Ugh... BBC what were you thinking?
The BBC did an episode of TopGear in the US, Starting in Miami and ending in New Orleans. The first part was fairly straight forward where the drivers have to buy a vehicle for under $1000, and in the process of that it kinda of showed some light on the rough areas of Miami, after getting their cars they do some pretty basic and simple challenges at an abandoned race track north of Miami. But this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkl_h7eC2kU , is the second part. The challenge in the second part was really twisted. They had to drive to Alabama and make their car so offensive to the locals, that they either get arrested or shot.
I found many parts of it be humorous, but it gives a mixed reaction when you take everything seriously. Their presentation of Alabama can come of as all Americans are stupid, which is clearly not the case. But the show is intended for UK audiences which requires a totally different perspective on what Americans see in themselves. Granted even most Americans find Alabama to be socially awkward along with a large part of the South, but reality is much different from the perceived social peculiarities of a region found in popular culture.
By the time they get to Louisiana their perspective changes as they realize the problems that the US has to still deal with from Katrina. They presumed that America being so rich could fix Katrina in a year (the episode was taped in late 2006) which is clearly not the case. The problem is that other major disasters in the last 20 years in the United States have been less destructive than Katrina was and many of those disasters has localized effects within cities and metropolitan areas. For instance, the 1994 Northridge earthquake was localized primarily within the San Frernado Valley of the Greater Los Angeles Megapolis. Had the earthquake devastated a larger portion of the megapolis, you likely would not have seen the quick rebuilding that went on at all.
-- John O.
PS I found it a little annoying that you couldn't embed the video but disabling embedding is something that the BBC has done with all of its videos on Youtube.
I found many parts of it be humorous, but it gives a mixed reaction when you take everything seriously. Their presentation of Alabama can come of as all Americans are stupid, which is clearly not the case. But the show is intended for UK audiences which requires a totally different perspective on what Americans see in themselves. Granted even most Americans find Alabama to be socially awkward along with a large part of the South, but reality is much different from the perceived social peculiarities of a region found in popular culture.
By the time they get to Louisiana their perspective changes as they realize the problems that the US has to still deal with from Katrina. They presumed that America being so rich could fix Katrina in a year (the episode was taped in late 2006) which is clearly not the case. The problem is that other major disasters in the last 20 years in the United States have been less destructive than Katrina was and many of those disasters has localized effects within cities and metropolitan areas. For instance, the 1994 Northridge earthquake was localized primarily within the San Frernado Valley of the Greater Los Angeles Megapolis. Had the earthquake devastated a larger portion of the megapolis, you likely would not have seen the quick rebuilding that went on at all.
-- John O.
PS I found it a little annoying that you couldn't embed the video but disabling embedding is something that the BBC has done with all of its videos on Youtube.