From Celebrity Criminal to Criminal Celebrity: Concerning the ‘Celebrification’ of Sex Crime in the UK
Author | Dr Iolo Madoc-Jones, Dr Caroline Gorden, Dr Sarah Dubberley, Dr Caroline Hughes |
Introduction
Our concern in this article is to explore aspects of the recent 'celebrification' of sex crime in the UK (Gamson, 1994; Harper & Treadwell, 2013). Sex crime is not a new phenomenon but recent incidents in the UK whereby various celebrities have faced allegations of sexual offending have catapulted the issue afresh into the public imagination. Whilst figures like Billy the Kid in the USA and Dick Turpin in the UK illustrate that the celebrity criminal has been around for some time, the criminal celebrity, and especially the celebrity sex offender, is a rarer more recent object of interest (Greer, 2003).
In the USA, Fatty Arbuckle was tried in the 1920s over the death of a fellow actress but more recently in 2002 Michael Jackson was charged with sexual offences against children. In the UK, Paul Gadd (aka the singer Gary Glitter) and Pete Townsend (guitarist with the rock band The Who) appeared in court in 2005 and 2007 respectively for offences relating to possessing indecent images of children. In the main, however, these have figured as isolated and episodic cases of alleged celebrity sexual offending which Iyengar (1991) has suggested tend to have little social impact. More recently, in the UK, a significant number of high profile celebrities have been accused and/or arrested for sex crimes. This article explores whether the high profile and thematic, as opposed to episodic, framing of sex crimes that arises antecedent to the arrest of so many celebrities can presage any significant changes in how that form of crime, victim and offender are understood (Iyengar, 1991). Though focused on events in the UK we intend the paper to make a contribution to understanding how discourses about sex crimes may be foregrounded and reproduced in other contexts where a number of celebrity offenders may emerge and capture the public imagination. We begin by discussing some of the events leading up to a number of celebrities being accused of sex crimes in the UK. Next we explore some of the ways of understanding and conceptualising the emergence of criminal celebrities, locating this discussion in the broader context of late modernity and the risk society. From there, we explore dominant discourses about sex offenders and the implications of the celebrification of sex crime for how sex offenders and their victims are viewed.
Rise of the Criminal Celebrity
It is apposite to note that ‘celebrity’ and ‘celebrity status’ is the epitome of inauthenticity or constructedness (Franklin, 1999), so that defining the field of interest of this paper is not a straightforward task. It is possible to draw distinctions between celebrities (A, B C-list), people who are well-known, people who are notorious and those who are famous. Whilst noting this, here 'celebrity' is used as an all-inclusive term for those who work in the media and thereby attract public attention. The paper focuses on the recent concern with 'celebrity' sex offending in the UK arising from the death and subsequent exposure of Jimmy Savile - a BBC TV presenter and DJ, as a predatory sex offender. In October 2012, twelve months after his death, a television documentary carried allegations that not only had Savile been a predatory sex offender, but that this had been widely known and tolerated by many within the entertainment industry (Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile, 2012). The ‘revelations’ prompted a number of Savile’s victims to come forward and for allegations to emerge and prosecutions to be instigated against other celebrities. In many instances, as in the case of Savile, some of the allegations were historical, with some dating back to the 1960s, and it was suggested they had not been thoroughly investigated or prosecuted by the authorities with any vigour at the time. In response the London Metropolitan Police launched Operation Yewtree, an investigation with three strands - into Savile himself, into Savile ‘and others’ he may have offended with, and into unrelated claims made against other celebrities. Twelve months on, a number of celebrities had become embroiled in the investigations - Stuart Hall, Freddie Starr, Jim Davidson, Dave Lee Travis, Rolf Harris, Max Clifford, Jimmy Tarbuck, William Roache, Michael Le Vell, Paul Gambaccini and Cliff Richards, amongst others are household names in the UK.2* The question of which new or ‘bigger’ celebrity might be questioned or charged has generated feverish public speculation and online gossip. In December 2012 it was suggested 25 additional celebrities would be arrested (Furedi, 2013).
The origins of the criminal celebrity
The public and the media are obsessed with crime and celebrity (Greer, 2003; Thomas, 2005). In a context where urbanisation and globalisation have destabilised the traditional foundations for social order (rooted in religion, local community, nationhood or even gender) discussions about which celebrity one identifies with have come to serve as alternative processes wherein “relationships, identity, and social and cultural norms are debated, evaluated, modified and shared” (Turner, 2003:24). Rojek (2006) contends that historically, as texts, celebrities have served to promote consumption, multiple relationships and leisure. Presently, however, such a text is problematic and the roots of this may be traced to the moral crisis associated with the liberalising legislation and philosophy of the 1960s (Hall et al., 1978). From the late 1970s onwards, fuelled by the emergence of HIV/AIDS, public opinion began to converge on the idea that society had become too permissive and moral standards had declined too far. Bibbings (2009) suggests that a form of heterocrisis explains why subsequently ‘pro-family’ policies were championed at the same time as ‘dissident’ groups like single parents and people from the Lesbian and Gay community became the focus of negative rhetoric and exclusionary policies by a range of Western governments. Although from the 1990s onwards a more liberal discourse has re-emerged concerning sexual diversity, linked to this in many contexts has been claims that political correctness, or the desire to promote equality, has gone too far (Ford, 2008; Kohl, 2005; Marques, 2009). Throughout the decades a concern about ‘celebrity lifestyles’ and behaviours and the impact they, and the media in general, has on public behaviour has never gone away.
The sexuality of celebrities has always been of interest to the public and Surette (1998) argues sexual non conformity has always been associated with and tolerated within the artistic community. Rojek (2006) suggests that celebrities have always been considered more sexually active than non-celebrities. The music industry more so than the TV industry has been associated with a lifestyle of ‘sex and drugs and rock and roll’. Osborne (1995:43) argues that in the UK and USA in particular “there is a prurient obsession with the sex lives of all public figures”. More recently and in the context of a global economic downturn this interest and concern seems to have increased. Over the last few years the need for personal restraint and self-discipline has been emphasised. Utilitarianism and moderation, however, are not associated with celebrity culture. Indeed, hedonism and 2 Only Hall, Clifford and Harris have been convicted of any criminal offence(s). excessive individualism are increasingly blamed for the financial crisis sweeping the globe (Penfold-Mounce, 2009). As people’s sense of self has come to be increasingly defined by which aspects of celebrity culture they consume, then celebrities, it might be argued, have come to be the focus for the establishment of a revised social order based on restraint and austerity. At the same time technological advances mean that celebrities and others in the public eye are presently subjected to a qualitatively different level of attention than at any time in the past. Mathiesen (1997) refers to the power of synopticism whereby in mediated worlds the ‘many’ are now able to exert control and bring a disciplinary gaze onto the few. Thus, more recently in the UK there has been the emergence of not just the criminal celebrity, but the criminal politician, criminal reporter, and the criminal police-officer.
The construction of the sex offender and their victims
According to Levenson et al. (2007) the nature of most sex crime is misunderstood and the risk of falling victim to a sex offender has hitherto been discursively constructed by the media, and consumed by the public, as arising from ‘odd’ strangers in public places. In the face of evidence that the typical (convicted) sex offender is likely to be known to the victim and a family member or friend, the typical perpetrator of sexual offending has been constructed as 'male, inherently evil, inhuman, beyond redemption or cure, lower class, and unknown to the victim (who is...
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