldn't give a flying fuck.
 
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Top Gear is suppose to be lighthearted banter. Humor is allowed to be slightly jingoistic if anything the jokes they normally use are so old no one takes them seriously. When they use some old fashioned stereotype about fat Americans, fascist Germans, or communist French it never really crosses the line it's more of a tease then a actual insult. You'll pick on the Americans but have a great time in a muscle car, or insult the Germans but go the 'Ring or show how much you love the SLS. Top Gear humor has never really been actively mean. In all the years I've watched I've never thought that the various "scandals" meant all that much. They've always seemed to be created just to give the Daily Mail or the Guardian a headline and no one really cared.

The Mexican thing wasn't a joke. It was a strangely long, seemingly unscripted, unfunny attack with a great deal of racist overtones. It wasn't a joke. It was just Hammond going on a strange rant out of the blue. It wasn't just picking on some stereotype his "joke" was that the Mexicans exist as a people. I simply don't know what the editors were thinking to leave it in the show... and if the forums correct the rebroadcasting episode has it edited it out. Something that, I think, is the first time in Top Gear history that's happened. Not because of some letters but because it really shouldn't have ever been there in the first place.
 
Not that great, actually.

The first part with the old Ferraris was gorgeous, then the 599 GTO, which seems to have a soulless design.

The Ashes: ... not too great, very obviously scripted. Two things stand out: the sheep part and the rally, that was great.

Becker: interesting, but average.

The news: what has Mexico done to the TG boys? They were really over the line, those were not the typical jokes (which I usually laugh at), those were so long and insisted as to become insults. Why?

Could have been 7, but the Mexican bit bring it down to 6.
 
hajj said:
Or the Romanians who could worse with much more with dignity, while being less developed than Mexico.
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Some Romanians went haywire when 14x01 got aired. They hacked into several British news websites leaving derogatory messages about TG and the UK in general.

In any case, the comment Hammond made about Mexicans applies very well to many Romanians in reality. :( With how we are represented abroad... there's plenty of reasons to wake up in the morning and feel ashamed that you're from this damn country.
 
I knew that there was some uproar, but they didn't really come to this forum as badly, but apparently the ambassador wanted the episode to be edited for future airing, a much better approach to my liking.
 
hajj said:
I knew that there was some uproar, but they didn't really come to this forum as badly, but apparently the ambassador wanted the episode to be edited for future airing, a much better approach to my liking.
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Conclusion: some people need to get a sense of humour, others need to know when they've pushed a joke too far. End of story.
 
Dungogvolts said:
Concerning Ford here in Australia I get the impression they think the Falcon is an American because of the ?Ford? in the name not knowing Holden is also tied to General Motors in the US even tho both cars are totally designed and built from the ground up here in Australia.
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But the UK boys drove a FORD transit...
and the americans don't even build a Falcon anymore, haven't since 1970 in fact.
 
A message to all the international community

A message to all the international community

In my desire to give this topic a conclusion like vikiradTG200 does, and before there's a permanent impression about all that has happened in the Mexico-Top Gear topic. I just want to give to all the international community that reunites on this virtual space an explanation of the many factors that injected hate and misinformation in the mexican population, and influenced on this international and diplomatic mess. Please read this so you can understand what really happened in Mexico.

As I said, there were many factors that injected hate and misinformation in the mexican population. All those factors were created by the media. There are 5 images included in this post as evidence.

Factor No. 1: The overexposure of the same segment of Top Gear that we know of, shown over and over during one week on tv, radio and newspapers: Tv Azteca, Televisa News, El Universal Newspaper, MVS News Channel, Teleformula News Channel, Milenio News Channel, Imagen Radio, just to name a few.

milenio_topger.JPG


0201_141341ch.jpg



Factor No. 2: Misleading and bad translated clips from Top Gear.

In the second most viewed news programme in the nation, they translated wrong a bit of the clip, as shown in the picture.

topgear_tvazteca.JPG


The bit after the price was mentioned, were Jeremy says:
-It's not enought. Because somebody's paid to be built. It gotta be shipped over.

Was heard as:
-It's not enought. Because somebody's paid to be built. It gotta be shit.

And therefore, translated as:
-No es suficiente. Por que alguien ha pagado por desarrollar este pedazo de basura.


Factor No. 3: Misleading, sensationalist and biased information about TopGear's presenters background and opinions.

victorloya said:
Some newspapers, tv and radio broadcasters are taking comments from Jeremy Clarkson as background: "Jeremy Clarkson asked in 2008 to bombard Mexico". Jeremy said that in an article when he suggested it as a solution to the global economic crisis, blaming USA and Mexico for it. But all the media is taking this as some kind of racial erradication.

And worst of all, the same media, is taking as authentic the comments from this man, whose twitter account is @RealJamesMay. I think is just some stupid man who seized an opportunity, and didn't count that some stupid media would magnify his stupid comments.

jamesmay.JPG
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Factor No. 4: Many news readers or show presenters allowed themselves to show hatred and racists comments towards Top Gear, its presenters and the British culture.

topgear_matutino.JPG



The purpose of this long post, is so you can understand how many but many mexicans were misguided by this hotheaded, stupid, lazy, and non investigative media.

With all the factors mentioned above added at the same time, it will be really hard for any country to have a sense of humor of what is being said about it, even if it may have had any.

If you're reading this, Andy Wilman, and we do know that you visit FinalGear, please know that Mexico does have a sense of humor, we do love the show, but what we don't have is a responsable, prudent and intelligent media.

If any of the people that read this has Andy's email, can you send it by PM to me?, I want to send him this.

PS. As a funny anecdote of all this, I can no longer see the BBC Entertainment Channel because my local tv cable operator has removed it from its programming, hence, I can no longer see legally Top Gear. Going back to torrents and ilegal downloading. Life is Good.

Thanks for reading this. Good night.
 
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Anyone noticed if us Brits go to Mexico or any other foreign country, and we get called "white man" or "white devil" and all that other crap, if we go to their local police do they just laugh at us and tell us to grow up.

Seriously, people need to realise Top Gear are just joking about. They're not killing anyone or causing any harm, they're just having usually banter.

Although, like Jeremy said, if there was a mic on him outside of recording, "I'd be very sacked"

I really wish people would just shut up and stop complaining about Top Gear, why do they watch it if they know it's going to continue to offend them? I can bet every penny that the Muslims who complained about Top Gear wearing Burkas and Jeremy's stocking clad Burka woman, or Jeremy's truck driver prostitute joke.. they'll all continue to watch it.



On the topic of the episode, I didn't watch the Aussie one, my computer's been down for a while so most of my time on here has been at the work computer, on the PS3 browser (eww) or my mobile. I really loved it, thought it was one of the best for a long time. That Transit shocked me, even though I saw the Merc wheels on I really didn't click, not to the mention the big boost gauge in the middle of the dash. I have watched the Aus version since, and I prefer Top Gear's. They make it more dramatic and keep the van's hidden talents, hidden until it actually takes off.

The double decker race was really good, I actually drive a white K Reg Metro (not by choice) so that's pretty fun for me to watch.

The sheep herding wasn't really my thing but was actually made quite funny by Richard's jumping about and the Sheep that hopped the fence.

The rally, best part. Unbelieveable, I've heard some people saying that was Ben Collins and/or another one of the many old Stigs they used. That Stig seemed smaller and stood differently when standing next to the cars. Anyone, some serious driving in this segment, Steve from TGAUS was doing okay but that overtaking maneoveour from the Stig, wow. Even know that might be old Stig, that still brought the magic back into the Stig's unbelieveable driving talents, just like at the Brit Car 24H Race. I had to watch that bit over and over, the speed he was on the grass at was crazy.


SIARPC was good, I'm not much a sport's man but Boris seems a nice bloke and was a good guest to watch, Shtig.

The Ferrarri review wasn't my cup of tea, I'm more for the challenges and all that jazz. I would have Chris Evan's GTO anyday.
 
I also don't understand people's over-the-top sensibility about the Mexican bit. Reading their comments made me feel that their only motive for watching TG was expecting it to "go over the line" (in their words) so as to pounce in furious criticism. They've made much more offensive jokes which somehow made it under the radar just because they didn't last long. And that is my point: Does a foreign country joke "necessarily" gain in offensiveness as it is prolonged? Not IMO. And also, how can you be angry at them, when almost all cartoons which feature a Mexican character make it as if they had Hammond's description as a guideline?

The news actually made me laugh on every single section; the "Hueyaya" joke killed me. In fact everything killed me, on multiple occasions, leading to endless painful coughs which I didn't care for since I've caught the worst flu ever.

It's very difficult to make an entertaining interview, be it with a native or a foreign, so I don't understand people's disappointment and extremely high pre-standards in&about each one.
Someone previously expressed outrage at the "I've-seen-the-ashes-before" low-rating pretexts. And I couldn't concur more; it IS your fault for watching the original one...

Gets a 9 from me.
 
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