Tilda Swinton was just the person I was most surprised by and saddened to find on the pro-Polanski list. I don’t think I’m qualified to call her a feminist icon or anything, but she’s not the sort of person I’d expected to see on the list.
I seem to recall Nick Nolte pointedly remaining seated. My memory may be fuzzy, plus given his own actions he may not be wanted on any team.
Elia Kazan’s honorary Academy Award. Amy Madigan and Ed Harris remain defiantly seated and not applauding at 1:38. Well, aren’t they holier than thou.
I think Jim Carrey is on Harris’s right, applauding but seated.
Grim-faced Nick Nolte and Liam Neeson at 2:05.
Seated but applauding: Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw (1:37)
LIFE.com has a gallery of his supporters. They fall into two specific groups: directors and non-US actresses. The groups are oddly specific.
On last night’s Leno, Jay and Chris Rock were going on about how stupid Hollywood was acting for supporting a rapist. Rock said he has been touring for many years, and has never come across a hot 13 year old; suggesting Roman is a big ol’ sicko.
(He then made a funny joke about not blasting Kanye because rappers diss you in their songs as retaliation, and that there are too many words that rhyme with “Rock”!)
I doubt it. I think there are probably many in Hollywood who are not that opposed to the prosecution, but are silent because they don’t want people to think they are right wing.
Jesus. So condemning a child rapist is now considered “right wing?” What in the living fuck has happened to the LEFT wing in that case?
Could someone create a list of everyone in the entertainment industry that has specifically supported or opposed Polanski in the matter of his extradiction? It appears to me that in fact the list would show that (1) there is a small set of American entertainers who have opposed Polanski in this matter, (2) there is a slightly larger set of American entertainers who have supported Polanski in this matter, and (3) there is a much larger set of non-American entertainers who have nearly all supported Polanski. (And, of course, there is a vastly larger number of American entertainers who have made no comment.) So this is not a matter of what “Hollywood” thinks at all, it appears to me. If I’m correct, this is mostly a matter of non-American (and mostly French, I think) entertainers opposed to what they claim is Americans interfering with someone who has been allowed by the French government to stay in France.
Swallowed up by the Catholic Church.
I would actually think wanting to prosecute him would be a left wing cause, as letting him go would mean that anyone with enough money and prestige could effectively outmaneuver the system.
Almodovar supports him? Pedro ALMODOVAR?!?! Who was molested by a priest as a kid? HE wants Polanski off the hook? WTFF?!
No, no, you have your system messed up. If you’re a businessman with money and power then helping them avoid prosecution is right wing. If you’re an artist with money and power then helping them avoid prosecution is left wing. Unless of course they’re a member of that group who donated heavily to the other side in which case the thing reverses.
It isn’t the normal left wing. It’s the Hollywood left wing. The rules are completly different!
Ed Bernero, producer of Criminal Minds, has posted some pretty strong words about the whole deal.
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ebernero/2009/10/02/polanski-apologists-dont-speak-for-all-of-us-in-hollywood/
He was a cop for 10 years, so this is not really surprising.
Like the Michael Jackson situation, I wonder why the mother set the kid up.
Was she looking for extortion money? Was the girl already experienced? Was the mother an escort training her daughter?
Right. I was glad to hear Chris Rock say it.
I think he said(paraphrasing), “So, why do we forgive him? He made a few good movies?”
Joy Behar was on the Daily Show Thursday night, and the topic came up briefly (mostly in relation to Whoopi’s comments on The View). Jon Stewart said something like (paraphrasing here, based on memory) that when you look at the definition of rape, what Polanski did fits. So I think you can add Stewart to this list, although he’s not as vocal as others.
Bill Maher went after Polanski pretty frontally last night, and his entire panel (including Richard Dawkins and Janine Garafalo) agreed with him. Garafalo was also annoyed at characterizations that “Hollywood” is supporting Polanski because she says that plenty in Hollywood did not sign that petition and do not support Polanski.
“Right wing” has got nothing to do with. Since when is the left wing pro-child rape?
I suspect that most of them just don’t really know the facts of the case. They think it’s just about Polanski nailing an underaged girl.
Yeah, I had always thought he just had (consensual) sex with a minor. I never knew any of the real details, that she was drugged and it was forced, until this past week.
(Not that I had any interest in the case before. I would only hear vague references to it by comedians or celebrities or whatever.)