Top Gear in trouble for mock ad depicting suicide

It should be well known by now that if you play with suicide on screen, you're going to hear about it. Sometimes it's from prevention groups who want shows to "stop using suicide as a punchline." When it comes to Jeremy Clarkson, though, it isn't a question of whether he knows, but whether he cares. Probably not. But this time the complaint isn't from a health group, it's from the UK's television watchdog the Office of Communication (Ofcom).

Top Gear is in the crosshairs again -- in fact, the show is coming close to making more news for the news it makes than the cars it covers -- for depicting graphic violence before the 9 PM opening for such images. The show made a mock ad for the VW Scirocco that includes a slightly violent and lingering treatment of suicide, and fifty people complained about it. In a case of art predicting life, you can see the agency exec's reaction in the fauxmercial after the jump, and Captain Slow's tidy summation.

[Source: Times Online]

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