Why US moviegoers dress up as Jimmy Savile to watch 28 Years Later: Temple of Bones | After 28 days

WWhen Britons think of Jimmy Savile, he is not someone to be admired for his style. But at screenings of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, the latest film in the 28 Days Later series released this month, that seems to be what some US moviegoers are thinking.

In the film, a murderous cult known as the Jimmys stalk the ruins of post-apocalyptic Britain. Led by Sir Jimmy Crystal, played by Jack O’Connell, the cult is instantly recognizable due to their cheap tracksuits, bleached blonde wigs and peculiar mannerisms.

For viewers in the UK, Crystal is unmistakably reminiscent of entertainer Jimmy Savile, whose decades-long history of sexual abuse was only revealed after his death. For more than 50 years, Savile used his fame and access to positions of trust to abuse hundreds of people, most of them children. His crimes took place behind the scenes on television shows such as Top of the Pops but also in hospitals, children’s homes and institutions where he had influence and freedom.

The film’s producers, Danny Boyle, and O’Connell were clear that Sir Jimmy Crystal was designed to be a character inspired by Savile. Boyle told Business Insider that the character is based on Savile’s entire pop cultural imprint, “all sorts of twists in this partial recollection” that Crystal’s followers recreate as an image.

O’Connell told The Hollywood Reporter that his character “models himself on the memory of this character who was always on TV,” calling it a warning about the dangers of weaponized nostalgia and unchecked power. “It’s absolutely there in the story to destabilize,” he said.

In the film’s timeline (if the first film is set in the present), Britain collapses in 2002 – before Savile’s crimes became widely known among the public. It is not clear when the characters in the Bone Temple encounter him, since the height of his fame predates their fictional lives. But the gang worships Savile not because he is evil, but because the world has never known the truth, and in this story, never will. The irony, of course, is that the public does, which is why the images are meant to destabilize, not inspire luxury clothing.

However, in the US and Canada, the reference seems to be missing from some fans of the franchise. Clips, photos and even fan accounts dedicated to the Jimmies are circulating on social media, showing viewers attending shows dressed as the “Jimmy Gang”, sporting tracksuits, gold chains, cigars and signature white hair, seemingly unaware of the real-life Savile scandal that inspired them.

Some of the videos go even further, imagining specific dance moves performed by each Jimmy, showing off their costumes, or enthusiastically worshiping Sir Jimmy Crystal as a character in her own right.

O’Connell himself has – perhaps jokingly – been broadly supportive of people enjoying the costume, telling Entertainment Weekly: “It feels great to be in this costume. Don’t limit it to just Halloween. Whenever you want, you know?!”

Robert Rhodes, who played Jimmy Jimmy in the film, admitted to Metro that he only realized the resemblance in his clothes, and thought: “Am I dressing as Jimmy Savile?”

Britons were quick to criticize the outfit, although many American fans say Savile was never a household name in their country and that his notoriety simply did not reach across the Atlantic.

This is not the first time Americans have misunderstood Savile. Netflix’s Tiger King star Carole Baskin has been the victim of a bad taste prank by Australian comedian Tom Armstrong, who paid for one of her $199 personal video messages asking her to record a birthday greeting for Savile and convicted pedophile Rolf Harris. Baskin later insisted that she had no idea who either man was when she made the video.

Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian described 28 Years Later: Temple of Bones as a film “where there is real human danger and conflict. The non-zombie ones are more cinematic.” However, perhaps the most disturbing horror is that figures like Savile, within a single generation, could be reduced to a wig, a look, a meme, stripped of the context that once made them truly monstrous.

Given Savile’s relative obscurity outside the UK, it was perhaps inevitable that some viewers would latch onto the look without understanding its origins. However, the British public may hope that the value of the currency will fall sooner rather than later.