The Misogynoir of Jeremy Clarkson

Whether it was Isabel Oakeshott being given a platform by the BBC to explain how she ‘doesn’t believe in strikes’ or Stephen Kinnock explaining how Labour would support sending in troops to break striking workers, we seem to have entered a new era of vile media complicity with Britain’s unmuzzled populist right.

Most of the time the thing to do with Jeremy Clarkson (and you can insert any number of rabid middle-aged arseholes here) is just completely ignore them, but Clarkson’s weekend foray into the land of misogynoir is of notice because it combines media power, constitutional fear and hatred of women in power. Clarkson, like his deranged side-kick Piers Morgan have been humiliating themselves over their faux-outrage and bile towards #MeghanMarkIe for years. 

To be clear I am as bored rigid as anyone by the Harry and Meghan pantomime of self-pity, but Clarkson’s latest splenetic outburst is a revelation:

Who enables such shit? Stand up Victoria Newton the editor of The Sun. Stand up Laura Kuenssberg, presenter of the imaginatively-titled ‘Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg’.

Newton was on the show yesterday to be soft-balled questions by Kuenssberg about Harry and Meghan and the tabloids exemplary role in all of this, as outlined in Mic Wright’s media substack ‘The Conquest of the Useless’.

As Wright points out: “…what was most egregious about Newton’s appearance, is that Kuenssberg entirely failed to mention Jeremy Clarkson’s Sun column published the day before which included his lurid fantasy of Meghan being marched naked through the streets and pelted with shit. It is not credible that Kuenssberg, the programme’s editor, and the production team would not be aware of the column or the furious response to it, which has been covered by other newspapers and includes responses from a wide range of prominent figures as well as a huge number of members of the public.”

“It was already a journalistic failure — and a reflection of Sunday’s broken format — that Kuenssberg gave Newton such a softball question and then chummily accepted her assertions but to ignore the Clarkson column was a glaring example of media solidarity.”

But is it not the fault of the Shock Jocks and Middle-Aged Edgelords that cover British public life like Hate Confetti, it is the gate-keepers and editors, the producers and bookers who are responsible.

While we should be focusing on the super-soaraway Sun, let’s not forget the Daily Mail, here with a fantastic scoop that the Queen Consort ‘proves Meghan isn’t the only royal with pulling power’.

 

Clarkson’s throwing Sturgeon in with Meghan and Rose West is at least consistent. Remember the time he referred to Gordon Brown as a ‘one -eyed Scottish idiot’?

But abuse of Sturgeon and Markle clearly has a different element to it, and if some of Britain’s highest-paid media elite have been called into action, it is perhaps because, even with a populist far-right orthodoxy in play, the accusations by Harry and Meghan, and the departure from the scene of such high-ranking royals does have an impact. The institutions of monarchy are threatened by the accusations of palpable and egregious institutional racism, even in a country where the drowning of people in the English Channel is the subject of political capital and sending people to Rwanda has now become mainstream.

In the janus-faced court of English public opinion, the kind of rabid unhinged views of the likes of Jeremy Clarkson can be platformed and yet a pretence at the same time that a liberal corrective of popular culture is also maintained. Popular culture retains elements of contemporary ‘progressive’ culture while at the same time, in the real world imposing racist policing; a discriminate and violent immigrations policy; relentless misogyny; class war and the surveillance state. You can, for instance, permit a certain level of acceptable homosexuality, diversity or disabled representation on screen, a certain presence of women in sports, while at the same time raining down the most violent and extreme views into the mainstream. The presence of the former does not offset the presence of the latter.

Clarkson’s views were certainly this, a putrid cocktail of racism and sexualised threat, it was what Dr Moya Bailey has dubbed ‘Misogynoir’, Bailey explains:

“So #misogynoir almost cost Meghan Markle her life. She thought of dying by suicide because of the misogynoir she was experiencing. She has all the class and color privilege and still felt this way. Think about the reality for other Black women.”

Bailey also corrects the idea that Meghan Markle somehow isn’t ‘black’ and therefore is immune to racism or misogynoir:

“Identifying as mixed race, or biracial, or as a “woman of color” didn’t protect Meghan from the British press or the living legacy of hypodescent. Additionally, these terms aren’t mutually exclusive from Black identity. Separating people who have historically and currently been read as Black into a distinct racial group because they also have a white parent does not end racism, nor does it mitigate misogynoir. My tweet was a call to consider how much worse the experience of negotiating misogynoir is for Black women with different facial features, darker skin, and less wealth than Meghan Markle.”

We don’t need to identify with minor royals or support the sideshow to condemn the vitriol coming down from Britain’s media elite. The irony is of course the misdirection to think that an institution like the royal family – based on blood lines – could be reformed or revised into a democratic or open one. This is of course a liberal fantasy.

Read Moya Bailey’s book ‘Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’s Digital Resistance’ here.

Complain to the Independent Press Standards Organisation here.

Comments (32)

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  1. Alasdair Macdonald says:

    What is worthy of note in this condemnation of the baleful misogyny of Mr Clarkson is the role of some women in relatively powerful and influential positions such as Ms Newton and Ms Kuennsberg and their seeming acceptance of it by their failure to discuss it.

    There is a parallel in this in the attitude of people of colour in powerful positions in the Uk Government who act in ways towards ‘immigrants’ who are in the main largely, but not wholly, people of colour. Ms Patel and Ms Braverman are the ones most directly concerned, but, from the other figures in the cabinet, including the PM, these cruel actions are supported.

    It is as if the ‘class’ element of their position sets them above other women or other people of colour.

  2. Robbie says:

    Personally I wouldn’t piss on Clarkson or Morgan if they were on fire,and that goes for many more to numerous to say, we Must go for Independence ASAP. Then we can at least have a better chance of sorting out our own problems.

  3. John+Mooney says:

    I am well into seventies and can easily recall that a lard arse moron like clarkson would have been on the receiving end of a “Glasgow KISS”by a generation of gentlemen with regard to his disgusting cowardly diatribe,a truly pathetic human? being,as for the Sun “newspaper” and its editor,people should do what Liverpool people have done and refuse to buy the rag”!

  4. David Wilson says:

    So what now for Clarkson who has a long history of this sort of abusive behaviour? Will he be shunned by the media? Lose his lucrative TV deals such as Millionaire? Dropped by the SUN? Nah, he’ll be given a pass like his type always are. As for the editor of the SUN? What happens to her? The fact that Kunnesburg failed to raise the matter is no surprise . We can all see how the BBC and other media outlets are rallying to the support the Royals following Harry & Meghan’s “expose” just like they did nearly a century ago they demonise the pushy American divorcee and recast the Prince Harry as a hen pecked wimp. Meanwhile Prince Andrew is conveniently overlooked. Every week on Question Time a spot seems to be reserved for some right wing nut from GB News or another extreme mouthpiece from a ‘Think Tank” to spout their garbage with almost zero push back from Fiona Bruce. Each day we edge closer and closer to the extreme right wing Q Anon madness of Trump’s GOP. Will someone stop the slide before it’s too late? The extreme view has become mainstream. Demonising immigrants and bonkers plans like Rwanda are supported by a sizeable section of the population who are easily fooled by the negative propaganda. They voted for Boris in their droves- what does that tell you? I have zero faith in the vast majority of the English public who seem to be totally at odds with the views of a majority of Scots.
    The sooner Scotland finally escapes from this hell the better.

  5. SleepingDog says:

    Perhaps in a sane country Clarkson and the Sun Editor would be sectioned under mental health regulations.

    On the subject of appropriate royal attire, and linking to the COP15 biodiversity conference, the ages-long links between royals and the ongoing War on Nature started in Britain even earlier than the Tudors, with the 1424 Act ordering Rook killing from James I of Scotland, according to Silent Fields: The long decline of a nation’s wildlife by Roger Lovegrove. The author writes of the English court (pp23–4):
    “The royal household in the single year 1344–5 required 79,220 skins of trimmed miniver (particularly the white belly fur of the squirrel) sewn into fur garments, while another 32,762 were used simply to produce the trousseau of Princess Phillipa and the liveries of her escort.”
    I can only imagine the carnage caused by the royal footprint has only ever increased since. Sumptuary laws were not so much a protection for pelt-rendering animals but a declaration of intent:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_law#Scotland
    Apparently pine marten, Scottish wildcat and beaver rewildings and reintroductions are slowing turning the tide.

    On the testimonials of post-royalty, I watched the documentary on the Empress of Iran, Farah Diba Pahlavi: The Last Princess (2018), I think the third wife of the Shah who was installed by the monstrous crimes of the British and USAmerican Empires. You have to be really something to unite Marxists and Mullahs against you. Tellingly, Farah Diba Pahlavi says a major cause of her dynasty’s downfall was its failure to get the pro-monarchy religious authorities organised in its defence. No such problem for British royalty, who have an established church and vile sophists like ex-Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams who gave a dreadfully evasive performance in the second of this year’s Reith Lectures. I presume these were recorded before the England and Wales Census results revealing a Christian minority were published. I wonder how he would have responded if asked about why the Pope could apologise (sort of) for the Catholic-run terror-torture-rape death camps run for the small children of indigenous people in Canada, but the Queen apparently couldn’t be arsed to do the same for Anglican-run schools, despite having a double responsibility for them. Will the whole edifice crack after one royal apology?

    Sure, the Patriarchy has neither a gender, race or sexual orientation. What it needs, to preserve the privileges of its hierarchical levels, is lots and lots of losers (human and non-human).

  6. dave. says:

    The collusion between the media and the ‘ German/English royals’ is not new. We were always taught in school to be honest and respect the laws of our country so we accepted the news as being the truth. Since the advent of computers the lies of the regular English news media have been exposed. The notable exception being Bella Caledonia, and there may be others, where posts are not edited, removed, or never appear if they point out facts which are detrimental to the British aristocrats from the royal family down. While misogyny is easily (not always) identified, that hate culture also expands by these same British aristocrats against we Scots. It is subtly being done over 300 years and is not a colour issue but one of wealth. Scotland is being run under English law by the Scottish Gov’t. Sturgeon the F.M. has never pointed out that

    Scotland is sovereign with its own laws. She quotes and acts on English law. e.g. begging for permission to the English Gov’t then the English supreme court. These actions infer that Britain and or the U.K. are countries. Because they have been taught to accept them Media’s stories as fact, Sturgeon’s supporters gullible defend her actions as being the right thing to do. Another subtle example is the belief that the English owned National media supports Scottish independence. The Glasgow Herald has the exact same English ownership and lies consistently about Scotland. They both work out of the same Glasgow office with the same staff Head office is in London. Their board of directors float between the BBC and themselves. The National allow posters to criticize Westminster as long as no facts are given as to Scotland’s enormous wealth and resources or sovereignty in the exact same manner as Sturgeon. They praise the de facto conference to be held in 2023 or 2024 which is just another begging plan to make it look like Sturgeon is going to do something positive about independence. It is another version of Sturgeon’s kick the can game which will add on another 2 years making at least 10 years. This beg, like all the others will be given the usual ‘no’ by Westminster. Sadly from some of the posters on the National her S.N.P. members are backing her again. There is a ray of hope however as more posters are saying straight out of how utterly useless Sturgeon’s NU-S.N.P. actually is in moving forward with independence. So the bottom line is that the unionist Sturgeon is in full compliance with the 95% English-owned media up here and English law. Therefore until she is booted out of power and the S.G. do what they were elected to do, our billions of pounds will keep going to Westminster. The alliance between the English media, British aristocrats And Sturgeon will remain intact.

    1. James Mills says:

      You sound as if you would like to see ”Sturgeon” twinned with Meghan Markle in a Clarkson -type witch hunt !

      1. dave. says:

        James Mills, I’m a bit surprised that you support an idiot like Clarkson. As the old saying goes it takes an idiot to know an idiot. Is it because you are a Sturgeon disciple that it reflects on you being in agreement with Clarkson? I have great respect for Meghan and the work she has done to to improve the lives of many others. I see her as a person and not a colour, white or black.

        1. James Mills says:

          ?????????

          1. Derek Thomson says:

            May I second your ???????? James?

        2. John+Mooney says:

          ???????????????,are you spaced out?

          1. dave. says:

            Good point, John + Mooney. He and you could be since you are the same person.

    2. Dissenter says:

      The British Supreme Court ruled on legislation that the Scottish FM signed up to.

      1. dave. says:

        Hullo, Dissenter. Yes, she did. That accomplished just another independence kick-the-can episode and conned her S.N.P. supporters into thinking that she was striking a move for independence. She succeeded as her supporters blamed the British English aristocracy and not her. The fact is that it was Sturgeon who initiated this. Of course, there is no country called Britain and there never was. So Sturgeon used English law and got an English decision. Sturgeon knows full well as all Scots should know that Scotland has its own laws. Scotland is a sovereign country and does not need permission from any foreign country to do anything. What is disappointing for we true Indy supporters is the acceptance of this denial of Scottish law by Sturgeon and the (S.N.P. supporters) support of this and her union policies. A vote for Sturgeon is a vote for the union.

  7. Niemand says:

    As someone I read today pointed out, deep misogyny like Clarkson displayed is nothing new but it getting such a national platform does seem to be.

    About the only positive thing that can be said is that the condemnation has been pretty comprehensive – 12000+ complaints to the press regulator (there were 14,000 in total in 2021) and a phone-in I listened to this morning had not far off universal negative views of what he wrote. And he is now saying he is ‘horrified’ to ’cause such hurt’. Beggars belief. As for the Sun and its female editor, I have no words.

  8. Wul says:

    The thing is, there will be people who read Clarkson’s excreta and think; “Yes! This needed to be said”

    It’s a variation on the Tories old “Are you thinking what we’re thinking?” campaign. The message to the intended audience is; “See those nasty little thoughts you are having? They are OK. We think them too and we are in power”

    Somewhere lonely, violent, angry men-children are nursing their hatred of women and feeling empowered what what Clarkson has written. And our loved ones have to walk amongst them.

  9. Marybel Tracey says:

    Jeremy Clarkson is really best ignored. If I was chief of any media circus I would not give the man a job. If I were the editor of a newspaper I would not publish any article written by him or about him.
    I take great exception to him speaking about Nicola Sturgeon and Rose West in the same sentence. What he and many people don’t like is a strong woman who is articulate and can speak up for herself. What both Nicola Strugeon and in royal circles Meghan Markle are doing is questioning the status quo. How triple dog dare they! Men call the shots always have done ….. Jeremy and Piers cannot stand that a woman can possibly have a mind of her own and capable of articulating their thoughts. Rose West was a cruel woman complicit in murdering innocent women how can Jeremy possibly put her name and our first ministers together. What has Nicola Sturgeon done to inspire such ire in him and others ? It beggars belief but we give him and others like him a platform and then don’t challenge strongly enough the things they say. He should be sued for every penny he has and that money given to a charity supporting Women’s Aid. There are more ways of being abusive towards women other than physically and Mr Clarkson employs that in such articles. It needs challenging or else some other idiot will take his place and think he/ she is very clever.

    1. dave. says:

      This idiot Clarkson is part of the English news system’s planned programme to keep people divided. The attacks on women no matter what colour does attract idiots with the objective of keeping the British aristocrats in power. It deflects away from the pressing issue of Brexit’s massive failure and in our case our Sovereignty. Just read the ‘ news’ on your computer. Who writes that garbage and why? The current lies about players who played in the World cup are designed to create nothing but hate. Mbbage, Giroud, and Ronaldo appear to be the main target of lies. The English media which owns 95% of Scottish news media (excluding Bella Caledonia) are responsible. Idiot Clarkson is the spokesman for this misogynistic
      British programme. I suggest that in the case of Meghan, everyone should watch the documentaries of Harry and Meghan and the picture of how the German/English Monarchy is involved with the British media will become quite clear. Being an Alba supporter I am totally opposed to any foreign Monarchy ruling Scotland. Unfortunately, we have a British F.M. running the S.G. who is a Monarchist.

      1. John Mooney says:

        You really are a bit of a space cadet,more to be pitied than traduced,as for me being another poster on this thread please take your tinfoil hat and grow up you sad fool.

      2. SleepingDog says:

        @dave, I wonder at your lack of fresh ammunition. I was watching some of the live proceedings of the Scottish Parliament today, where (to my mind) the opposition and SNP dissenters seemed inclusively-serious, concerned and rational, whilst the Scottish government and Greens speaking seemed partisan, ideologically-blinkered and irrational. You may be substantially correct in some of your points, but you will be more persuasive if you bring the substance (I haven’t in this comment, so it’s a do-as-say-not-as-I-do-comment).

        1. dave. says:

          Hullo, SleepingDog. I think you have missed reading a large number of my posts. As you know substance is the real content of a statement, speech, etc., and its true meaning. e.g. I have stated continually the reason for my support of independence is Scotland’s wealth to remain in Scotland for the benefit of all the Scottish population. I have backed that up by posting a graph on Bella Caledonia proving that Scotland is one of the wealthiest nations in the world along with a second graph of the huge amount of resources we have in comparison to other ‘wealthiest in the world’ counties. I realize that the English MPs refuse to give actual numbers and lies saying that Scotland is subsidized by England. Also, The GERS report is a blatant lie. Again I posted the why. There may be the odd post which lacked some substance but on the important issues I have always stated the substance strongly. The strange thing is that with posts where I have posted the substance on what Sturgeon hasn’t done for independence (ZERO) I have asked those posters who answered with insults to advise what she has done. I have never had a single reply. Not a single one. The substance is obvious that there is not even one effort. I have also posted more than once about how our Scottish history as been gradually phased out and replaced by English history the reason being that we are subtly being de-nationalized with the end result that we will be British (English). e.g. The English Lord Nelson being given the credit for defeating Napoleon’s Navy. That is a lie. Admiral Thomas Cochrane, a genius and Scotsman, from just outside Edinburgh defeated Napoleon. Not only that he went on to help several countries in South America to get their independence from Spain and Portugal. He is a true hero who should install pride in all we Scots. How can any Scot celebrate Admiral Cochrane when they have never even heard of him? The fault lies with Sturgeon’s S.G. who have blacked out not only Admiral Cochrane but our history and inventors.
          I could go on for pages and pages but time is the enemy. I would like to do a case study starting in 1707 but I just don’t have the time.

          To sum up. Every statement above has sent to Alba, ISP and Sturgeon’s Nu-SN.P. with many, many suggestions. Alba has acted on some of my suggestions and they work with the ISP party. Sturgeon’s S.N.P. buried all information and suggestions. In fact, I was told by her snippy assistant, twice, to stop trying to contact Sturgeon and to send all suggestions and, etc to the S.N.P. HQ which I did. There was never a peep out of the S.N.P. of anything positive about Scottish independence then and now. I left the S.N.P. as I realized that they had become just another unionist party led by an admitted British unionist leader Sturgeon and her executives.

      3. Niemand says:

        What is it with this ‘German / English’ monarchy? Is there something wrong with people having recent German ancestry? How is that a legitimate point of attack? It’s just xenophobic garbage. But that is your mindset generally.

        1. dave. says:

          Perhaps you should read up on history. There are many documentaries. Why do you think that there is something wrong with German people?

          1. Niemand says:

            Funny but the joke’s wearing a bit thin.

          2. dave. says:

            I don’t find anything funny. Many centuries ago a tribe from Germany came to Scotland making them a part of Scottish DNA. Also, the first astronaut was not a Russian but a German woman in 1944.

          3. Niemand says:

            You are funny though, in every post.

          4. dave. says:

            Hullo Niemand. Glad you enjoy. We all need a little levity in life considering the choice between buying groceries or paying for utilities to keep warm. Happy xmas to you. Stay tuned, there are a lot more ‘funnies’ coming in the future.

          5. J Galt says:

            I know I’ll regret this but who exactly was this female German astronaut in 1944?

          6. dave. says:

            Well, J Galt, I’m not sure why you would ‘regret it’. The first V2 rocket to enter space was on Oct 3, 1942. I’m going to have to check for the name of the German woman who went up as the first astronaut in a V2 sometime after the initial launch. Her name is conveniently blacked out for political reasons. I do have the information. The inventor of the V2 Werhner Von Braun who, after the war ended, moved to America with his team and was the mind behind the Redstone rocket which Alan Sheppard rode into space. The rest is history.

          7. J Galt says:

            Well Dave she must have been a brave Lady because V2 travel was a one way trip with no soft landing!

          8. dave. says:

            J. Galt. Yes that could have been a one way trip. Or she could have bailed out. There were many strange things which happened during the Nazi era. Rudolph Hess parachuting into Scotland. Yet no explanation of why.

          9. Niemand says:

            Indeed. Hilarious stuff.

            V2 = world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile.

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