Today -
Ahh, Muslims and the Daily Star, a recipe for misinformation and confusion. Even better when Clarkson is involved as he is held up by the right as some sort of no-nonsense blokey bloke who only speaks common sense and should be PM off the back of this. Yesterday the Star ran a headline that Clarkson had 'outraged' Muslims with his story on Top Gear of how he saw a woman in a burka trip up, go A over T and reveal she was wearing a red G-string and stockings. As I mentioned, this provoked 'outrage', yielding an astonishing 7 complaints to the BBC out of a viewing audience of some 6 million.
Today the Star says -
HERE’S a sexy lingerie commercial that seems to prove Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson was right.
The megamouth TV host caused a rumpus by claiming on the BBC2 show that Muslim women in burkas wear skimpy undies beneath their robes.
This sizzling ad for Liaison Dangereuse features a brunette getting dressed in skimpy bra and knickers with matching stockings, suspenders and high heels.
At the end of the film the model, German TV presenter Miriam Wimmer, 27, puts on a burka. The ad ends with the slogan: “Sexiness for everyone. Everywhere.”
The advert does indeed show this. However, Clarkson did not claim that 'Muslim women in burkas wear skimpy undies', he merely told a little story where he says this happened once. And 'robes' ? Who refers to burkas as 'robes' ? And do we now watch adverts and think, yes this is reality? How does this prove 'Clarkson was right' ?
Clarkson, 50, said on Sunday’s Top Gear he gets distracted by women in burkas when driving because he knows what undies they wear.
He claimed a woman in a burka “fell head over heels” in front of his taxi in London and revealed her “red G-string and stockings”.
Clarkson did not say 'he gets distracted by women in burkas when driving because he knows what undies they wear'. He said what is contained in the second paragraph. How can it be possible to extrapolate the former from the latter? It is a ridiculous leap. In fact as memory serves, Clarkson did not even say 'head over heels', he was cut off by Hammond because he was going to say something a bit ruder. Is it possible that 'heels' implies sexual overtones, and the Star has used that to buttress the story a bit more?
But the commercial, made by agency Glow Berlin, has riled Muslims after becoming a big hit on the internet and at cinemas.
There have been protests outside cinemas across Europe where the ad has featured.
Islamic groups have demanded that a viral version of the ad should be removed from the internet where it has already had millions of viewers.
I am yet to find any evidence of Islamic groups protesting this advert at cinemas. The Star vaguely claims 'across Europe'. A few minutes searching for any proof as given up nothing, and the Star isn't providing any evidence to back up this assertion.
Perhaps the most important point about this whole thing is the advert itself. This was first posted on YouTube on October 19th 2009. Getting on for 12 months ago, yet the Star is painting this as if it is anything like recent. If Clarkson had never said what he did say on Top Gear on Sunday, there is a chance people here would never have heard of this advert for a German lingerie specialist.
It is more proof of tabloids having an agenda, a narrative and then going out of their way to find evidence that supports this view.
