Perhaps it is a cause for celebration that in Britain, the death penalty is so long gone an institution that television producers feel comfortable using it as a gimmick through which to peddle stylized celebrity death fantasy trash. This is what The Execution of Gary Glitter was. “Since 1969 the death penalty was abolished in the UK…” a caption at the start informed us. “Since then polls consistently show a majority of British citizens wish to see it restored… In this drama their wish has been granted.”
And so we are in an "imaginary" Britain, in which after the Soham school girls murders there had been public clamour for the restoring the death penalty, an organised, popular campaign for its restoration, a fractious Parliamentary debate and ultimately the passing of a law allowing death for the most heinous crimes. Parliament also enacted a law giving British Courts jurisdiction to adjudicate upon crimes committed by Britons overseas. Thus Glitter is arrested, tried for child rape committed in Asia, and sentenced to death.
In the publicity, the film was described as one intended to reignite the death penalty debate. But Charlie Brooker - whose Twitter commentary made enduring the film worthwhile - nailed it perfectly: “Well this is certainly thought-provoking stuff, raising questions about absolutely everything except the death penalty.” Even by the end, what it was about remained pretty unclear. Controversy, definitely, and with it publicity; advertising revenue, probably.
This was a film not about the death penalty, not about the execution of child murderers or rapists, but about the mock execution of Paul “Gary Glitter” Gladd. Whether this had been the original spur for the documentary, and it was simply marketed as a film designed to spark death penalty debate after producers got cold feet, I don’t know. The film does remind one somewhat of the time those people bought OJ Simpson’s sports memorabilia from him at auction, only to burn it all outside the auction house. Amusingly, the film was transmitted the day before Index On Censorship publish a report into reform of libel laws. One of the big questions immediately arising after the broadcast is that along the lines of, How on earth did this get through the legal department?
On their website, Channel 4 advertised the film with the tagline "Not so good to be back..." Within the film itself there were similar examples of ostentatiously perverse levity: a news reporter advising that amassing outside Glitter's prison there two groups of protestors, wearing t-shirts that said either “GARY GLITTER MUST HANG” or “SAVE THE LEADER”. There was also a Glitter soundtrack, ‘I Love You Love Me Love’ backing a series of faux vox-pops of member of the public’s views on the death penalty after Glitter is sentenced. There is also a weird subplot about a remix of Glitter’s testimony being remixed into one of his songs, which Glitter hears towards the end, just before he is to be hanged.
The film was, to put it lightly, bizarre. In stronger terms it was sick, although a better word would perhaps be syphilitic. The weirdest moment (and one of the most bizarre conceits perhaps ever broadcast) occurred when Gary Bushell described vividly his (seemingly genuine) elation at hearing the (imaginary) news of the (imaginary) result of the (imaginary) vote of the (imaginary) Parliamentary debate as to whether to restore the (imaginary) Death Penalty. Coming a close second, from the same scene, was Miranda Sawyer describing how she had reported on his (imaginary) trial, and how well he had scrubbed up. “He was the Leader of the Gang”, she said.
Perhaps what made this all so bizarre was that the film had been described as ‘docu-drama’, with Bushell along with Anne Widdecome and Miranda Sawyer being brought on as talking heads. You didn’t expect them to be actors. Though I hope we will never have cause to find out just how ‘in-character’ Bushell was when he said, “The liberal parasites had been thrown off and… at last justice was going to be done.” Cockroaches, shurely, Gary?
This was sleaze, and it was ineptly produced sleaze at that. Sure, the film was extremely well shot – and it’s remiss not to praise Hilton McRea’s performance as Glitter - but the thing reeked of ham. There were bits such as the following: Glitter, on death row, asks his QC (his lone lawyer – no one – not one - else seen in the legal team: could they not have afforded one other person?): "There’s gotta be some kind of appeal… Europe… Human Rights?". Comes the reply, "…there was a piece of paper, called the European Convention on Human Rights. But that’s all it was... just a piece of paper."
It seems simply extraordinary for the writers of a film aimed at bringing about death penalty debate to have so little insight into the actual issue at hand. Before the program, I had reread some pieces on the death penalty, just as a kind of refresher for the death penalty debate (if ‘debate’ is the right word) in case one cropped up. Though it turns out I needn’t have bothered, the time spent wasn't completely lost. For instance, I reread a powerful account Christopher Hitchens wrote after attending the execution of Samuel Lee McDonald, a convicted killer. It included the following: "I feel … degraded and somewhat unmanned by the small part I played, as a complicit spectator, in the dank and dingy little ritual that was enacted in that prison cell in Missouri … It was a creepy, furtive, and shameful affair.” A creepy, furtive, and shameful affair: yes, that about sums it up.
The one good that can come from this entire debacle is that it poses an excuse to link to and speak up about charities such as Reprieve, for the lawyers, volunteers and clients of which the death penalty is not simply a talking point, nor a subject fit for the fulfilment of sad, troubling and lonely fantasies on a Monday night.
