Roman Polanski was finally arrested for raping a 13 year old girl 31 years ago. He's getting support from very surprising sources, including Woody Allen.
I love The View's Sherri Shepherd's tweet today,
"Whew…long day at The View…two shows today…hot debate
over the Statutory Rapist Polanski. 45 year old man plies a 13yr old
w/drugs & Liquor and anally & orally penetrates her w/o her
consent is a RAPIST," she tweeted. "We hunt down 75 year old Nazis. We must protect our children."
I'm glad that I've seen the names on the petition. Now I know who the creeps are in Hollywood and can boycott their films.
Apt. 11d 
Hmm. Should I be surprised that Woody Allen is on that list?
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Yeah, I’m really creeped out by the number of folks arguing that “Polanski has suffered enough.”
And I guess I wasn’t paying attention before, but I’m REALLY not feeling the love for Angelica Huston anymore. ICK.
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“He’s getting support from very surprising sources, including Woody Allen.”
That was your sarcastic voice, right?
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It wasn’t statutory rape! It was rape rape. Real rape. Unconsensual sex between an 43-year-old man and, by her own description, a scared and trapped 13-year-old girl who told him to stop. Polanski drugged her. And he fled the jurisdiction after pleading guilty to a lesser charge. Read her chilling testimony before a grand jury two weeks later; it’s on The Smoking Gun.
His free ride has been all these charmed years when he has avoided his punishment by living in France. The clap-trap nonsense that has been offered in his defense proves only how little some people actually care about the sexual abuse of children
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People should read Geimer’s (the 13 year old, who is now grown up, and has survived and thrived) take on the whole thing.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/la-oe-samantha-geimer23-2003feb23,0,4716430.story
And, statutory rape is rape rape. A 13 year old couldn’t give consent, and if he said she had, and even if she said she had, it would still have been rape rape.
Geimer doesn’t get to decide, of course, what Polanski’s punishment should be, and we know there’s a long and troublesome history of victims in sex crimes being coerced or convinced into “forgiving” their attackers. But, she should be heard. And, I, personally find it relieving that she wasn’t broken by what Polanski did, in spite of the extensive publicity, that her life went forward, eventually happily, even.
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bj, I’m glad that Geimer has thrived, too, and I feel genuine sorrow that she’s being forced to relive the experience so extensively.
That having been said, the person who’s imposed this never-ending ordeal on her is Polanski, who willfully and willingly became a fugitive from justice. And in any case, I don’t believe that the state’s enforcement of rape laws is or should be connected to the victim of a rape’s response to the crime. The state punishes rape for reasons that greatly exceed any one victim’s trauma.
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Anyone have a good theory on why now? It’s not as if his whereabouts have been a mystery, and not, as far as I know, as if the facts or legal framework have changed particularly either.
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Because Europeans will cooperate with us now that Bush is gone? Because after losing on O.J. and Robert Blake, the LA district attorney realized he had to do something to make sure celebrities had a legal deterrent? Because all of the new ID tracking done for anti-terrorism makes it easier to find where somebody is? Because someone in the Swiss police found The Smoking Gun on the internet and realized how bad the crime was? Because Polanski is now too old to remember that his fake ID says Poman Rolanski?
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Because the Swiss want to curry favor with the US, in the wake of UBS’s admitted aiding and abetting of tax evasion on a grand scale.
UBS has agreed to hand over a certain number of names associated with accounts set up to evade taxes. Those names are only a small percentage of the number of presumed tax evaders. The US has played it close to the chest, in extending the deadline for self-incrimination for tax evaders.
It would be fascinating to discover how many US residents and citizens have chosen to turn themselves in. It would also be interesting to see if any trails lead to other Swiss banks.
The taxes evaded run into the millions, at least. A number of prominent financiers have already killed themselves, perhaps in connection with this. The NYT ran a story about Finn M. W. Caspersen, speculating that he was under investigation for evading taxes.
Banking is Switzerland’s industry. It is the main pillar of their economy.
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I can’t imagine that the U.S. really has been putting pressure on Europe for this one. Perhaps it was the affront of a lifetime achievement award for a convicted pedophile.
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I hear that it was the movie/documentary that concluded that the prosecutors/judge in the case had been self-aggrandizing publicity hounds. The movie basically asked, if you cared so much, how come you’re not doing anything? And, that stepped up efforts to capture Polanski.
BTW, I’m wary of arguments that say that other people’s actions result inevitably from someone elses’. Everyone is responsible for their own actions. True, without Polanski’s crime, none of this would be happening, but the media and prosecutors have their own actions to answer for. They are not driven, inevitably, by Polanski’s.
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I agree about boycotting the Hollywood players who’ve expressed support for Polanski. Here’s where I wish an organization like NOW would step up to the plate and organize such a thing instead of simply linking to a Slate column.
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If Polanski had stayed in the States and faced his sentence, there would be no fugitive, there would be no repeated media attention to the case … and if there had been no RAPE, she wouldn’t be in the media in the first place.
(This seems to be my 48-hour period to argue with you, bj, and I swear that’s just coincidence, but are you saying you hold the prosecutors more responsible for Polanski’s evasion of justice than Polanski? I’m confused.)
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As I understand bj, Jody, Polanski is clearly to be excoriated for being a rapist/pedophile, but the media and the prosecutors are not acting as they are out of concern for the victim but rather for their own benefit.
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http://wrongingrights.blogspot.com/2009/09/wtf-hollywood-or-play-in-one-act-for.html
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Loved that, Julie G. Gets right to the point.
I’m sure you saw this, but just in case…
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I was under the impression that the prosecutors were reacting to a documentary claiming Polanski was wronged, followed by Polanski’s own suit to dismiss his conviction. I’m not inclined to give the prosecutors much benefit of the doubt (they should have acted 30 years ago, and the fact that they didn’t shows how much power Hollywood studios have) but I don’t see how taking action in the face of Polanski’s actions, and the actions of his supporters, can be called “acting for their own benefit.”
I like Salon’s take on this whole question of benefit: we prosecute rape for the sake of justice, not for the sake of the victim.
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the media and the prosecutors are not acting as they are out of concern for the victim but rather for their own benefit.
The media is not relevant to what is justice for Polanski’s rape. The prosecutors are not the same people as the original prosecutors, which happens when you run away for 30 years. And Polanski plead guilty, so I don’t see how the prosecutors had anything to do with it unless you can show they denied him counsel or something.
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