Last Night’s TV – The Execution of Gary Glitter
What a bizarre film this was, and one that left me with a rather unpleasant taste in my mouth, metaphorically speaking.
First, I was uncomfortable watching anything that Gadd – aka Gary Glitter – might profit from, even if that profit was only some kind of vicarious pride in the fact that his repugnant story was being given attention.
Secondly, I am an advocate of the death penalty, and though this isn’t the right forum in which to go into an in-depth discussion of that point, it was of course the point of this film. But in making the point, I suspect the portrayal of a blood thirsty Britain was OTT.
I don’t believe for a minute that we’d all be queuing up outside a prison with inappropriate t-shirts and a carnival atmosphere ensuing, leading to violent altercations. It was a bias put on the film that was clearly intended to invoke repulsion, and therefore was far too unsubtle to be worthy of a great deal of debate.
I also didn’t feel at ease with the Soham murders being brought into this film; it all just felt inappropriate. To sensationalise or otherwise ‘use’ that horrific crime as part of a work of fiction just smacks of gravy-training.
I see no reason why Rob Coldstream, the writer and director of the piece, couldn’t have used fictional cases. Yes of course we would most likely have been left with the assumption that he’d based his fiction on that hideous reality, but somehow, to even mention Jessica and Holly was demeaning to their memory.
The appearances of – especially – Ann Widdecombe, Miranda Sawyer and Garry Bushell playing fictional versions of themselves surprised me. As I said, especially Widdecombe because her real-life political career and persona added a gravitas to her role which belied the cheap-shot nature of the overall production.
The one redeeming feature in an otherwise page-three like sensationalism mongering film was Hilton McRae’s performance as Gadd. He was so convincing, I hated him on sight. And what an amazing actor; his portrayal of Gadd’s breakdown was so believable, it made me feel quite nauseous.
Everything about his performance seemed genuinely authentic, and he parlayed the deviance and smugness of the man perfectly with just a look. He was really the only redeeming factor in this film.
The long and tedious legal references were unnecessary in the context. After all, why did we need to know about fictitious extradition proceedings? If we’re supposed to accept that this was a Britain where out and out barbarism was the norm, why not just launch straight into the story at hand rather than dragging it out with that pointless back-story?
Overall, this film was a heavy-handed and prejudiced portrayal of a hypothetical scenario which didn’t allow us to form our own opinions of the subject matter. Rather, it tried to force us to accept a certain set of ‘givens’ that were far from it. And if those of us who advocate a return of the death penalty had literally accepted those ‘givens’, I suspect we were being asked to hold a mirror up to ourselves and dislike what we see.
Well, it didn’t work. Personally, I still believe that it’s inherently wrong that people like Ian Huntley still get to breathe while his victims don’t. I still believe we shouldn’t be asked to keep the likes of Brady, Hindley, Sutcliffe and Roy Whiting fed and watered. And I still believe that there can be no ‘rehabilitation’ for paedophiles.
People like Gadd don’t change their sexual preferences anymore than you or I could if asked to suddenly become gay or straight when our natural inclination is otherwise. The same applies to paedophiles in my opinion and frankly, stomach churning though the death scenes may have been, I’d personally volunteer to pull the lever that opened that trap door.
I’d then go home and sleep perfectly well. I wouldn’t need to get a T-shirt made, I wouldn’t buy a mix track of Gadd’s words and music and I wouldn’t celebrate his death. But I’d make good and sure he could never hurt a child again.
So did this film do what it set out to do? In many ways, yes I suspect it did. It’s going to cause controversy and debate, though not to the extent I think the execs at Channel 4 had hoped it would.
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What a horrible little review. Can’t you leave out personal feelings for honest critique or do you use your net writing career as a pure launchpad for your own flawed views?
I had to turn over..It made me feel sick! I actually feel more
sorry for the people that survive something like that, and have
to live with it day in & day out. Iv actually just got off the
phone from my shrink, after having a row..Im not seeing him no
more!!..Im sick of it! Id rather just live with whats happened
to me..right or wrong I dont even care!
As for Gary Glitter..Well I hope he rotts in F*cking hell
The dirty piece of sh*t!!!!
“his repugnant story”
For sure. Maybe we need to understand them and study them to find out why this happens, rather than kill him though!? But definitely keep these nonces from the public for good. Not enough room in prison? Not true, just put all none violent criminals on community service where they should be.
“I am an advocate of the death penalty”
Another repugnant story! He likes abusing the young, and you agree with murder. And the death sentence IS murder, even if it is for revenge or punishment.
We need stiffer and serious sentences for violent criminals and a life means life sentence for murder and abuse, otherwise more and more people will demand a death sentence. People are getting away with GBH and getting fined, whilst people selling drugs are banged up!
“I don’t believe for a minute that we’d all be queuing up outside a prison with inappropriate t-shirts and a carnival atmosphere”
Although 54% of people want a death penalty, and not all would want to be involved in such things, but it would happen. For example respected actor John Malcovich had a champagne party when John Wayne Gacy was nocked off. Each to their own.
Some people really do deserve knocking off but can we really afford and trust a government to decide who this is? Isn’t it just one step closer to be like America? We’ll have fake suicide attacks, rigged elections, and torture camps in other countries next!
I would have thought the programme achieved what it set out to do. As for having so much faith in the British public that they wouldn’t be demonstrating and wearing cheesy T shirts – I’m not so sure. You think how quickly jokes about 9/11 got around or jokes about Diana’s death? I’ve seen T shirts with ‘don’t panic I’m not Islamic’. I’m sure we like to think we’re more civilised that the times of beheadings but are we really? You always get people outside a court with banners and hurling abuse at defendents (and that’s BEFORE they’re found guilty!).
I think it raises important questions that we all need to think about – and I’m not sure whether people really think about what the dealth penalty would mean for this country. I for one am against it. The death penalty is contradictory – you killed someone so as punishment you will be killed. What gives others the right (no matter how bad a crime is) to decide whether another person lives or dies. It’s not even a deterrent as the US has shown. Disproportionate numbers of BME groups are on death row in the US and there is also the odd innocent person who dies as well. Anyway, the people who commit sick crimes tend to get a sort of justice in prison dealt out by other offenders…..
That wasn’t a review!
That was just a rant and ramblings of someone who quite openly and shamelessly fantasises about killing the most vilified in society.
What a revolting spectacle!
How bout finding someone that brings some intelligent comment and analysis to the subject?
Off course it was a review. It was a review on how she felt
about paedofiles! shes not a machine & is allowed her own
opinion…
I wonder how many of you, would sit down a discuss how many
years he should get if it happened to a child or loved one
of yours? Not many I wouldnt have thought..You`d want the
filthy pig dead!
Once a nonce always a nonce!
And how about the children his done it too, They have too live
with that..unless of course, they get some sort of canceling
early enough in there lives, to be able to move on!
shoot em I say..or put them all on a island in the middle
of the ocean to survive for themselfs!!
We should be extremely careful as a nation not to devalue human life, and with that i mean ALL life. I believe we are being constantly conditioned from state media (especially the constant news programs to think that life is cheap. I wouldn’t be at all suprised if the death penalty wasn’t introduced in this country in the not so distant future. It seems the british public are under a state of mass t.v induced hypnosis.
I also cannot understand why this ‘awful’ t.v program picked on Gary Glitter? I thought the death penaltly was for those that murdered others? (not that i agree with that either) I know what he did was terrible but does such behavior really require some one to be put to death? By todays standards shouldn’t we also regard Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis as paedophiles. They were having relationships with underage girls that are well documented.
Or are our ‘paedophiles’ too politically important to ignore? Let’s face it. For a society to work at it’s best it always needs a group which can be uncategorically and unrepentantly hated. But if paedophilia has always existed then why does it seem to do more damage now?
As a society we seem to be prolonging childhood and not allowing youngsters to really make their own decisions and to take consequences for them.
This i feel is far more dangerous than all this ‘paedophile hysteria’ the public seem to be in love with these days.
So, you would volunteer to pull the handle?
Will you also volunteer to apologise to the executed man’s family, children and friends when it is subsequently found to be a miscarriage of justice?
Somehow, I doubt it.
I’ve grown up in those years after the death penalty was abolished so I can’t comment on life before it’s abolishment but I do know that somthing has to be done as the country is out of control. I think ‘Gadd’ was good subject matter for this programme and the programme was compulsive viewing. It showed conclusively that we need the ‘death penalty’ in the UK but we need a Government strong enough to see it through (which we don’t have, Mr Brown is unelected and spineless)
Hello all, thank you all for your comments – I take them all on board, however, I stand by what I’ve written and my beliefs, as of course I am entitled to do, just as you are.
As to ‘miscarriages of justice’, in this age of advanced DNA testing and the unequivocal evidence it provides, miscarriages of justice for a crime that carried a death penalty would be unlikely.
For example, in the case of Roy Whiting who murdered Sarah Payne; there is no dispute about his guilt and, if the death penalty were to be reintroduced, in order to be certain to allow him and similar offenders time to lodge any and all appeals that may be warranted, we could adopt a ‘death row’ system as they do in America.
Prisoners sentenced to death could be held in a suitable facility for 10 years until all remaining possible doubt has been eradicated.
As one of our commenters said, I suspect those of you who derided my opinion have never had a child who was raped or murdered. And again, as that commenter remarked, you might feel very differently if you had.
I hope you never have to endure the pain of that however, if you do, I hope too that you don’t have to spend the quiet night hours wondering if the person who did that to your child is lying in his warm bed thinking about what he did with pleasure.
It’s a cruel and unusual punishment to know that the ‘person’ who robbed your child of their innocence or their life is still able to breathe, eats three meals a day, gets to wear a silly hat at Christmas and has his hand held by bleeding heart liberals who believe sympathy and prayer can cure the most deviant heart.
They can’t.
Thank you for visiting us, Lynn
In all seriousness though, massive amounts of research into paedophilia needs to be done. Fetish, paraphilia, sexual preference, disease? What exactly is it? If it is a paraphilia then why and how does it develop? I did read of one case in which a brain tumour caused uncontrolable sexual interest towards children. Is it in genetic makeup?
Do such social structures promote this type of paraphilia within people?
If people are so outraged from it then you think there would be no problem finding cash to research it.
One thing does interest me though..I am not in ANY way likening paedophilia with homosexuality. But when homosexuality was ILLEGAL not so long ago people used to go out of their way to ‘beat up’ and sometimes ‘kill’ homosexuals.
Alot of research was done at the time and it was found that the most ‘repulsed’ people that went around beating up homosexuals most probably had repressed homosexual feelings.
Can this be true amongst some of the ones most against paedophiles?
Should it even be such a taboo to find young girls attractive? Even sexually attractive? Maybe it should when people act upon it as there is a clear margin of power and responsibility. That should not be crossed.
Certainly the advertising and fashion industries use ‘young girls’ a lot.
Clean, pure, white…Strangely a lot of ‘cleaning products’ advertised on the telly use young children for some reason.
If we carry one the way we are we risk doing something we may very well regret in the future…I mean. Sex offenders are treated differently that all other criminal activity. The monitoring against them has steadily increased in just 10 years. As discusting as you might find paedophiles (especially the ones that make childrens lives an absolute misery). It is not the responsibility of ANY government to persecute a ‘type’ of person.
If paedophilia is a crime then treat them as any other criminal.
The law is the way that we collectively set the standards of our society. If one of our standards is to be that ‘killing is wrong’ then we must have the courage and fortitude to spare the lives of the very worst of us. It doesn’t matter what somebody has done. Their life must also be covered by the principal we aspire to, otherwise we destroy the standard we set out in law. I don’t want the law decided by angry, hurt, bereaved people. I want it decided by rational, cool headed thinkers who understand the wider implications of allowing state killings. Finally, when I look for real evil in the world, I don’t find the worst in paedophiles or serial killers. These people are just mad. The real evil ones, the lowest of the low, are the sane, bull-necked bureaucrats who would carry out a hanging on someone else’s orders and then go for a pint feeling good about themselves. These people terrify me.
Oh eck! Hook, Line, & sink
“I don’t believe for a minute that we’d all be queuing up outside a prison with inappropriate t-shirts and a carnival atmosphere ensuing, leading to violent altercations”
You don’t believe that. OK.
However, common sense tells us that, (By dint of the stupidity of the Tabloids) Most people are NOT what they appear to be.
Gary Glitter (AKA whatever) May well have been a fool – but to execute him??
To paraphrase an American Judicial habit — “May God have Mercy on the Soul”.
“Your” soul specifically…
And on your soul too ^^^^^^^^^^^
ffs I got to stop reading this sh*t!
All you Pedo`s out there reading this………. I hope your
balls fester & fall off while your walking round Tescos
And if you got hairy chests, I hope it catches fire!
What does that even mean??
It means if your a pedo…then I hope your balls fester & drop
off..cos your discusting…sorry for saying that…but when, you
have been through Child Abuse, you tend to think like that
You have to have been through it maybe to understand, thats
why I speak as I do with G/Glitter, and thats why I get annoyed
with people that say, who are we etc, too judge,,well to me
I can judge, and do think the filthy swine , as any other
that abuses a child or rapes another human being should be
shoot! its not that but….Its not just one life it messes
up, its the whole familys life.
I know it completely messes up lives. But do you honestly think that by killing these people you will start to feel any better? Not all victims want to see these people dead…In fact most of them are their own mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters.
Killing is no deterrant either…
May i suggest you watch the film ‘pierrepoint’ britains last hangman.
I take on board what your saying..and yep! I`l do that & watch!
but, I do think unless you have been in that situation,
Its hard for you to understand, Its absolutly ruined my life,
I cant get passed it… No thats a lie I can, but when something
like this comes up in my life, I just dont understand why
people want to say…”Oh ending his life is wrong” to me its
not wrong…yep we all make mistakes in our life but FGS, he
to me dosent deserve a life..sorry but he dosent.
Anyway Im Offski! got lots on tommorow…x
I understand your pain and maybe your right people won’t think like you unless they been through your situation.
These people are horrid and weak and discusting and i could go on forever but so called ‘evil’ people are still quite capable of great things, also so called ‘great people’ are quite capable of evil things.
If we start to devalue human life then who, what and where will we go next? It will be a slippery slope from then on.
Have you ever considered ‘forgiving’ your abuser? If they have indeed showed any signs of worthy of being forgiven.
Also, is it possibly the case that you define failures in life out of what has happened to you? Use it as an excuse? I know that might sound absolutely terrible. But be honest…Have you achieved your full potential? Don’t let this hold you back one bit. Surely this would be a better motivational approach rather than hang around waiting for some deathly justice??
Just get on with life..There are ALWAYS others worse off that need help.
Yes you could be right! Im an adult now, and knew this happened
to me as a child, and at the moment cant move forward from it.
I just feel if I had come out earlier in my life, rather then leave
it, and go on as if nothing has happened, then maybe I would
understand abit more of what your saying. but I cant..thats
why I say too any child..tell someone anyone,and get the help
you need earlier in your life then later! then they can move
forward easier then what an adult can. hope that makes sense!
If nothing like that had happened to me, then I wouldnt think like
I do! sorry if you dont get me…Right! i gotta really go…nice
chatting to ya..x