Let's cut right to the issue...
Sep. 29th, 2009 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceebeegeeThis column rocks harder than...than Rush (the band, not the Bloviator).
Reminder: Roman Polanski Raped a Child
Some choice excerpts (warning, some uncomfortable language and imagery):
Roman Polanski raped a child. Let's just start right there, because that's the detail that tends to get neglected when we start discussing whether it was fair for the bail-jumping director to be arrested at age 76, after 32 years in "exile" (which in this case means owning multiple homes in Europe, continuing to work as a director, marrying and fathering two children, even winning an Oscar, but never -- poor baby -- being able to return to the U.S.)....
let's take a moment to recall that according to the victim's grand jury testimony, Roman Polanski instructed her to get into a jacuzzi naked, refused to take her home when she begged to go, began kissing her even though she said no and asked him to stop; performed cunnilingus on her as she said no and asked him to stop; put his penis in her vagina as she said no and asked him to stop; asked if he could penetrate her anally, to which she replied, "No," then went ahead and did it anyway, until he had an orgasm...
Polanski was "demonized by the press" because he raped a child, and was convicted because he pled guilty. He "feared heavy sentencing" because drugging and raping a child is generally frowned upon by the legal system. Shore [blogger at the Huffington Post] really wants us to pity him because of these things? (And, I am not making this up, boycott the entire country of Switzerland for arresting him.)...
The point is not to keep 76-year-old Polanski off the streets or help his victim feel safe. The point is that drugging and raping a child, then leaving the country before you can be sentenced for it, is behavior our society should not -- and at least in theory, does not -- tolerate, no matter how famous, wealthy or well-connected you are, no matter how old you were when you finally got caught, no matter what your victim says about it now, no matter how mature she looked at 13, no matter how pushy her mother was, and no matter how many really swell movies you've made...
(BTW, this article gets one thing wrong--the age on consent in California was not 16 in 1977, it was 18, as it is today.)
I'm actually (pleasantly) surprised that most press and commentary in the US is critical of Polanski, the articles addressed above notwithstanding. Frankly, I've grown used to the pattern of "rape and child molestation is terrible--unless it's someone we admire like Kobe Bryant or R. Kelly or James Barbour. THEN it's okay, THEN she's an entrapping, opportunistic whore." It does seem as though the public tide in the States does not support that (then again, Polanski is an Other--he is hardly an American idol, since he's European). Of course there are still the Polanski fanboys who will dance the dance of mitigation--anything to throw sand in the eyes of what he really did. She was almost 14, her mother threw the girl at him, she REALLY wanted it, everyone was doing that in Hollywood anyway, the US justice system is corrupt and meaningless anyway...NONSENSE. All fucking nonsense. Read the testimony. He gave her champagne and quaaludes, she said no repeatedly, he violated her in several different ways. He committed MANY felonies, it wasn't this hazy, dreamy consensual sex with someone who lied about her age. FUCKING BULLSHIT.
Warning--if you read the comments after the column, most are supportive of the article but there are some genuinely creepy--really dark side of the moon disturbing--commenters out there, saying some truly misogynistic things.
Reminder: Roman Polanski Raped a Child
Some choice excerpts (warning, some uncomfortable language and imagery):
Roman Polanski raped a child. Let's just start right there, because that's the detail that tends to get neglected when we start discussing whether it was fair for the bail-jumping director to be arrested at age 76, after 32 years in "exile" (which in this case means owning multiple homes in Europe, continuing to work as a director, marrying and fathering two children, even winning an Oscar, but never -- poor baby -- being able to return to the U.S.)....
let's take a moment to recall that according to the victim's grand jury testimony, Roman Polanski instructed her to get into a jacuzzi naked, refused to take her home when she begged to go, began kissing her even though she said no and asked him to stop; performed cunnilingus on her as she said no and asked him to stop; put his penis in her vagina as she said no and asked him to stop; asked if he could penetrate her anally, to which she replied, "No," then went ahead and did it anyway, until he had an orgasm...
Polanski was "demonized by the press" because he raped a child, and was convicted because he pled guilty. He "feared heavy sentencing" because drugging and raping a child is generally frowned upon by the legal system. Shore [blogger at the Huffington Post] really wants us to pity him because of these things? (And, I am not making this up, boycott the entire country of Switzerland for arresting him.)...
The point is not to keep 76-year-old Polanski off the streets or help his victim feel safe. The point is that drugging and raping a child, then leaving the country before you can be sentenced for it, is behavior our society should not -- and at least in theory, does not -- tolerate, no matter how famous, wealthy or well-connected you are, no matter how old you were when you finally got caught, no matter what your victim says about it now, no matter how mature she looked at 13, no matter how pushy her mother was, and no matter how many really swell movies you've made...
(BTW, this article gets one thing wrong--the age on consent in California was not 16 in 1977, it was 18, as it is today.)
I'm actually (pleasantly) surprised that most press and commentary in the US is critical of Polanski, the articles addressed above notwithstanding. Frankly, I've grown used to the pattern of "rape and child molestation is terrible--unless it's someone we admire like Kobe Bryant or R. Kelly or James Barbour. THEN it's okay, THEN she's an entrapping, opportunistic whore." It does seem as though the public tide in the States does not support that (then again, Polanski is an Other--he is hardly an American idol, since he's European). Of course there are still the Polanski fanboys who will dance the dance of mitigation--anything to throw sand in the eyes of what he really did. She was almost 14, her mother threw the girl at him, she REALLY wanted it, everyone was doing that in Hollywood anyway, the US justice system is corrupt and meaningless anyway...NONSENSE. All fucking nonsense. Read the testimony. He gave her champagne and quaaludes, she said no repeatedly, he violated her in several different ways. He committed MANY felonies, it wasn't this hazy, dreamy consensual sex with someone who lied about her age. FUCKING BULLSHIT.
Warning--if you read the comments after the column, most are supportive of the article but there are some genuinely creepy--really dark side of the moon disturbing--commenters out there, saying some truly misogynistic things.
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no subject
Date: 2009-09-29 11:04 pm (UTC)I also read the blog entry on the Huffington Post that was linked in the story you linked to. Would you believe it was written by the Co-founder of a group called "Women Overseas for Equality." I despise men who hit women, so I really want to see my fiancee kick her ass.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-29 11:26 pm (UTC)I have to say, as much as I criticize what I see as negative right-wing patterns of thinking, I can't ignore ignore a certain left-wing tendency to...shall we say, defend the wrong people. Polanski is a director, of course, and the movie industry tends to be liberal (though not feminist and certainly not pro-gay), hence that fawning tonguebath he got when he won his Oscar. (Man, I lost respect for Harrison Ford that night. He has a daughter, you'd think he'd know better.) But regardless of industry connections, I can't fathom the thinking on this. He is not the underdog--he's not fighting the good fight against The Man. And he certainly hasn't been suffering in exile. I don't understand how once you read those documents, you can defend him.
How any woman who is "for Equality" can take to Polanski, regardless of his perceived charm, is beyond me. He was a crap husband to Sharon Tate. Yes, I said it. He cheated on her constantly, and belittled her quite a bit. And in addition to the '77 rape, the man went on in '78/'79 to screw poor Nastassja Kinski who was FIFTEEN at the time. You'd think he'd've learned his lesson but no.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-30 02:49 pm (UTC)While I consider myself pretty liberal in most regards, a lot of stuff that liberals say or post really irks me, and the tendency to defend the wrong people, as you put it, is one of them (another is the tendency to embrace all manner of new age-y, unscientific, "alternative" medicine and other such bullshit, but that's a different topic). I lurk at a board that has a lot of energetic debates between people on the right and the left, and while I have a lot more contempt for the stuff coming from the right (much of which seems to have spiraled down into Obama-centric conspiracy theories), I see a lot of the same logical fallacies, bad arguments, hypocrisy, and just plain crap coming from the left as well. Actually though, I think the tendency to excuse and defend the bad behavior of people we admire isn't a left/right thing so much as a human thing, it's just that Hollywood celebrities tend to gravitate toward the left, and vice-versa.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-30 04:34 pm (UTC)If I may sum up:
Why now?
Because that's when they got him. Your argument is that, because law enforcement was lazy or incompetent in the past means that they must continue to be so forever?
Aren't there more important crimes?
Sure there are, but strangely, we don't prosecute crimes in strict order of severity. "Sorry, ma'am. We're not allowed to prosecute rapes until every single murder ever committed is solved."
Who benefits?
(This one was particularly galling, as it appeared in a New York Times Opinion piece from someone who'd worked with Polanski.) Who benefits!? The entire American system of criminal justice! It benefits by proving that the wealthy and powerful are not above the law. It prevents future wealthy defendants from fleeing, and prevents total social upheaval from not-so-wealthy people who think the law no longer serves them.
This is just a media-driven witch hunt.
You know, the left sounds just as pathetic as the right does when it invokes the media as bogeyman. Guess what, folks: "Fugitive Oscar-winning director flees rape sentencing and is arrested decades later" is a pretty big frickin' story! It's like, "Man Bites Entire Pound Full of Dogs."
Hasn't he already been punished enough?
By getting to live in luxury in Europe for decades directing art films? Oh, the torture! If that's punishment, then I'll confess to everything from the assassination of President Lincoln to the sinking of the Andrea Doria just to be punished.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-30 08:38 pm (UTC)All one has to do is think of THEIR daughter, real or imagined, to know this scumbag needs to finally ROT!!!!! I didn't like The Pianist much anyways. The fucker.