Top Gear and Rednecks?
 

http://youtube.com/watch?v=G6MJVzXbqRU

Slightly amusing, slightly scary...so anyone down south experienced anything quite this bad? :lol:

Re: Top Gear and Rednecks?
 

What an absolute crock of ****. I could do the same thing in the UK, paint a car with something like "Scousers suck dick" and drive through Toxteth with much the same result. Top Gear used to be good but recently its turned to into Jerry Springer to keep up the ratings.

I haven't seen anything like this in Memphis. I see "W" stickers and "01/20/09" stickers in equal numbers, same with Pro Life /Pro Choice.

Re: Top Gear and Rednecks?
 

"I honestly believe that in certain parts of America now, people have started to mate with vegetables." :rofl:

Re: Top Gear and Rednecks?
 

The whole show was good, however I did almost wet myself when I saw "Man love rules OK" painted on the car and when Clarkson turned up with a cow strapped to the roof of his.

Re: Top Gear and Rednecks?
 

With your first sentence you have successfully described your own post. There is a big difference between the direct insult you mention and what they had written on the cars. I would imagine that in the UK you would get what they got when they were on the highway, probably nothing more. If they did get more it would probably be because they stopped outside a pub at chucking out time on a Friday or Saturday night.

Re: Top Gear and Rednecks?
 

The fact that they picked a "mom and pop" gas station in the middle of rural Alabama would be the same as parking outside a pub on Friday or Saturday night. The piece was wholly designed,planned and implemented in this way to give the impression they wanted. Maybe my example was a little too direct but you could certainly do the same stunt in the UK with a few carefully picked phrases and the right area to target. Substitute Football for NASCAR for example and there are a number of places where you would have problems.

Re: Top Gear and Rednecks?
 

I would imagine the places in the UK where you could get a strong reaction would be where larger crowds would be involved, and, I would say. mostly male crowds. Whilst it is obviously staged and deliberately done to provoke a reaction I think it would be much harder to find that sort of reaction in broad daylight in the UK. Most Brits would just laugh it off unless there's a gang mentally behind "sorting them out" (pub chucking out, football match) - especially given the fact there were cameras there - it would have been recognised as a wind-up and they probably would have been mostly ignored.

Re: Top Gear and Rednecks?
 

yeah, but the reaction was a bit OTT all the same weren't it...

And though some of the show is silly, it's still the best car show around...

Re: Top Gear and Rednecks?
 

Yes it was OTT but was staged to be OTT. A US news crew could do something similar in a featurette about "Soccer Hooliganism" that would cause an OTT reaction and re-enforce the US belief that all football supporters are hooligans. It's the same reason I don't watch "Unreality TV" as it is edited or staged in such a manner as to make it more interesting or more likely for events to happen.

I like the car review part of the show a lot, it's just the recent Springer style antics that annoy me and cause me not to watch it as much as I used to. Love it when Clarkson does the silly stuff to cars ( such as blowing em up, the trebuchet,etc)

Re: Top Gear and Rednecks?
 

well, it's all obviously fake. i felt stupid even watching it. they need to grow up, and stop watching The Dukes of Hazzard.

Re: Top Gear and Rednecks?
 

I thought it was pretty funny. They got the reaction they deserved and obviously wanted.

I spent 16 years in the south (lived in GA, TN, NC and visitied KY, AL, SC, and FL frequently). I think there are more real chavs in the UK than there are "Deliverance"-type rednecks in the south.

Most of the people I met in rural TN and NC (where the people still have tails, as my TN-born friend would say) were down-to-earth, honest-to-goodness good folks.

Re: Top Gear and Rednecks?
 

Jeremy and Co are definitely suicidal if there was any doubt before..