Petr Magera, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
On a crisp winter afternoon, Jeremy Clarkson composed a tweet. He pulled out his phone, chewing a pencil — a pointless tool for the task — and searched desperately for the right words.
Jeremy wanted to convey a sense of remorse. A good word was on the tip of his tongue but he couldn’t grasp it. Lorry?? Quarry? Anti-Inflammatory?? Joel Corry? What could it be?!
“Hmmm,” thought Jeremy, realising time was of the essence. “This will have to do.” Settling on Oh dear. I’ve rather put my foot in it, he tapped out a few more words with a single finger and hit ‘Tweet.’
Job done, he tugged on his wellies and strode off to shout at some dog walkers trespassing on his farm.
The word that Jeremy was looking for is of course, sorry.
The piece has since been removed from the Sun’s website, but Clarkson’s tirade, published last Friday, was impossible to forget. He claimed he hates Meghan Markle “on a cellular level,” more than serial killer Rose West and fantasised about her being paraded naked through British streets while crowds hurled excrement at her. He then concluded: “Everyone who’s my age thinks the same way.”
This thoughtful gem of cultural analysis was apparently a reference to the HBO series ‘Game of Thrones’. In the series, female villain Cersei Lannister is subjected to the nude ‘shame’ trek that clearly looms large in Clarkson’s lecherous Markle fantasies.
I guess that makes us all prize gooseberries for thinking it was an arrogant, aggressive and down right disturbing act of misogyny. Classic snowflakes throwing their toys out of the pram! It was clearly a joke, he was only being a silly man in a silly little column?! It’s classic Clarkson, it’s not a big deal.
Except it isn’t.
Ipso, the press regulator, received over 17,500 complaints — more than in the whole of 2021. Sixty-four cross-party MPs condemned the piece.
Still, Clarkson shrugged it off as “clumsy,” missing the point entirely.
This column was deliberate and vicious. It contained graphic, dehumanising fantasies about Meghan’s naked body and compared her unfavourably to a serial killer whose victims were children. It was an angry, bizarrely lustful attack on a biracial woman already subjected to relentless racism and misogyny.
And yet Clarkson isn’t the only middle-aged man committed to ill-fitting bootcut jeans and an obsessive preoccupation with Meghan Markle. The flood of Facebook comments beneath his Sun article, praising him for “saying what we all think,” made that clear.
In March 2021, Piers Morgan stormed off Good Morning Britain after a rant about Markle, whom he had been doggedly criticising in the press and on social media.
Men like Clarkson and Morgan cast themselves as the last bastion of reason, bellowing and waving their free speech flag. But when faced with consequences, the flag vanishes. Instead, we’re left with an incompetent Mr Bean-type character, who sprints into door frames, struggles with shoelaces and whines “It’s Political Correctness Gone Mad!!!”
If only he had someone to lead him, to instruct him in the art of engaging with people without offending them, because it’s far too difficult and time consuming to master. Perhaps one day, someone will tell him that Google, libraries and a quick opinion poll are all free…
Clarkson’s description of his own behaviour as ‘clumsy’ and eagerness to point out the ‘Game of Thrones’ reference, totally misses the point. This was far more serious than a Partridge-esque gaffe.
We might simply discard Clarkson and Morgan’s comments as the inconsequential grumblings of two overinflated goons in need of beta blockers and a healthy outlet for their emotions, like road cycling, CBT or pottery class. However, as women and other marginalised identities know, words can have real world consequences.
Take the case of social media sensation and former kickboxer Andrew Tate. Banned from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Youtube, 35 year old Tate is known for provocative statements. These include, but aren’t limited to, the notion that women are men’s property, women shouldn’t drive and women should “bear responsibility” for being raped.
These words are having consequences. Jezebel reported teachers’ back-to-school excitement soured by boys spewing sexist hate in class, which they linked to Tate’s influence. Likewise, New Zealand outlet Shit You Should Care About quoted a teacher warning:
“The majority of our students, especially the juniors, are obsessed with him. They actually see him as a role model. They’re starting to genuinely believe being successful is synonymous with abusing women.”
Comments like Tate’s and Clarkson’s harm women by encouraging men — and women with internalised misogyny — to see them as objects made to serve. They also promote an aggressive and rigid form of masculinity that frames listening, or changing your mind as a sign of weakness.
Far from being shut down, extreme and misogynistic speech is stoked by media outlets for clicks. As Philip Pullman tweeted:
“In himself, Jeremy Clarkson is nothing: a brief loud noise and a brief bad smell. The arse that emitted him […] is Rupert Murdoch.”
What’s perhaps most disturbing, as a young woman pursuing a media career, is that Clarkson’s column was vetted by one or more editors, all of whom deemed it fit for national publication. In distributing it to the Sun’s 30.6 million monthly readers, they showed little concern for its impact. In fact, they likely greenlit it knowing the outrage it would provoke, confident it would sell papers.
Two days later, Jeremy Vine hosted a Channel 5 discussion on whether Clarkson should apologise, a debate whose framing had again been decided by multiple people before it aired.
For a man like Vine, the debate is a fun thought experiment, a chance to play devil’s advocate. But for women (particularly women of colour and trans women) this trivialisation of our physical and emotional pain for entertainment is all too familiar. From radio panels on catcalling to TV debates on racism, our right to live without fear always seems negotiable.
I usually enjoy Clarkson’s writing. His musings on cyclists, science, and rock music perfectly showcase the curmudgeonly wit that earned him a fanbase. But I’m tired of entitled middle-aged men treating anyone outside their demographic as a personal piñata, swinging their verbal baseball bat with the reckless abandon of a five-year-old who’s drunk six cups of strawberry squash. To add insult to injury, they then seem surprised when the recipients of their attacks complain that it hurts.
It’s frustrating when this comes from someone you know personally: a tutor, parent, colleague, grandparent. It’s even more infuriating when it comes from a writer platformed by a national media organisation.
It also exposes the blatant double standard in the public eye: lest we forget, Clarkson lost his BBC job for punching a Top Gear producer. It’s maddening that a man can inflict physical harm on a colleague and emerge relatively unscathed, while women are likened to serial killers for wearing an off-the shoulder dress to the Trooping of the Colour.
His phrase “oh dear, I put my foot in it” barely registers the scale of his actions. In Clarkson’s mind, the only thing more humiliating than being stripped naked and wheeled through the streets by a poo-flinging mob is having to say the word sorry.
But when media outlets continue to dress comments steeped in prejudice and violence as “healthy debate” and give the platform to those with little understanding of the issue, his lack of introspection is hardly surprising.
lucieintheskywith.com 
Leave a comment