# What celebrities have spoken out AGAINST Roman Polanski? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 1, 2009, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-celebrities-have-spoken-out-against-roman-polanski/512227 "2009-10-01T13:20:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2009, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-celebrities-have-spoken-out-against-roman-polanski/512227/81 "2009-10-06T13:11:02Z")
The number of people with that much power in Hollywood (and it’s not actually very much power) is very large. Those names are a tiny proportion of them. If you asked a random sample of Americans about whether they thought that Polanski should be extradicted, you would get about the same proportion who would be against it. The problem is that you feel it necessary to turn everything into a rant against Hollywood, even if it has nothing really to do with it. You’re the one who thinks that Hollywood is important. They’re nobodies, as far as I’m concerned, who amuse us with ridiculous antics while the important news goes on elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2009, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-celebrities-have-spoken-out-against-roman-polanski/512227/82 "2009-10-06T14:18:16Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > The number of people with that much power in Hollywood (and it’s not actually very much power) is very large. Those names are a tiny proportion of them. If you asked a random sample of Americans about whether they thought that Polanski should be extradicted, you would get about the same proportion who would be against it. The problem is that you feel it necessary to turn everything into a rant against Hollywood, even if it has nothing really to do with it. You’re the one who thinks that Hollywood is important. They’re nobodies, as far as I’m concerned, who amuse us with ridiculous antics while the important news goes on elsewhere. FWIW, Harvey Weinstein disagrees with you. He too has cast the issue in terms of a stance taken by “Hollywood.” He stated regarding the Pulanski matter, and with an apparently straight face, that “Hollywood has the best moral compass.” So for you to argue that “Hollywood” is not a useful shorthand for “American film and television intellegensia” seems overly strict, given that even those within the sphere are not so scrupulous as to observe the distinction you are drawing, at least as demonstrated by Mr. Weinstein. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2009, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-celebrities-have-spoken-out-against-roman-polanski/512227/83 "2009-10-06T14:43:23Z")
> [@tumbleddown](#): > > That’s irrelevant to the argument. **Wendell Wagner** said that suggesting that this has _anything_ to do with Hollywood is _deliberately obscuring_ what’s going on. I would like to know how a movement that’s being spearheaded _in the U.S._ by Harvey Weinstein and Martin Scorcese, with aid by Woody Allen and Hollywood darlings Ethan Coen, Darren Aronofsky and Sam Mendes (though the last is not American he’s worked exclusively through Hollywood studios) could **not** have _something_ to do with Hollywood. Didn’t realize Sam Mendes was on that list. I guess it was okay for Polanski to go full steam ahead after finding out the girl wasn’t a virgin. :rolleyes: I wonder how many of these people have either worked with Polanski or simply met him in person and found he wasn’t an alley-prowling monster (and therefore couldn’t have committed ‘real’ rape). ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2009, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-celebrities-have-spoken-out-against-roman-polanski/512227/84 "2009-10-06T21:50:58Z")
Harvey Weinstein is an obnoxious jerk. (Really. Read the book _Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film_ by Peter Biskind. It’s a history of independent film in the 1990’s. Weinstein was very much disliked in Hollywood when he has some power there in the 1990’s. Now that he no longer has that power, he’s despised and mostly ignored.) The fact that Weinstein says something proves nothing about what Hollywood thinks (even if it made any sense to talk about what Hollywood thinks). If Weinstein claims that his opinions represent what most of what Hollywood thinks, then he’s not just a jerk, he’s seriously delusional. Those people you list are not the intelligentsia of Hollywood. If you told most of the actors, writers, and directors in Hollywood that Weinstein was an intellectual, they would die laughing. The group of Hollywood people who are supporting Polanski are nothing but a small subset of all Hollywood. It’s no larger than the proportion of any random group of Americans who support Polanski. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2009, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-celebrities-have-spoken-out-against-roman-polanski/512227/85 "2009-10-06T22:29:19Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > With skepticism. Skeptical about what? That she had her first sexual experience at fourteen? Or that she didn’t find it traumatic? > [@](#): > > Ensler would never include a story about a girl who was terrified and disgusted when an adult gave her booze and molested her, unless the adult was a man. And we know this how? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-celebrities-have-spoken-out-against-roman-polanski/512227.md?page=4)