News: Lukewarm reception to 'eco-feminist' Top Gear idea
Guardian columnist ridiculed after plan for show fuelled by "infinitely renewable energy"
TOP GEAR fans reacted with incredulity yesterday to plans for an alternative version of the TV show, should Clarkson be fired from the BBC.
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Writing in The Guardian, the columnist Zoe Williams argued that renewable energy and an end to macho posturing would reinvigorate the car show. “I suggest an eco-feminist approach,” she wrote.
“It’s not wholemeal and boring. What does an intelligent species do, faced with a problem? It finds daring answers. It doesn’t plough into a ditch and laugh. Feminism is relevant because only a macho culture would have allowed a bunch of idiots to elide heedless fossil fuel use with mindless racial slurs and scientific illiteracy.”
Williams referred to the hybrid electric BMW i8 and argued that renewable energy would allow car makers to “create something that is basically free, running on limitless energy, like in Star Trek”.
The piece was ridiculed online, with people pointing out that Clarkson had only recently reviewed the BMW i8, declaring it one of the best cars yet built. Others argued that the writer was clearly unaware of the problems associated with producing emissions-free electricity to power her Star Trek future.
Many of the comments beneath the piece appeared lukewarm about Williams’s planned car show. “An eco-friendly, feminist Top Gear? Congratulations on discovering the cure for insomnia.”
