Season 16 of Top Gear begins controversially
Top Gear is the most watched car show on television that was first aired in 2002 and with time the show kept on growing. The Emmy award winning British television series is aired on BBC and it is hosted by Richard Hammond, James May and Jeremy Clarkson.
The first episode Season 16 was broadcasted this Christmas. The show’s usual format consists of an interview, a car review, and a challenge that the hosts of the show have to take on. The challenge is usually something like “Which vehicle is the best option
for travelling in London?” etc.
Top Gear has an anonymous driver by the name of “the Stig” who is proclaimed to be “the best driver of the world.” The Stig wears a helmet and all through the season the identity of the driver is not revealed. However, last year “the Stig” took off the helmet
and it was the legendary Formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher.
The show has had people like Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher, and various other celebrities as guests on it and as a result, it gains more viewership day by day.
However, the 16th Season had a very disturbing and controversial start for some people as two hosts dressed up in “Burka’s”, an outfit Muslim women wear in order to cover their bodies and faces.
The three hosts were challenged to travel from Iraq to Bethlehem. Many newspapers and magazines did not appreciate this gesture and stated that Muslims are up in arms about the programme, which has a viewership of nearly 6 million people.
A well known Islamic extremist Anjem Choudary was also not happy about what the three hosts did at their Christmas special show.
“The burka is a symbol of our religion and people should not make jokes about it in any way. It would have been equally bad even if they'd not been in a country mainly populated by Muslims,” he wrote.
An editorial from another newspaper stated that Anjem is a Muslim fanatic who does not appreciate anything that is against Islam in anyway.
“He also thinks Christmas is evil. Clarkson can be crass but he's no racist. Ranting Choudary is trying to spoil yet another British tradition. He's ruining it for the vast majority of Muslims who can take a joke. Don't let this hardline nut control
our telly,” wrote the editorial.
However, whenever such things are displayed on the television, this is bound to happen and the team of Top Gear can’t do anything about it. Everybody thinks differently and no one can snatch someone’s right of opinion.
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