Jeremy Clarkson has been all over the news for 19 straight days. That’s over a fortnight of reporting on SteakGate, as well as Clarkson’s worst moments, his best moments, his most controversial moments - it’s still unclear if there is any difference between these - and endless debate on whether the BBC should have sacked him or not.
Frankly, I no longer give a damn.
Clarkson is finally off our TV screens. After 13 years of racist comments, general rudeness and physical violence (Piers Morgan also fell prey to his wayward fist), the BBC has grown some balls and sacked the man. Yes, this is great news for anyone with common standards of decency, and yes, it's also sad for his diehard fans.
I get it, honestly. But can we please just get over Clarkson and focus on what we all really care about here: Top Gear.
The TV show is so well loved that it brings the BBC £50 million of revenue each year, is shown in dozens of countries and has reached semi-cult status.
Cue tired arguments from Clarksonites that everything’s over for the corporation now it has lost the star of the show. Top Gear’s nothing without Clarkson; doom doom doom.
But Top Gear was popular before Clarkson and it will continue post-Clarkson. The only thing that matters now is who replaces him.
There have been whispers around Steve Coogan, sports journalist Dan Walker, or comedian Johnny Vaughan. Each contender is equipped with enough testosterone to get the show firmly back on its macho, borderline-sexistfeet.
Unless, of course, the BBC is brave enough to take a step away from the petrol heads and go for someone who could lower those raging hormone levels, while bringing in hordes of new viewers: a woman.
A female presenter is just what the show needs.
The show began hosted by Angela Rippon on BBC Midlands in the 70s - and its subesequent success proves a woman on Top Gear works. But for too long now, it has been seen exclusively as the home of the pint-drinking, pedal-pumping, horse-powered man.
While Clarkson’s appeal may have brought in more male viewers, it has done exactly the opposite for the women of the world – whether they’re pint-drinkers or not.
“I used to love Top Gear, but with Clarkson I just struggled,” a former female fan tells me. “I’d enjoy it for a while, then reach saturation point and just have to turn off. It would be amazing if a woman replaced him.”
It’s not like there aren’t any suitable choices either. Racing driver and presenter Vicki Butler-Henderson has the knowledge and experience, as does BBC’s Formula 1 host Suzi Perry or Jodie Kidd, presenter of The Classic Car Show.
All of these women are worthy contenders. They wouldn’t just be ‘ticking the token woman’ box – they’d be excellent presenters, as well as giving the show some much-needed diversity. Critics will argue positive discrimination, but any of these women could be the best person for the job. The BBC just has to give them a chance, and not hurry to seek a second Clarkson.
Erin Baker, The Telegraph’s managing director of Cars, is in the ‘anti-positive discrimination’ camp. She says: “The industry doesn't need feminising, it needs de-masculinising. It should be gender neutral. Whoever comes in to replace Clarkson is going to be pilloried for not being Clarkson; setting a woman up for the fall is a bad idea.”
But that’s exactly the point - no man can replace Clarkson and his controversy, so why not start afresh with someone completely different?
A woman could never do what he does and she shouldn’t have to either. If there were a sexist backlash against the notion a female presenter, it would only prove just how much the industry needs diversity.
Because it’s impossible to de-masculinise an industry without getting more women in – the only way we can get to a ‘gender neutral’ place is by having more women involved.
This could be the BBC’s opportunity for Top Gear to ditch its macho image, start giving Britain’s girls some sporty female role models and prove that cars really aren’t just for boys.
If it loses a few misogynistic fans in the process, then who cares? Chances are they’ll be replaced by a hell of a lot more female ones.
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