I have a hard time understanding why Hollywood types (and to a lesser extent athletes) get a pass on personal behavior. Roman Polanski is in the news again, as the United States made a halfhearted attempt to arrest him.
At the very least, Polanski is guilt of statutory rape because he had sex with a 13 year old girl. He plead guilty to this.
At the most, he is guilty of forcible “rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under fourteen, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor”
I’m thinking that if I drugged my 13 year old neighbor, forcibly orally, vaginally and annually raped her (she said she was saying ‘no’) I’d probably do some jail time. Maybe I’m wrong, I mean, my neighbors do think I’m a swell guy and I make a mean excel spreadsheet, so I’m good at my job.
I hear two arguments why he’s not a bad guy:
He’s done some great stuff, and made some great films, so he should get a pass. (A loved one who thinks that Michael Jackson is a pedophile doesn’t think Jackson should have been arrested because he made some great music.)
It’s been a long time ago. No big deal now.
But I seem to be the outlier on this, and I’m surprised. Stephen Collins had a girl touch he penis and he’s taking hits thought, so there is some standard I guess. Do you think being a star (for lack of a better term) should give you a pass? If not, why is Roman getting one?
(Mods, I think this is a bigger debate than a Café Society discussion, but your call of course if you think it should be moved.)
I think most people agree that Polanski is scummy. But one can also believe he does great work and is still scum (doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be in jail for his crimes).
I have no idea why Hollywood types defend him though? Maybe he’s a nice person to those folks (one can be a charmer and still a criminal, of course).
People rationalize things away when it’s someone they like. That doesn’t mean it’s morally correct for people to rationalize a crime away, but they do.
There’s no justification for it. Yes, Polanski is a rapist. He should be sentenced to jail time. That doesn’t mean people won’t make excuses for it.
He drugged and took sexual advantage of a 13yo girl, using all the power at his command as a very hot H’wood director. It doesn’t really matter that it was a long time ago. It doesn’t even matter that the girl has come forward and said it was no big deal (IIRC). The simple matter is that he should have faced up to his actions long ago, and five years or so in a garden prison would have done him and his career no harm. His avoidance of due consequences makes him even bigger scum than the acts that started the whole chain. No one is claiming he was falsely accused or prosecuted or framed - he did it. He was convicted of it. He chose to run like the fat little rabbit with the uncontrollable dick and massive ego he is.
I’d say the time he’s spent avoiding the US and taking continuing heat for his scummy actions has been far more punishment; he’s been barred from any number of truly career-making projects in those decades, but unlike Welles, he did it to himself. And so be it.
It’s gone on for 37 years, or probably 30+ years longer than any prison sentence. It’s limited his options and kept him from career-peak fulfillment. It’s cost him millions, if not hundreds of millions. So you’d choose a cushy five-eight years of enforced idleness (during which he would write and write and write, and set up forthcoming projects with all the impunity of a drug lord doing an easy stretch), then complete freedom to pursue his career over that?
To an extent: Yes, and all due sympathy to him, although he wasn’t there.
Eight years later: Get over it. (At least as far as an excuse to be a predator.)
For the kind of thing Polanski did, he deserved a lot more (and probably would have gotten) a lot more than five years in a garden prison.
This wasn’t a happy, ‘consensual’ relationship with a girl a month short of her 18th birthday (which would still have got him jail time, in California, but probably would be considered a bit more leniently). It was a violent, forcible rape of a 13 year old.
I imagine that there would be increased sentencing related to his fleeing the country.
He’s lived for several decades with the freedom to do whatever he wants. That is freedom he should not have. I’m sure he’s not hurting for money and has been able to live a life of comfort that the vast majority of folks are not able to. The fact that he hasn’t been able to accomplish his life dreams whatever they may be is not punishment. Punishment should be punishing.
If folks want to patronize his work after he’s been punished then so be it. I wouldn’t watch his movies regardless.
*as an aside - the prison sentence for raping a 13 year old as an adult should be more severe than 5-8 years, if that’s what it is.
He was defended a couple years ago by several prominent directors including Martin Scorsese. The argument, which I find unpersuasive, is that his contribution to the culture mitigates his acts. Jack Nicholson, whose house (and pool) the rape occurred in, said in an interview that the country Polanski was from (France? Poland? Unclear which he was referring to), sex with a 13-year-old wasn’t considered that big a deal. IIRC, Nicholson stopped a little short of saying this was a real defense of his actions.
He has other defenders whose argument is that the court in…1978?..ignored a deal the DA’s office had cut with him and pursued him in bad faith. This was put forward in a documentary called Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired. I’d consider this if he hadn’t molested at least one other underaged girl (that I know of) while in exile.
The rules are different for important artists, but not this rule. What possible great film could mitigate this? And what’s the best movie he ever made anyway? Great films are rated with four or five stars, not with the number of destroyed childhoods they’re worth.
While the idea of Polanski orally, anally and [del]vaginally[/del] servicing a crowd in San Quentin for 20 years has its pleasing aspects, I don’t think anyone can argue he would have served more than 5-7 years. He would have gone to an executive country-club prison, been a model inmate, and met every criterion for early parole.
I’m not saying the resulting limitations on his life for 35 years are necessarily “better” in any way than whatever prison term he might have served. I’m pointing out that they are, and have been, real handicaps on a person who would otherwise be dependent on global travel, acceptance, adulation and freedom to travel to the US and extraditing countries. Maybe his life looks like “throw me in that briar patch” to you, who thinks an annual trip to Disneyland is a treat… but I am sure it has bent his life course into irreparable shortfall. He’s old now, and unlikely to ever submit to the US’s hands and prison. We take what karma dishes out, and I’m not too unpleased.
That he’s at best a third-tier director with little US following helps. A footnote in film history at most.
I am mildly irritated that he was the one to make the film version of “Venus in Fur,” because I won’t watch it and I’m intrigued with how an excellent play (which we say in regional premiere) translated to the screen. Oh, well. I am irritated, not crushed, and I can travel anywhere I want.
For one thing, some of us believe once a child is mentally capable of realizing what constitutes sexual activity statutory rape laws are ridiculous. The alleged victim in the Polanski case was an aspiring actress with an ambitious stage mother and therefore had plenty of reason to want to barter sexual favors to Polanski or try to blackmail him. The kind of forensic evidence gathered in a standard rape kit now wasn’t collected in 1970s. I been reading stuff on the case for years and haven’t been able to find a report of a medical doctor finding the kind of body trauma that would be expected of forcible anal rape on this girl. Other than in the plea bargain (and we all know people will plea to charges that aren’t completely accurate simply to get a better deal) Polanski has always maintained the sex was consensual. Last, but not least, cultural attitudes in the 1970s were different from now. There really wasn’t as much hysteria that wasn’t religiously based about teenagers having sex even if it was with adults.
And was alcohol and 'ludes assisted, IIRC, which both makes it more loathesome and explains why she may not have had any physical trauma - chemical relaxation will go a long ways there.
So you think he got a bum rap, and that he did not exercise the influence of a well-known movie director over a girl (yes, a girl) who at the age of 13 may not have good judgment, and that he did not give her drugs so she would be more compliant (thus making it look more like consensual sex to a medical exam). Have I got that right? Oh, and you also think that sex between adults and teenagers should generally be OK, perhaps unless the teenager is too innocent to know what sex is. Which is pretty much no-one.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you don’t have a daughter. At least I hope you don’t.