Nowadays you practically have to kill somebody to get blacklisted in Hollywood. Mere rape, by contrast, scarcely jiggles the needle of outrage. Producer Harvey Weinstein actually went so far as to describe Mr. Polanski’s odious conduct as a “so-called crime.” The names of such noted filmmakers as Mr. Allen, Jonathan Demme, Michael Mann, Sam Mendes, Mike Nichols, Martin Scorsese and Steven Soderbergh can be found on an international petition whose 100-plus signers “demand the immediate release of Roman Polanski.” Equally predictable was the response of European bureaucrats such as French culture minister Frédéric Mitterrand, who called Mr. Polanski’s arrest “absolutely dreadful,” adding that it made “no sense” for him to be “thrown to the lions for an ancient story.”
We need not take the remonstrations of the French too seriously. They have a long history of forgiving their own artists for pretty much anything, up to and including open collaboration with the Nazis. Far more interesting was the response on this side of the Atlantic. At first, American reaction to the arrest appeared to be breaking along the usual red vs. blue fault lines, with much being made of the fact that Samantha Gailey, Mr. Polanski’s victim, has said that she’s forgiven him (though that didn’t stop her from suing him in civil court in 1988””or from accepting an undisclosed out-of-court settlement to drop the suit).
But the cultural tide started to turn on Monday when Kate Harding, a contributor to Salon.com, wrote a column called “Reminder: Roman Polanski Raped a Child” in which she pointed out, bluntly and accurately, that Mr. Polanski “gave a 13-year-old girl a Quaalude and champagne, then raped her. . . . There is evidence that the victim did not consent, regardless of her age.” Ms. Harding’s piece included a link to the transcript of Ms. Gailey’s 1977 grand-jury testimony, in which she described with gruesome explicitness the crime perpetrated on her person””a crime of which Mr. Polanski acknowledged his guilt in court.
Now if only he’d been a Catholic priest instead of a film director ….
“The ability to make art—good, bad or indifferent—relieves no artist of his fundamental duties as a human being, the first and foremost of which is to treat his fellow humans decently, and allow himself to be held accountable if he does not. By his own admission, Mr. Polanski flunked both parts of that test three decades ago. Since then, he’s been on an exceedingly cushy lam, living in a Paris penthouse and thumbing his nose at the rule of law. It’s time for him to come home to Hollywood—voluntarily or not—and pay the price for what he did.”
Try giving your local 13 year old a quaalude and doing what Roman admits doing and see how long your artistic pretensions protect you. This is a true justice issue in regards to the law.
There was a very powerful post on this story at Reformed Pastor with quotes from several well-known Hollywood directors, actors, etc.
For instance, Whoopi Goldberg’s quote:
[blockquote] I know it wasn’t rape-rape. It was something else but I don’t believe it was rape-rape… When we’re talking about what someone did, and what they were charged with, we have to say what it actually was, not what we think it was.[/blockquote]
–Actress Whoopi Goldberg, explaining why raping a child isn’t really rape, exactly
http://reformedpastor.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/quotes-of-the-day-8/
Don’t miss the comments, especially [url=http://reformedpastor.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/quotes-of-the-day-8/#comment-18631]this one.[/url]
The double standard and nonsense is just amazing. I’m glad the Salon piece helped break through some of the blindness on this story and wake people up to what really happened.
Also, Eugene Robinson has a very good piece on this as well, called “Roman Polanski and Hollywood’s Shame” (one place to find it is here), where he says in part:
(And of course, the U.S. government did not give its word about anything in this case – this is in the jurisdiction of the State of California case, but that’s Hollywood for ya’.)
I’ve seen it mentioned in few places, but Whoopi Goldberg–defender of Roman Polanski and child rape on The View is a “child advocate for Toys R Us. My only question is–what is she advocating??? And how many people –out of disgust–will avoid Toys R Us as long as Whoopi is part of their promotions–as I understand she was on the cover of one of their catalogues and featured on one of their web sites. CHILD ADVOCATE???? Gag-puke- wretch-vomit.
It seems the victim received $500,000: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8288340.stm It is also stated in that article that the suit was dropped only in January of this year, because the victim wanted relief from the attendant publicity.
It’s long past time for Hollywood’s cesspool social mores to be both paraded and denounced by the American public – whether they are practised by Jewish WWII refugees or anyone else. After you live outside the US for a while you come to see how all the efforts by basically decent Americans at being upstanding world citizens are constantly undermined by the images that Hollywood projects with so much more polish and lens-power.
It has been very sad to see directors whose work I admire, whose movies I have greatly enjoyed, signing the petition to let Polanski go free.
The fact that he was allowed to plea-bargain down from six counts including rape of a minor and rape by use of a drug, down to the lesser charge of “unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor” was in itself a travesty of justice. But he couldn’t even face the music for that.
I hope he rots in jail until he forgets what the sun looks like.
Of course, I also hope that he comes to realize the enormity of his crime and finds true repentance and transformation of spirit in God. But I hope that happens to him while he’s rotting in jail until he forgets what the sun looks like.
The issue is really very simple. It is the rule of law. Mr. Polanski drugged and raped a 13 year old girl. He has never answered for those crimes before the bar of justice. And in the same vein it is utterly irrelevant whether or not his victim has forgiven him.
This has nothing to do with revenge or private justice. If it did then presumably the girls father would have hunted Mr. Polanski down and made a few alterations to his anatomy that would simultaneously have given a great sense of vengeance and ensured that this creep would not be doing that again… to anyone.
But we have no interest in that. What must be satisfied is the law before which we are all (at least in theory) equal. Mr. Polanski is a child rapist and fugitive from justice. Every moment that he has been at large for the last 30 years or so he has been making a mockery of the the law.
It is time for this to end.
Ross – I am sinner, for I agree fervently with your last paragraph.
[Edited]
Those in the ‘entertainment industry’ clearly believe in the modern version of the Droit de Seigneur.
[Edited by Elf for repeating earlier deleted remarks]
Esteemed Elves: could you explain why my comment was deleted when APB makes virtually an identical one in a post on Polanski eight or so ahead of this?