By now, I'm sure you're all aware that director Roman Polanski has been nabbed by authorities in Switzerland for his rape of then-13 year old Samantha Gailey in Los Angeles thirty-some years ago. After days of reading about the issue and arguing futilely about it on (where else?) Film General, here's my two cents.
A lot of people, from Hollywood directors to French politicians to geeky FGers, are rallying to Polanski's defense and making him into something of a perverse cause celebre. There are legitimate reasons, perhaps, to drop or reduce the charges on Polanski:
- Although I'm more inclined to believe the victim's side of the story in this instance, to be absolutely fair to Polanski, there's enough ambiguity in the situation that there could possibly be room for doubt as to what exactly went on.
- The crime happened thirty-two years ago. (I will say, though, that there is no statute of limitations since he was convicted and then fled.)
- Polanski himself is 76, hasn't (apparently) engaged in such activities since then, and at his age is arguably no danger to anyone.
- The victim herself has expressed willingness to forgive Polanski, on more than one occasion. This has little legal strength but it's certainly a powerful emotional appeal, and might in and of itself make the justice system's actions cold-blooded and hard to defend.
- The judge who was prosecuting him was an ambitious prick who planned to railroad Polanski for little good reason, and so he had at least some justification for fleeing.
These are arguments that, even if I take issue with them up to a point, I could accept and at least be on the same wavelength as. But too many people, from the misogynist amoral teenage apes of IMDB to the bone-headed gliteratti of Hollywood and beyond, to even French and Polish politicians (!), more specious, idiotic reasons are being advanced, that range from the illogical to the idiotic to the insane.
- What Polanski did was not a crime, or else should not be.
- There are people with far worse crimes out there, why should the US focus on Polanski?
- The girl in question was old enough to say no, she consented to it, etc. Some have even gone so far as to argue that because she may have had sexual relations prior to that, she somehow deserves it.
- Polanski has somehow atoned for the crime through his admittedly traumatic life.
- The American criminal justice is corrupt, mean-spriited and barbaric.
- Polanski has made a lot of great films since the crime - doesn't that exonerrate him?
Allow me to address each of these points in fairly abbreviated fashion:
- That's not for you to say, is it, bonehead? Too bad we don't have your wisdom to enlighten all of us, eh wot?
- Bullshit moral equivalence. What Henry Kissinger did in Chile or Cambodia or Angola may well be a crime, but it has no bearing on this case in particular, so drop your smug act of superiority. Unless you want to argue that only murderers and capital criminals should be prosecuted.
- Although Ms. Gailey (now Geiner) has expressed willingness to forgive Polanski, she has not changed her story but for a few details. Her testimony seems to indicate the equivalent of a date rape, where she was drugged and clearly resisted his advances. Not to mention, I would seriously argue that a 13 year old girl - let alone one who was drunk, on drugs, and being advanced upon by a much-older, very-famous film director - isn't old enough and sound enough to consent to sex anyway (If you believe otherwise, you're either overgeneralizing or just being a pig.) As for the latter point, I hope I don't need to detail how misogynistic and disgusting it is - but to the amoral monkeys who don't see pedophilia as a bad thing, well, there's no hope in persuading them anyway.
- Polanski certainly had one hell of an awful life, losing relatives in the Holocaust and the murder of Sharon Tate by the Mansons. Should that alone clear his record? No. Pretty much every criminal has some background circumstances that might drive them to crime, from a broken home to a traumatic incident to mental illness. Should they all be pardoned too? In any case, Polanski hasn't expressed any regret over the incident, so why should we factor this in?
- Maybe so, but I don't see it as being remotely relevant to this particular case. He committed a crime, was convicted of it, and fled justice. Most repulsive, to my way of thinking, is the implication that Polanski is somehow a martyr to justice for sodomizing a thirteen year old girl. Come on, you idiots, let's not make him into Martin Luther King Jr. (although it wouldn't surprise me after the way Hollywood rolled out the red carpet for Tookie Williams and Mumia Abu Jamal).
- This last one is, without a doubt, the most idiotic. If it were confined to IMDbers, that would be expected and no big deal, but members of the French and Polish governments are saying as much in protest of his arrest. Give me a fucking break, people! Art undoubtedly has its value in society, but that does not exonerrate an individual from responsibility for their own actions. To quote George Orwell, "If Shakespeare returned to the earth to-morrow, and if it were found that his favourite recreation was raping little girls in railway carriages, we should not tell him to go ahead with it on the ground that he might write another King Lear."
Not much more to say, except that those who advance such arguments reveal a great deal of unpleasantness about themselves.
Let's face facts here. Whatever the reasons advanced, most are defending him because he's a film director, plain and simple. If Polanski were Joe Schmoe, a politician, or (God forbid!) a priest, these people would either not care or be all over him like Mr. Freeze on an ice pun. But because Polanski is an artist and a celebrity, he's somehow above the law, and we must unquestioningly forgive him his trespasses.
Well, screw that. If you really think that a film career exonerrates a man of a heinous crime, you've forfeited my sympathy and respect, and outed yourself as an amoral ape.
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