Coogan: Top Gear stars guilty of ‘casual racism’

Comedian Steve Coogan has attacked the presenters of BBC’s Top Gear for their anti-Mexican comments on last week’s edition of the programme.

Coogan was responding after the Mexican ambassador to the UK, Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza, wrote a letter of complaint to the BBC about “outrageous, vulgar and inexcusable insults” made on last Sunday’s edition of the motoring programme.

Richard Hammond suggested on the show that if cars reflected national stereotypes, a Mexican car would be “lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight, leaning against a fence asleep, looking at a cactus, with a blanket with a hole in the middle as a coat”.

Co-presenter James May went on to dismiss Mexican food, saying “it’s all like sick with cheese on it”.

The Beeb’s hand-wringing suggested tolerance of casual racism, arguably the most sinister kind. Steve Coogan

The BBC wrote a letter of apology to the ambassador last week, admitting that the presenters’ comments had been “rude” and “mischievous” but claiming that there was no vindictiveness behind them. The corporation said jokes based on national stereotyping were part of British national humour.

In today’s Observer newspaper, Coogan writes: “The Beeb’s hand-wringing suggested tolerance of casual racism, arguably the most sinister kind.”

The comedian, who features Alan Partridge, Paul Calf and Latino singer Tony Ferrino among his comic creations, said he was a “huge fan” of Top Gear but believed the best comedy had a “strong ethical dimension” which existed to challenge prejudices rather than reinforce them.

And he suggest the anti-Mexican comments were all the worse because, with its high viewing figures across the world, Top Gear was often the “public face of the BBC”.