THE producer of BBC motoring show Top Gear has apologised after broadcasting a "light-hearted" joke by Jeremy Clarkson that sparked a complaint of racism.
The episode, filmed in Burma and Thailand and shown in March, featured a scene where the show's stars built a bridge over the River Kwai and as an Asian man walked over it Clarkson said: "That is a proud moment, but there's a slope on it."
Somi Guha, an actress who complained to the BBC, said the use of the phrase was an example of "casual racism" and "gross misconduct".
The BBC2 show's executive producer, Andy Wilman, said: "When we used the word slope in the recent Top Gear Burma Special it was a light-hearted word play joke referencing the build quality of the bridge and the local Asian man crossing it.
"It has subsequently been brought to our attention that the word slope is considered by some to be offensive. If we had known at the time we would not have broadcast the word in this context and regret any offence caused."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article