Simplistic vitriol is Jeremy Clarkson’s brand – why were we surprised?

Did the blithering idiot not see that coming? Or is Jeremy Clarkson too busy munching beef yoghurt on his organic farm to realise that here… checks calendar… in the 21st century, it’s not a good look for a man of a certain age to admit that he lies in bed dreaming about a naked 41 year-old?

Hang on a moment as we internalise that fact. Meghan is 41? And some reports allege that she might even be a couple of years older. All the outrage about Clarkson castigating a “young woman” led me to assume she was in her late 20s. Okay, early 30s tops.

Irrespective of her age – 41! – did Jezza not realise that casual misogyny is a look almost as bad as the beer gut hanging over the front of a pair of Levi’s worn like a tourniquet?

Yet there is a point to make here about the people complaining about Clarkson being Clarkson. Have they not been around for the past quarter of a century while Clarkson perfected the art of being Jeremy Clarkson?

His comedy has always been grounded in exaggeration, pantomime violence, and cruelty, all wrapped in a thin veneer of hyper-rationalisation. His latest comments were crass; a cheap gag that relied on his readers knowing the scene from Game of Thrones, a show (and book) which were themselves crass and striving so hard to be edgy. Yet that’s so very on-brand. His style of comedy is so easy to spot.

Meat is just protein. We need protein to survive. Ergo all the cute bunnies need to be put through a blender to make them easier to digest. Yummy!

The Second World War [remember to read this bit in his slow serious voice he saves for his documentaries about war heroes] was the scene of untold barbarity on a scale that later generations cannot begin to understand. [Now imagine him looking gormlessly into camera] If you’re annoyed that you can’t find oat milk in the shops, you deserve to be smashed in the face with a hammer. [Drop your voice three octaves] A very big hammer.

That sort of thing.

Clarkson’s misogyny was unpleasant to read but it’s not news to those of us who already hate Jeremy Clarkson. Not like we hate Fred West or Vladimir Putin, of course. No, we hate him on a cellular level. I know I lie in bed at night, grinding my teeth with frustration that he’s not yet been stripped naked and marched through the streets shouting “shame” whilst people hurl excrement at him.

Actually, on second thought, let’s allow him to keep his clothes on. I think it would be better for everybody’s aim.

Clarkson has been mocking the vulnerable for many years and it has been one of the most depressing narratives to see unfold on the BBC and, to a lesser extent, Amazon Prime. At its best, there was no more entertaining show on TV than Top Gear. It was riotous but intelligent fun, crafted to perfection and hosted by a team who enjoyed each other’s company. But as the years passed, the show became lazy and increasingly relied on scripted “incidents” and the characters of the hosts were redirected towards caricature.

The three presenters’ wealth became a running theme as they tried to conspicuously outspend each other. Nothing wrong with wealth, of course, but it’s a problem when they started to use it to mock the poor. Their humour slid into lazy generalisation. Hammond was the object of homophobic slurs while Clarkson played around the fringes of some very unpleasant material.

We had the racial slur (about a local crossing a bridge in Burma) in one of the last Top Gear Specials.

Then there was Clarkson playing a dangerous game of “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe” which might have used or implied use of the “N” word.

And then there was the time he wanted public sector workers “taken outside and executed […] in front of their families.” It was a particularly provocative statement when said on BBC1’s prime time The One Show.

Or the time he suggested long-distance lorry drivers murder prostitutes.

Then we had him driving around Argentina in a car with the provocative (we’re always supposed to believe these “mistakes” are accidental) number plate marking the Falklands War.

It’s understandable if people are offended by his latest mistake but let’s also not take seriously any argument where we claim a right to not be offended. Clarkson is mild compared to comedians who truly push the boundaries of bad taste. (A much more interesting debate is to be had about Jerry Sadowitz, for example.)

What is third-rate and objectionable about Clarkson is his naïve and simplistic approach to culturally sensitive subjects. Meghan’s relationship with the British media does not reduce easily to a matter of right and wrong. Her story touches on themes of race, class, patriarchy, monarchy, Empire, media bias, populism, and establishment that aren’t easily resolved. She might not represent any one of those themes in any great measure, but the story needs to be treated with a certain sensitivity because she has become a proxy for the many people who have suffered.

That Clarkson thought he could drive his tractor through this story and not emerge unscathed is indicative of his crude approach to punditry. He cares more about the gag than he does the argument. And that’s the issue here. Clarkson being Clarkson has always found a place in Britain’s media which has elevated him to superstar status. Why is that? Does that not say more about the market for reductive headlines rather than reasonable debate? Does it not speak to a media that prefers to villainise rather than give fair representation to difficult subjects? Isn’t he just the schoolyard bully who is happiest when he can bully the individuals the rest of the schoolyard have deemed bully-worthy? If so, isn’t it time to question the roles played by those who normalise his behaviour?

Steven Coogan’s criticism of Clarkson remains the definitive judgement. “Comedy shouldn’t be used to bully disenfranchised and weak people,” he said in 2017, describing Clarkson’s “affected machismo” as “profoundly dull”. And profoundly dull it most certainly is. It’s almost as dull as the ongoing media trial of Harry and Meghan as well as the part that shy-and-retiring couple is playing. Yet if Clarkson deserves any credit, it’s for proving the point that the story could be elevated to a whole new layer of brain-numbing tedium.

It really does make me want to hit myself in the face with a hammer…

A very big hammer.