Rob, in the pedantic interest of accurate reporting Harris has not been sent down - that indicates a custodial sentence, which has not been given … yet.
FWIW I’m with the camp that thinks the “not really” was an absent minded filler - and I am a Brit.
It does seem like those being interviewed were just trying to process what they had just heard and match it to the person that they knew.
If someone hasn’t experienced abuse then it is understandable (not forgiveable) that it appears “odd” to outsiders that allegations seem only to emerge after a long time - I’d say denial is a pretty common phenomenon as an early reaction.
The hindsight that seems to furnish observers with the fire of righteousness distracts from the core question of how one furthers a culture of whistle-blowing. Why do we give so much power to these people that no one feels able to challenge their behaviour?
I scratch my head at the growing list of men (I can’t recall a single woman) that I considered creepy as a child who have transpired to be abusers:
Gadd, Hall, Harris, Savile - many clergy, some teachers, houseparents and scoutmasters.
So, if we can tell in our gut, and that these people have open reputations and they still get away with it: what is the process in your view that is being missed that could prevent this?
These sound like ordinary statements doddery 80 year olds would make if you told them someone they had known for fifty years was a wrong 'un, so they don’t sound sinister to me. What is odd is none of them expressed any sympathy for the victims. Even if they can’t muster up any feels for the hoi polloi themselves, you’d think their PRs would have coached them.
I grew up in England in the 70s and all of these kiddy-fiddlers were on TV all of the time. Now, I invest most of my entertainment time in reading science fiction, and SF fandom has recently been rocked by Marion Zimmer Bradley’s daughter’s allegation that she was abused by MZB. This brought up the whole “Breendoggle” again. (Breen was MZB’s husband.) In the Breendoggle (early sixties) SF fandom largely turned a blind eye to Breen’s child abuse - which was happening in public, in front of them - and was reluctant to take even basic measures to keep him away from children. (He was convicted decades later.) Being wordy people, fandom wrote it all down, and it’s horrible reading.
What was wrong with that entire generation? People, including myself, keep telling me that times were different then, and indeed I do remember that every single newspaper cartoon in the 60s and early 70s involved a horny boss chasing a busty blonde secretary around a desk and everybody thought they were hilarious - but children? Why so many children?
God, no. I remember the “posterior pinching demonstration” letter. Someone recently described Asimov as something like ‘a dude pretending to be a dirty old man who is in reality a dirty old man’. Except they phrased it more cleverly.
The closest I can come to this sort of thing is a teacher of mine who ended up going to prison for sexual abuse of a couple of his female pupils.
When he got out I know he wasn’t completely ostracised by his friends - friends of my parents worked with him and still socialize with him. I guess people are able to compartmentalise.
I don’t think that it’s limited to any particular generation; I think that previous generations got away with it because old cis white males in positions of power were effectively immune to prosecution for this, and subsequent generations were warned about it. When the Catholic sex abuse scandals broke, a lot of apologists for the Church tried to blame it on Vatican II and the sexual revolution corrupting priests, until it became obvious that in many cases the abuse well preceded those events.
Then you’re expecting them to have had time to think about their response, instead of being pigeonholed by a muckraker and forced to speak off-the-cuff on something uncomfortable and painful.
Let’s remember these are publically skilled peopled who’ve lived under the lens. I think they’re reeling, in dismay, disgust, self-disgust and shame. They literally can’t piece the words together to parse the Willy Wonka fame world they’ve lived in, and the awful, tragic nature of the culture they inhabited.
Not really is really not good enough.
Part of the key here is - what did they know, and when, and did they hold information back? Apparently everyone in the beeb knew about Saville.
You know what’s uncomfortable and painful? Being digitally raped when you’re 7.
It is part of the problem here that instead we concern ourselves with the discomfort and pain of a man, a professional publicist, who has spent his lifetime working with these guys and with the press, who simply hasn’t had time to think through what to say to muckrakers about the things he never saw, not really, because, quote, “people hadn’t ever heard the word pedophile in the 70s or whatever”
You know what’s also painful? Having a microphone shoved in you face by someone demanding your deep insights into the news that someone you considered a friend has been convicted of a horrible crime.
IMPORTANT NOTE: I AM NOT COMPARING BEING INTERVIEWED TO BEING RAPED. I AM MERELY POINTING OUT THAT SOME PEOPLE ARE NOT ALWAYS COMPLETELY PREPARED TO ANSWER THAT SORT OF QUESTION COMPLETELY OFF THE CUFF
And that invalidates all lesser discomforts forever? Person A is a reprehensible child rapist, therefore Person B is not permitted to have awkward phrasing?
I admit I’m not a professional publicist, but I have often said “not really” when I absolutely meant “definitely not” because it seems like a softer, more diplomatic response. Sometimes a softer response is not warranted; I have probably given at least one person the wrong impression, and I regret that. But take a moment and really think about what you would feel if you found out that a person you truly respected and felt close to had been convicted of child molestation. I mean it; think of an actual person close to you, a dear friend or relative or associate, and imagine your reaction to that news. Would you be perfectly calm and balanced? Would there be a part of your mind, no matter how small and irrational, saying “This must be a mistake or a frame-up, surely it can’t be true”?
The thing is, this revelation of abuse has reached such epic proportions that you can’t just stand there and say ‘not really’. You’re in the public eye, like it or not. You were an associate of a convicted rapist.
I get that having a camera shoved in your face is off. But this affair has brewed and brewed, there’s been plenty of time to come to terms with what you’re seeing.
By not demonstrating support for the victims, by not at the very least expressing disappointment in the characters involved, by not distancing yourself from the affair, you appear somehow to be in it.
This is just about institutionalised rape. This gang repeatedly took advantage of vulnerable people, and the juries involved in the cases have accepted that the evidence proves it beyond any reasonable doubt.
It’s a black and white issue.
Personally, I see a bunch of people watching their gaudy funfair being torn down, the funfair they enjoyed and remember, despite the whispers of awkward goings on in the sideshow tents.
If you’ve ever worked in the performing arts, in any capacity, you’ll know that everyone knows everything. Word gets around. It may be amorphous, but after repeated tales of the same stories, you’d have to turn a blind eye.
And that invalidates all lesser discomforts forever?
His discomfort – the discomfort of a media professional answering questions voluntarily and at unsolicited length for polite journalists who are not really “shoving” anything at all in his face – is irrelevant.
That it’s even brought up in as any kind of counterpoint to the suffering of abused children is baffling to me. It’s a reminder of why the victims were invisible and ignored for so long, even by the many hacks and celebrities who affected to care about these issues.
These are not just shocked friends. These are pros. Some of them worked with the abusers for decades, and many of them knew. This is why it’s particularly interesting when some of them call it a witch hunt, or “political”, or claim obvious nonsense about no-one knowing about pedophilia in the 70s, or insinuate that the victims are lying, or say “not really” when asked “did you see it?” These are not awkward phrasings. They’re equivocations and hand-waving, the panic of people trapped between what they knew and what they fear can be proven about what they knew.
If you think it’s unfair to assume these guys are lying now, after forty years of chortling, winking innuendo they thought would never get out of control and become anything more? Well, too bad, because they’re fucked.
“2 little boys” was presumably the name of an act put together specifically for that track, taking their name from one of Harris’ earlier hit singles from 1969 here
