Monday, October 08, 2012

Jim Fixed It

I was less shocked than I thought I should be about the claims that several women have made about the 1970s DJ and charity fund raiser Jimmy Saville. I think there has been a big cultural shift during my lifetime towards relationships between men and young women. What is not surprising to me after reading some of the stories is that back then child sexual abuse was not discussed. It was swept under the carpet and treated as something you didn't speak of. I'm glad that has changed in our society. However there are women who can only now feel like they can discuss it after he has passed. It seems other women are coming forward to open up about it too.
I watched a documentary by film maker Louis Theroux on Saville. I thought Saville seemed a secretive and strange man, someone who didn't want to open up about anything very personal. His habits were certainly odd and he didn't seem that likeable. He lived in the small house he grew up in with his mother, despite earning lots of money as a celebrity. I used to watch and enjoy his TV show Jim'll Fix It like millions of other kids in the 70s.
It's wrong he can't answer these accusations and if they're true, which seems more likely every day, it's wrong that he enjoyed wealth, prestige and fame while those he abused suffered silently.

2 comments:

laura b. said...

There is something extra distressing about news like this coming out so many years after the fact.

FW said...

LB: The case continues and the number of incidents and the systematic way the abuse seems to have been carried out is shocking. But what seems most shocking is that he was able to carry on and nobody blew the gaff on him.