![]() This suggests confusion over the proper areas of association between kids and adults. Then there's the 82-year-old woman accused of being a possible pedophile after taking photos of a swimming pool. Take, for example, the recent actions of Watford local council, which banned parents from being with their own children in a public play area. Throw pedophiles in the mix, however, and the outcomes start getting really weird. My countrymen often complain of the nanny state, but that modern taste for risk-peddling seems an international phenomenon. I'm ready to be told the whole thing was some kind of deadpan black comedy. How did Britain's fixation on sexual stranger danger get this baroque? I'm stumped, frankly. In any case, the dramatics fade before the loopyness of the Glitter premise. They are usually dehumanized clinical events, not pathos-filled remixes of Saddam's last gasp. Western executions, where they play, follow years of legal wrangling. Moreover, if the filmmakers cared about depicting the reality of capital punishment, they could have at least cooked up a more convincing doom. Besides, Britain has an ample supply of bona-fide child murderers competing for eligibility: I guess Ian Huntley just doesn't look enough like Fu Manchu. Hangings within a month of conviction, without any right to a court appeal? The EU not enforcing the Convention of Human Rights just to keep Britain happy? Get real, little Englanders. The film's legal devices exist only to bring the celebrity to the rope. ![]() ![]() Without him, it would be a dry exploitation flick about no-one in particular-but one that might at least make sense. But the movie's concept isn't really "Imagine if we made new laws that dealt severely with sex offenders." It is "Imagine if we made new laws that would make Gary Glitter the center of national attention again." His presence is a gimmick. But then there's that whole weird thing about portraying an act of rationalized mob justice on someone who is very much alive and free.Īmong the rationales offered is that the movie confronts us with a difficult truth namely, that Britain needs to see Gary Glitter executed if it is to come to terms with its own moral indecisiveness over capital punishment. He is alternatively smug, sordid, humane and pathetic. The documentary style is clever, and Hilton McRae does an excellent job as Glitter. Channel 4's Hamish Mykura says that "this drama confronts the public with what many say they want." Talking heads, politicians and members of the public pop up in news-style interviews. Arrested hours after landing, he's put on trial to test new legislation that allows capital punishment for crimes committed abroad. The tabloids now stalk him and run stories like " Gary Glitter changes the style of his beard."Įxecution depicts a different outcome. After 18 months in a Vietnamese jail on a conviction for child molestation, he was released in 2008 and flown back to the U.K. The real Gadd was disgraced by a child porn bust and his subsequent residency in sex tourist hotspots. ![]() It's a story about the moral quandary of capital punishment, generously garnished with the British media's obsession with pedophilia. Celebrity sex offender Paul Gadd-AKA glam rock star Gary Glitter-is re-tried for his crimes and hanged. Channel 4's documentary-style drama, The Execution of Gary Glitter, imagines an alternative Britain that reintroduces the death penalty.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |