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Lorn Macintyre
The figure with the fat cigar, fingers flashing with rings, hailing his ‘guys and gals’, is a sinister Freudian symbol exposing the true personality of Jimmy Savile. He represents the zenith of the cult of celebrity, self-constructed and otherwise, and for his progenitor we have to go back to the development of the newsreel camera, and to one event in particular, the funeral of Rudolph Valentino in 1926.
Valentino, more than anyone of his era, made the cult of the celebrity possible, through such films as ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’, where the lack of soundtrack with dialogue actually enhanced his charisma. At his funeral, as at Savile’s, the cameras were out in force. Rose petals rained down from an aeroplane in front of the tango exponent’s cortege, and suicides of heartbroken female fans were reported.
Now fast forward the film in its sprockets to the 1960s, to the emergence of pop music, ordinary lads and lassies made world famous through the songs they composed and performed. They had knickers – and more – tossed at them in sacrifice, and with their excesses of alcohol and drugs, and ease of international travel, they raised the concept of the celebrity to a new high. As well as breaking fittings in night clubs, and female hearts, they broke down the barriers of class, with pop stars imbibing with princesses.
The female counterpart of Valentino in the 1990s was Diana, Princess of Wales, with her public defection from the heir to the throne, her dalliance with the beneficiary of a great mercantile fortune; the colossal yachts, the luxury apartments in London and Paris, pursued by the paparazzi into the underworld in a death which recalled classical mythology.
And then there was Savile, with his shoulder-length locks, ‘Top of the Pops’ a sinister moniker now that his alleged abuses have been exposed posthumously. His image was carefully cultivated, from the glitzy tracksuits, the Havana cigars, the flashy jewellery. Any feelings we had of a sinister side to this guy were dispelled by his seemingly tireless efforts raising money for charity. This also was evidently part of the personality cult, to deflect from the sexual exploitation of the underage. But wasn’t there a side to our Jimmy which wanted to taunt his adoring fans, to gauge how far he could go before exposure, as with the mattress fitted into his Land Rover, and the remarks, apparently throwaway, about young girls?
Savile is a symbol of more than the nice guy who befriended the girls for his gratification, and, evidently, abused some of them sexually within BBC premises. The new director-general of the BBC has announced an independent inquiry into ‘the culture and practices of the BBC’. It requires to examine the cult of celebrity, to which television has been the major contributor.
It was television, and specifically the BBC, which created the image of celebrities such as Savile through the razzmatazz of ‘Top of the Pops’ and other glamorous shows. Television discovers talents (often mediocre) and projects it into celebrity, because it is through the cult of celebrity that the biggest viewing figures are to be achieved in relentless competition against other channels. We have had decades of inane chat shows featuring barely articulate celebrities. But the surgeon who spends hours in an operating theatre, saving a child, using cutting-edge equipment, won’t do anything for the ratings. So much is tainted by the cult of celebrity.
Dancing used to be a pastime of pleasure for all classes, its elegance portrayed in the BBC series ‘Come Dancing’. The modern version is strictly a celebrity show of scoring and elimination by often aggressive judges.
How do the celebrities stay in the public eye when they aren’t on the box? Savile chose to be a clown in a tracksuit and kilt, his prop the ostentatious cigar. When they are off screen other celebrities maintain their public positions by being photographed staggering out of exclusive nightclubs, out of their minds with alcohol and drugs. The females will adjust their dresses for the benefit of the waiting paparazzi. This is the age of the naked prince, reminiscent of the reign of Caligula.
The cult of celebrity is London-centric, its values those of greed, ruthlessness and vacuity, and the BBC has fuelled it by paying obscene fees. In the Savile scandal, a sinister aspect is that there is emerging evidence that celebrities working in television suspected that he was interfering with the underage, but kept silent, presumably because they were frightened of forfeiting their place at the gold-plated feeding trough. Likewise, there appear to have been programme makers who knew what was going on in dressing-rooms, but kept their mouths shut because they were frightened of losing their jobs or being passed over for promotion.
Kenny MacQuarrie, the head of BBC Scotland, has been appointed to investigate ‘Newsnight’s’ alleged abandonment of a film into Savile’s predatory behaviour towards young girls. Kenny is a decent, compassionate and truthful person. I have known him since he was a boy in Tobermory and worked for him in BBC on television programmes in Gaelic and English. Be sure that he will make a thorough and impartial investigation of the circumstances surrounding the Newsnight controversy.
But the Savile scandal goes far beyond ‘Newsnight’. The silence of the programme maker and of the celebrity while the child was being molested on BBC premises was an act of complicity and terrible betrayal, almost as if they too had their hands inside the garments of the underage. If they had spoken up they could have stopped the abuse in wheelchairs and beds in hospitals.
Lorn Macintyre is a writer and poet
