There has been no shortage of bloodcurdling oaths against “paedophiles” since the Savile scandal broke, but none I have heard none to beat the ravings of Harry Potter star Richard Griffiths some years ago.
I’d feed all paedophiles into a tree shredder,” he vowed, “and anything left the police can have.
Remember Griffiths? He was Harry’s bullying Uncle Vernon, the one who made the young magician sleep in a cupboard under the stairs. Seems he was a natural for the role.
In fact this Dick Dastardly turns out to be a serial offender. On another occasion, he reportedly said:
Now, me, paedophiles, if it was left to me, I would hurt them so much it would upset and shock everybody in the country. I can think of really nasty things that I would like to see done to them. And I wouldn’t care if it didn’t change their behaviour – it would just certainly put them on notice that if you do this, you will have your skin removed, you will be made to go around to do really painful things before you’re allowed to die.
And they say WE are nasty!
Actually, though, Heretic TOC finds himself wondering whether this isn’t all a bit tongue in cheek, for two reasons.
Firstly, Griffiths played the role of Hector, a school master with distinctly pederastic tendencies in Alan Bennett’s play The History Boys, which was a great triumph on New York’s Broadway as well as London’s West End. He stuck with the part in the later film version too. Unlike Uncle Vernon, Hector was a sympathetic figure. He came across as a fine teacher who had a good rapport with his boys, and no less so for giving them lifts home on his motorbike and groping them in the process. Could anyone who really hated paedophiles have made such a good job of this part?
Secondly, there is a remarkable similarity between Griffiths’ style and Jimmy Savile’s. In a TV interview towards the end of his life, Savile admitted telling the tabloid press in earlier years that he hated children. Why had he done this? To put the press off the scent: it was a way of pouring cold water on any suggestion he might be too fond of them. And what does Griffiths say? In an interview with The Sun, he admitted – or claimed – that he dislikes children. He told a magazine: “I like playing Vernon — it gives me a licence to be horrible to kids.”
Not that I am insinuating anything. Griffiths is a married man and we all know that they are NEVER anything but the straightest of straight! Seriously, in all probability he IS straight. But anyone who has played a pederast in a drama is probably wise to be an anti-paedo drama queen off-stage.
Many thanks to reader willistina for alerting me to Newgon’s anti-paedophile quotes page, to which I owe the Griffiths utterances.
Being a movie buff and viewer of good (I hope) TV, thanks for this titbit about one actor who I’ve just about noticed in passing. ‘Withnail and I’, indeed, is my abiding image of him.
‘Anyone who has played a pederast in a drama is probably wise to be an anti-paedo drama queen off-stage.’
Maybe so, maybe so. However, I don’t recall Jeremy Irons (Lolita) or Kevin Bacon (The Woodsman) straining their very sinews to condemn the perversity they were forced to reluctantly portray for big money on the big screen. If anything, they appeared to embrace and speak of their screen personas with depth and sympathy. Mind you, I do remember Irons saying: “I was advised by my agent, ‘get a BIG fee for this, as you may work again!’ ” Well, he did both – got a big fee, and worked again, plenty. Deservedly so, too, in my humble opinion – as his portrayal of Humbert was masterly and haunting – almost as if he knew what it was to be attracted to a 13yo girl. Surely not?
Would love to get your thoughts on ‘Death in Venice’, Tom, when you get a spare moment.
I briefly interviewed Jeremy Irons for the prison newspaper when I was doing time in HMP Wandsworth! He was on a visit to the prison to put on a show, with inmates, in connection with a charity that promotes yoga and meditation for prisoners. Of course, I asked him about his role in Lolita and his views on paedophilia, although I knew the prison authorities would allow neither my question nor his answer to appear in the published interview. Bearing in mind that I was just an anonymous guy in a prison uniform, and might easily have been an aggressive “nonce” hater, his response was remarkably open and relaxed. He said for many men their honest feeling would be “There but for the grace of God go I.” There are far more Humberts, he appeared to be saying, than ever end up in jail. Actually, I think he feels many kinds of “criminals” are people who have had bad luck or taken a wrong turn that could have happened to anyone.
‘Interesting’, yes, but in the current climate what can Griffiths and millions more new closet-Ps do ?
Maybe take a leaf out of ‘Sweeney’ hard-nut Inspector Regan’s book and just, “Shut it !”
Tho, hold on, we recall a, now very non-PC, sexy-70s scene.
Where, Regan and his young sargeant Carter were parked in their big Granada watching a ‘gaff’, while parked by a schoolyard where leggy young gals played netball:
Regan: ” Whoever invented the gymslip should get a bloody medal. ”
Carter: ” Wot ? Here hold on Guv ! ”
Regan: ” Shut it !! “
Wow! Interesting! We could be onto something here!
Yes, it’s peculiar about Griffiths. Whatever his underlying reasons, such hate-mongering is greatly to be deplored. It’s also interesting to note that Griffiths recently played the part of W.H. Auden in another play by Bennett (albeit replacing the indisposed Michael Gambon at short notice). This was “The Habit of Art”, which concerns Auden and Benjamin Britten and includes very frank treatment of their sexual proclivities (which, in the case of Britten, appear to have been pedosexual or ephebosexual,,at least in aspiration).
Pleased to have assisted good King Heretic-TOC.
WilliTina556 would have been just ‘Tina Willis’ but the WordPress complex access somehow issued a longstringhandle. Or, probably I’m just not techno-savi, too thick !
Meanwhile, so sad but so true that so much industrialized mass produced ignorance in the past 3-decades via mainstream-Murdochized misinformation, has Dumbed Down so many otherwise bright Anglos. To irrationally perceive and mistreat all pedos like, ‘Jews In Nazi Germany’. When logically, like all sexual persuasions, 90% are aMusers not aBusers.
But, as der Fuhrer’s media-monster Geobbells sadly rightly said, of the many highly intelligent Deutsch-volks, “Told Loud And Often, They Will Believe Anything !”
As for Griffiths et al, simply explained at an ancien pop-psycho level. Hugely overcompensating, they doth protest just a little too much. What deep-urges do they hide beneath such overstated hatred ?
While, bizarrely now, the sex-filled ‘Family Friendly’ phoney-Anglo bent-media, sexualizes beyond anyone’s control, their own bright kids 6 thru 16.
Now an all-SeXting/camphone-DIY C.P. Generation SeX, including numerous Adultophiles.
They just don’t give-a-damn about crap so called ‘Sex Laws’, with a not-so-hidden subtext, ” My Mind, My Body, My Choice, My Partner/Pedo? – Mind Yer Own ! ”
Finally, for now, we nominate Adultophile-Of-The-Year 2012. Megan Stammers who from c. age 13 groomed her good pedo teacher, and this summer whisked him off for a romantic interlude in La Belle France. Posi-pedo unprosecuted thus far ?
Vive La Lurve !