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matthewdalyA few points on Roman Polanski.
- "There's the notion of art for art's sake, a certain leeway that's always allowed to the creative artist. In the 19th century it was elevated into an ideology. It's true we have a rather different vision of artistic licence [sic] – and, come to that, of licence in love." If this is an attitude in which the United States wishes to differ from France, then it is a facet in which I am proud to be an American, and I encourage my French bretheren to step back from their foolishness in the same spirit that I receive their alarm when we are blind. We have not arrived at this point in a particularly graceful manner, but I am glad that football MVPs and hit singers and actors and priests have started to pay the penalty for their crimes just as ordinary citizens do. We should be further along, but I would rather be here than where we were thirty or even five years ago.
- I don't want to hear the crap about how this is a case of repressed American sexual puritanism. A thirteen year-old girl was drugged and anally violated despite her emphatic and repeated demands that the perpetrator stop. This, Ms. Goldberg, is rape-rape*. It's a crime in Europe too. Indeed, in Roman Polanski's home nation, evidently the penalty for his crime is about to include chemical castration.
- The notion that the judge reneged on the plea deal is similarly absurd. Let's review the case (as informed by the wiki article). Polanski is initially charged with rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance (methaqualone) to a minor. He cuts a deal with the DA where all of those charges are dropped and he agrees to plead guilty to a single count of statutory rape. Then he is sentenced to report to prison for ninety days of (pay close attention to the next two words) psychiatric evaluation. He is released after serving about half of this time. Then there is a second judicial hearing for the final adjudication of the sentence. It was initially suspected that Polanski was going to get probation, but then he found out that the judge was likely to sentence him to return to jail, so he fled the country. This isn't a judge going back on his word, this is a judge who is granted the authority to actually read the evaluation that he ordered and make his final determination based on that. Polanski got the second-sweetest deal I've ever heard of for a child molester and it still wasn't enough for him.
- I also have no sympathy for the fact that he was arrested at a film festival where he was attending in public. Polanski had thirty years to settle this matter in a manner that was more dignified by returning to the United States and submitting himself to face the charges that he plead guilty to or attempt to retract his guilty plea and have a trial for the original slate of charges. He did not take this opportunity, so he gets an embarrassing arrest.
- I have sympathy for the woman that Polanski raped, and am grateful that she gave such clear and chilling testimony to the grand jury, but she is not entitled to exonerate him. This is larger than her. This is ensuring the dignity of the thirteen year-old girl who is today on the casting couch of the lecherous forty year-old director. This is about telling every powerful and talented person in America that you can't skip bail just because you can afford to. Ms. Geimer isn't alone in wanting closure for this incident, but that closure should come from Polanski receiving a sentence and serving it, not from our judicial system deciding that some people are beyond our law.
- I am simply horrified at the degree to which the Hollywood rank and file are on the wrong side of this issue. I honestly am having trouble processing the knowledge that Terry Gilliam and Harrison Ford and Guillermo del Toro are cool with drugging and raping a child, and I honestly don't know if this will impact the way that I perceive their work going forward. It will undoubtedly affect the way that I perceive Hollywood the next time they choose to lecture me on some issue that they feel deserves my attention, because it won't get it. On the other side, I am pleased for the celebrities that have dared the veil of silence to criticize Polanski. Neil Gaiman. Kevin Smith. Kirstie Alley. Undoubtedly more that I haven't seen. These range from people I admire to people that I revile and some people that I don't know, but today they are right.
*) ETA EXTRA BONUS SIXTH THOUGHT: Whoopi Goldberg has apparently attempted to clarify her comments, saying that she was referring only to the fact that the only charge against Polanski is unlawful sex with a minor. So now we get to add in the "innocent until proven guilty" canard that would suggest that Polanski couldn't have drugged and raped a thirteen year-old girl because if he had then the district attorney would have prosecuted him on those charges. It's one thing to get drunk and run over a kid, it's another thing to use your influence to haggle the charges down to running a red light, but it's a whole new thing when you evade responsibility for even that and thirty years later your apologists are saying "Hey, he ran a red light thirty years ago, get over it already!"
- "There's the notion of art for art's sake, a certain leeway that's always allowed to the creative artist. In the 19th century it was elevated into an ideology. It's true we have a rather different vision of artistic licence [sic] – and, come to that, of licence in love." If this is an attitude in which the United States wishes to differ from France, then it is a facet in which I am proud to be an American, and I encourage my French bretheren to step back from their foolishness in the same spirit that I receive their alarm when we are blind. We have not arrived at this point in a particularly graceful manner, but I am glad that football MVPs and hit singers and actors and priests have started to pay the penalty for their crimes just as ordinary citizens do. We should be further along, but I would rather be here than where we were thirty or even five years ago.
- I don't want to hear the crap about how this is a case of repressed American sexual puritanism. A thirteen year-old girl was drugged and anally violated despite her emphatic and repeated demands that the perpetrator stop. This, Ms. Goldberg, is rape-rape*. It's a crime in Europe too. Indeed, in Roman Polanski's home nation, evidently the penalty for his crime is about to include chemical castration.
- The notion that the judge reneged on the plea deal is similarly absurd. Let's review the case (as informed by the wiki article). Polanski is initially charged with rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance (methaqualone) to a minor. He cuts a deal with the DA where all of those charges are dropped and he agrees to plead guilty to a single count of statutory rape. Then he is sentenced to report to prison for ninety days of (pay close attention to the next two words) psychiatric evaluation. He is released after serving about half of this time. Then there is a second judicial hearing for the final adjudication of the sentence. It was initially suspected that Polanski was going to get probation, but then he found out that the judge was likely to sentence him to return to jail, so he fled the country. This isn't a judge going back on his word, this is a judge who is granted the authority to actually read the evaluation that he ordered and make his final determination based on that. Polanski got the second-sweetest deal I've ever heard of for a child molester and it still wasn't enough for him.
- I also have no sympathy for the fact that he was arrested at a film festival where he was attending in public. Polanski had thirty years to settle this matter in a manner that was more dignified by returning to the United States and submitting himself to face the charges that he plead guilty to or attempt to retract his guilty plea and have a trial for the original slate of charges. He did not take this opportunity, so he gets an embarrassing arrest.
- I have sympathy for the woman that Polanski raped, and am grateful that she gave such clear and chilling testimony to the grand jury, but she is not entitled to exonerate him. This is larger than her. This is ensuring the dignity of the thirteen year-old girl who is today on the casting couch of the lecherous forty year-old director. This is about telling every powerful and talented person in America that you can't skip bail just because you can afford to. Ms. Geimer isn't alone in wanting closure for this incident, but that closure should come from Polanski receiving a sentence and serving it, not from our judicial system deciding that some people are beyond our law.
- I am simply horrified at the degree to which the Hollywood rank and file are on the wrong side of this issue. I honestly am having trouble processing the knowledge that Terry Gilliam and Harrison Ford and Guillermo del Toro are cool with drugging and raping a child, and I honestly don't know if this will impact the way that I perceive their work going forward. It will undoubtedly affect the way that I perceive Hollywood the next time they choose to lecture me on some issue that they feel deserves my attention, because it won't get it. On the other side, I am pleased for the celebrities that have dared the veil of silence to criticize Polanski. Neil Gaiman. Kevin Smith. Kirstie Alley. Undoubtedly more that I haven't seen. These range from people I admire to people that I revile and some people that I don't know, but today they are right.
*) ETA EXTRA BONUS SIXTH THOUGHT: Whoopi Goldberg has apparently attempted to clarify her comments, saying that she was referring only to the fact that the only charge against Polanski is unlawful sex with a minor. So now we get to add in the "innocent until proven guilty" canard that would suggest that Polanski couldn't have drugged and raped a thirteen year-old girl because if he had then the district attorney would have prosecuted him on those charges. It's one thing to get drunk and run over a kid, it's another thing to use your influence to haggle the charges down to running a red light, but it's a whole new thing when you evade responsibility for even that and thirty years later your apologists are saying "Hey, he ran a red light thirty years ago, get over it already!"
