Hiding in Plain Sight

Abstract

In 2012—less than 12 months after his death—television personality Jimmy Savile was revealed to have been a prolific sexual abuser of children and young adults, mainly girls and women. This study advances research on the gendering of violence in news discourse by examining press coverage in the period leading up to Savile’s unmasking. It investigates the conditions in which Savile’s predatory behaviour—widely acknowledged in his lifetime—finally became recast as (child sexual) abuse. Specifically, it challenges the gender-blind analyses of media coverage which have typified academic responses to date, arguing that Savile’s crimes—and the reporting of them—need to be understood in the broader context of everyday sexism: a contemporary, as well as an historic, issue.

KEYWORDS:

• child sexual abuse
• gender
• gender-based violence
• Jimmy Savile
• journalism
• news

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Clare McFeely and Oona Brooks at the University of Glasgow for the invitation to participate in the seminar on moral panics and sexual abuse which gave rise to my research on Savile; to colleagues at the Feminist and Women’s Studies Association conference in Leeds where I presented the first stages of this research; and to Susan Berridge for her comments on an earlier draft of this article.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Following Savile’s death, journalists at Newsnight were working on a story about Savile’s abuse of young women at Duncroft School (a residential school for girls deemed to be “at risk”). The editor took the decision not to proceed with the story and the BBC broadcast a number of tributes to Savile in its Christmas schedule. When the abuse story finally broke, it was, therefore, a story about the BBC as much as about Savile. Had the BBC killed the Newsnight story to protect the reputation of the corporation? A first report into the circumstances surrounding the Newsnight investigation was commissioned and published within weeks (Pollard 2012). In 2016, Dame Janet Smith’s far more extensive investigation into Savile at the BBC was published (Smith 2016). Smith’s remit was Savile’s behaviour at the BBC; on whether concerns were raised—formally or informally—about Savile during his lifetime; on the extent to which BBC personnel were aware of—or should have been aware of—his behaviour; and on whether the culture and practices at the BBC during the years of Savile’s employment enabled “inappropriate sexual conduct” to continue unchecked.

2 In addition to reports focusing on the BBC (Pollard 2012; Smith 2016), there have—to date—been more than 40 National Health Service/Department of Health reports into Savile’s activities within different hospitals (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/nhs-and-department-of-health-investigations-into-jimmy-savile), as well reports by the Independent Police Complaints Commission into potential police misconduct and handling of reports of sexual assault by Savile during his lifetime (https://www.ipcc.gov.uk/investigations/jimmy-savile-west-yorkshire-police-surrey-police-sussex-police-and-north-yorkshire).

3 See, for example, “Sir Jimmy Savile: Obituary”, The Daily Telegraph, October 31, 2011; “Hounding Eccentrics: The New British Sport”, The Times, November 1, 2011.

4 See, for example, “Still Fixing It, Jim Leaves £63.6 m to Charity”, Daily Mail, March 10, 2012; “Sir Jimmy Leaves His Lover £1000”, The People, March 11, 2012; “The Waitress’s Daughter Who Claims She’s Sir Jim’s Child”, Sunday Mirror June 3, 2012. Ray becomes the focus again when she initiates a DNA test to stake a claim to Savile’s fortune (3–10 June) and, following publication of Bellamy’s biography, the revelation of a second secret lover makes headlines (10–14 June).

5 There is further work to be done around whether a celebrity’s cultural value impacts upon whether or not allegations of abuse will “stick” to him. It is striking, for instance, that some of the most high-profile cases of recent years where female accusers have received a degree of public and media sympathy have involved celebrities who—like Savile—are associated with domesticated media (television, radio) and with popular but culturally derided, feminised genres (light entertainment, music television, situation comedy, children’s television). In contrast, allegations against filmmakers (Woody Allen, Roman Polanski) and musicians (David Bowie, Bill Wyman) tend to be seen in more ambivalent terms when they are acknowledged at all. Michael Jackson is a particularly interesting figure in this respect. Whilst, in his lifetime, child sexual abuse allegations were widely reported, led to a criminal trial and were readily incorporated into the “Wacko Jacko” persona constructed by the press, in death these allegations have largely been eclipsed by a legacy focused on his contributions to music (Davies 2012). Even the obituaries following his sudden death in 2009 rarely mention the allegations or refer to them only euphemistically as “unfortunate incidents” (Naylor 2010).

6 In his lifetime, Savile was asked to address paedophilia rumours by Louis Theroux in the documentary When Louis Met … Jimmy (2000), and—10 years prior to that—by journalist Lynn Barber for an Independent on Sunday profile. Both interviews were widely revisited in light of Exposure. For a fuller discussion of these and other profiles of Savile published in his lifetime, see Cross (2016). Theroux revisited his own documentary in Louis Theroux: Savile (October 2, 2016, BBC2) which I discuss in Boyle (2016).

7 See, for example, “Sir Jim Named as a Paedophile in TV Shocker”, The Mirror, August 5, 2012, 19; “TV Show to Claim Savile a Paedo”, The Mirror, August 6, 2012, 16.

8 See, for example, “Savile’s Time Was Different”, The Times, October 4, 2012; “The DJs Who Thought They Could Get Away With Anything”, The Express, October 6, 2012; “BBC Chief ‘Appalled by Torrent of Revelations’”, The Guardian, October 6, 2012.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karen Boyle

Web: http://rms.stir.ac.uk/converis-stirling/person/20532