Jimmy Saville documentary on Netflix

[AlternativePerspective]

Have just watched this, obviously we all know what he did and the absolutely reprehensible individual he was.

But watching the documentary and all the clips they played, even if he hadn’t committed all those hideous acts, he was a really creepy repulsive bloke. So why did the nation love him so much?

I’m not talking royals and other celebs etc, but ordinary people. The people who filed past his coffin after his death, and mourned his passing, sent in hundreds of tributes etc. Why? He was just so repulsive. Or is it just me?

He was always weird and I remember asking my mum how someone that old can run a marathon. But like most kids in the 80s, I watched JWFI every week. My parents were never keen on him though.

@MrsPelligrinoPetrichor

His manner of speaking was really odd and Rolf Harris spoke the same to a certain extent. All that breathy now then, now then nonsense. Urghh.

Never liked him-even as small child...

As an adult, before all the vile abuse came out in the I always thought that he was just a bundle of clichéd sayings... With no real soul /heart...

Bloody hell that thread. having said that, iirc there were other threads at the time saying similar to the OP of that thread where a lot of people did comment on the rumours and speculation and made their opinions well known. But they were deleted as being not in the spirit/in bad taste etc.

And then the truth came out soon after.

I never met him but grew up watching him on Jim'll Fix It and TOTP. I didn't love him, and was largely unaware of his charity work, but didn't think he was creepy either. He was just another tv presenter, and the only discussion about him I remember having with my family was how ridiculous his clothes were.

I wrote to JFI and was jealous of the girl who got in a cab and said 'follow that car'. I think she ended up in France.

His on-screen comments didn't seem particularly odd to me at the time. It was not unusual for older men to be creepy around young girls. Programmes like On The Buses and the Carry On films were very popular and normalised it.

Even in real life, men got away with being frighteningly pervy. Newspapers counted the days until celebrity children were 16 and 'old enough'. Bosses patted your bum. Parents warned their kids to stay away from certain people in the community but they were tolerated. A male French teacher at my school was famous for teaching everyone the same sentence in their first lesson - will you sleep with me tonight. Another teacher married a pupil within a year of her leaving school. I remember genuinely feeling that it was my job to keep myself safe from such people and unwanted attention was my own fault.

That zombie thread is to read it now. And a clear example of how a group dynamic can reinforce each other’s (in this case flawed) perceptions against one lone voice. ‘Did he not fix it for you?’

In my late 50s, I liked watching JFI, but never wanted to be on it. Like pps, I thought JS rather scary because of his oddness.
I did love RH, though, especially his 'do you know what it is yet?' paintings. But I read an extract from his autobiography when I was in my teens, and remember him talking about trying to jolly colleagues along by saying 'cheer up it may never happen!' Obviously, this is not an indication of paedophilia, but I did think it crass and rather bullying. Just a tiny counter-balance to all our surprise about him.

@Chasingaftermidnight

I know how easy it is to say ‘I knew all along’, but I genuinely did always think he was creepy. I certainly didn’t suspect what he actually was and I was totally shocked by the scale of his offending but I did always think he was a creep.

But then again, lots of people (not just his victims) must have known what he was and didn’t say anything.

Rolf Harris I was really, really surprised by. Never thought he was creepy. So it goes to show you can’t necessarily rely on your creepdar anyway.

This sums it up for me too. There were special things I wanted to do as a child but I never wrote to Jim’ll Fix It because I didn’t want to meet him.

I loved Rolf Harris and Stuart Hall though, so that completely blindsided me.

The middle aged nurses at Stoke Mandeville knew what he was like, but nobody listened/ listens to middle aged women.
Not much has changed IMO.
Men like this still groom, abuse, court the people in power. They infiltrate all our public institutions. Social media only makes it easier.

The poster who said people lived near him knew a lot of gossip about him were right. There were many rumours in Leeds, most of which I assumed was just people being malicious. I was naive enough to think there was no way anyone would have sex with corpses at the LGI morgue. As an older woman, and police officer I’ve since realised that is far from the most revolting perversion a human can have.

There were also rumours about ‘young girls’ but by this I assumed they meant girls in their early 20s - so distasteful but not illegal

I enjoyed JFI for the show not him - I thought he was odd. I also met him as a young child with my mum in Roundhay park. She encouraged me to say hello but didn’t like him after the encounter. He spoke to me in a really odd way - not inappropriate but it was apparent he didn’t really like children, or at least couldn’t naturally converse with them. His JFL segments were obviously scripted

Kieranthecommunity just interested to know if, to your knowledge, any rumours or reports about JS ever reached the police. I find it hard to believe that senior police had time to drop by his flat for tea and a chat most Fridays. Maybe this was just his PR in action. Strange man all round.

I personally had only joined the police five years before he died, so didn’t hear of any rumours within the organisation then about any big wigs meeting up with him. But there were rumours in the 80/90s about his Friday club. It wasn’t just police officers apparently, it was other influential men who he was rumoured to have ‘in his pocket.’ To do what though - no one elaborated.

He was a big name - really big. If I ended up being invited regularly to say Emma Thompson's house to hang out as part of a circle of friends, I'd want to go.

I'm late 50s and of that era. Yes, he was odd, but a lot of the comments you heard him make in the documentary - along the lines of 'what are you doing later?' and suggestive comments about girls - were totally commonplace in those days

This is so true. It was no "normal" for grown men to ask little girls "have you got a boyfriend?", and "Am I too old for you?" etc. Little girl shyly and awkwardly giggles, the audience laughs completely validating the Percy old man. Standard stuff. I can think of an interview with a young Britney Spears where that exact thing happened. It's shocking but it was normal

pervy old man!

Remember you're not allowed to dislike someone just because they're odd or "creepy" even (especially?) now. That would be all kinds of wrong and he was doing so much "good".

Kieren... thank you, all the best

If you watch the documentary he is clearly alluding to his perverted activities constantly in interviews. Everyone just laughed it off but it’s almost as if he was telling the audience what he was doing, hiding in plain site so to speak. On the clip from ‘Have I Got News for You’ it is really actually pretty blatant. There are countless times he mentions that jail time or being arrested for his behaviour towards women, totally joking on the surface but super creepy now we know the truth. He was telling us what he was doing but no one was listening, just a harmless old man. He also had most of West Yorkshire police force in his back pocket, as well as countless royals (although they are no better).

If you watch the documentary he is clearly alluding to his perverted activities constantly in interviews

Yes, even allowing for the deliberate editing, it’s shocking how many times he basically tells us all. The ‘establishment’ come off so so badly.

And as for West Yorkshire police - words fail me. Their role in Hillsborough also happened in the middle of all this.

@Trixiefirecracker

If you watch the documentary he is clearly alluding to his perverted activities constantly in interviews. Everyone just laughed it off but it’s almost as if he was telling the audience what he was doing, hiding in plain site so to speak. On the clip from ‘Have I Got News for You’ it is really actually pretty blatant. There are countless times he mentions that jail time or being arrested for his behaviour towards women, totally joking on the surface but super creepy now we know the truth. He was telling us what he was doing but no one was listening, just a harmless old man. He also had most of West Yorkshire police force in his back pocket, as well as countless royals (although they are no better).

At that time people often joked about jail bait and cradle snatching

Yes watching it I was shocked by how weird he was. All the gross misogynistic comments and acting like a perv...

I'll admit I wasn't born when he was big so I simply don't understand the draw.

And as for West Yorkshire police - words fail me. Their role in Hillsborough also happened in the middle of all this.

Hillsborough was South Yorkshire Police’s failing.

I know its a bit off at a tangent as its about the police not JS, but one of the best things I've ever read about the entire era is Joan Smith's essay in Misogynies about the Yorkshire Ripper case. The attitude to women and whether they were virtuous or not. And the horror of paedophilia was just much less then. Young teenage girls in highly sexualised clothes were presented as 'liberated' not vulnerable. JS knew if he went after girls who weren't protected, other people would blame the girls for their 'character' and no doubt he had the same attitude. Even the ones in hospital ffs. The same attitudes that led to Rotherham, Oxford and all the others.

@PermanentTemporary

I know its a bit off at a tangent as its about the police not JS, but one of the best things I've ever read about the entire era is Joan Smith's essay in Misogynies about the Yorkshire Ripper case. The attitude to women and whether they were virtuous or not. And the horror of paedophilia was just much less then. Young teenage girls in highly sexualised clothes were presented as 'liberated' not vulnerable. JS knew if he went after girls who weren't protected, other people would blame the girls for their 'character' and no doubt he had the same attitude. Even the ones in hospital ffs. The same attitudes that led to Rotherham, Oxford and all the others.

Yes, I think latterly we found out that he'd targeted very young children, but the teenage girls who "threw themselves at him"....they got what they wanted. Or so was the thinking at the time and TBH, from my work with teenage "missing" children it's not that unusual a view now

@PermanentTemporary

I know its a bit off at a tangent as its about the police not JS, but one of the best things I've ever read about the entire era is Joan Smith's essay in Misogynies about the Yorkshire Ripper case. The attitude to women and whether they were virtuous or not. And the horror of paedophilia was just much less then. Young teenage girls in highly sexualised clothes were presented as 'liberated' not vulnerable. JS knew if he went after girls who weren't protected, other people would blame the girls for their 'character' and no doubt he had the same attitude. Even the ones in hospital ffs. The same attitudes that led to Rotherham, Oxford and all the others.

Yes the language used at that time was horrendous, the only victim that got sympathy in the press was the woman who wasn't a prostitute.

Nowadays he wouldn't have to front charities and infiltrate influential people's lives to groom and assault the vulnerable girls/women that he did.

He could just say he was a woman and that would be that. Access all areas.