Mexi-can you say that?
3rd February 2011I don’t envy the Mexican Ambassador one bit. His job is to protect his country’s reputation and when someone calls your whole nation feckless it can’t be a great for morale at the embassy. However, anyone would think that Top Gear was an official government mouthpiece, the way the Ambassador has reacted to comments by Richard Hammond on Sunday’s show.
Alright, the comments he made (find them on IPlayer if you missed it) might make some people squirm and are hardly complimentary to Mexico or Mexicans but they were ultimately generalised, overt national stereotyping: like suggesting all Americans are overweight or all Spanish people are asleep over lunch.
If we are to ban or censor this sort of ‘joke’ (and let’s not forget that Top Gear is essentially a comedy programme) then out would go a whole host of other programmes, well known sayings or slang.
Cultural stereotypes form the entire basis of shows like ‘Allo ‘Allo, Desmonds, The Kumars at number 42 , Goodness Gracious Me and even Father Ted or Rab C Nesbit. Remember Manuel from Fawlty Towers? Would his character have been as funny if he were Mike from Bath, rather than Manuel from Bar-th-lona?
If Richard Hammond were Ricky Gervais, Franky Boyle, Jimmy Carr, Lenny Henry or even Dawn French then I’m sure their comments wouldn’t have raised alarm or even made it into the tabloids.
Hammond’s comments may have offended but they weren’t personally aimed at any one Mexican. Surely we want a vibrant, risk taking BBC rather than one that trots out bland, PC comedy every night. Think how boring life would be if none of those shows listed above (and many more that didn’t make the list) had existed.
Anyway, I’m off for a cup of tea (I hasten to add that despite common prejudice to the contrary, as an Englishman I won’t be eating awful food, drinking warm beer, looking for a fight outside the pub, or actively ignoring everyone on my way home tonight).
