Roman Polanski's Friends Should Probably Shut Up

Tom Woolf

You know - I might (MIGHT) have some thoughts of letting this drop, given the time involved and the victim's request to let it drop, but there are bigger issues here.

Justice requires punishment be dealt out. Granted, RP has felt some "punishment" in that he has not been able to travel to some parts of the world he otherwise would be able to go to... but what about those who did what he did who could NOT fly away to his villa in France? Plus, punishment in a case like this is also intended as a deterrent to others who might liquor up and drug 13 year old girls. And RP allegedly did not learn his lesson, starting an affair with Natasia Kinski when she was just 15.

Sorry, RP. Regardless of how the prosecution was handled, you admitted guilt to something you actually did (as opposed to being trapped to admitting to something you did NOT do). Now it is time to suffer the consequences.

Ex Parte

The vague complaints about injustice at his trial has to remain vague to have any compelling power and to justify his flight.

Here’s what happened: Polanski and the DA reached a plea agreement and the judge scheduled a sentencing hearing. Before the hearing, a DA unrelated to the case sat down with the judge, probably to urge a harsh sentence. That guy represented the government, so it was an ex parte hearing that defense did not approve. Not good.

The remedy would have been the appointment of a new judge to handle sentencing. Small beer and no reason for an acquittal

THX1138

Anyone who survived the Holocaust and the murder of their loved ones deserves a break.

Miller Nicols

Polanski is an arrogant little tool - deserving of spending some quality time in Chino without the psych eval. I'm sure we could make his time more palatable with some champagne and 'ludes. And yes, his outspoken friends are fools, blathering as if they actually know something more than the rest of us. Maybe they do know more - they know an admitted pedophile as a friend and most of us don't have friends like that.

daddyquatro

THX1138 "Anyone who survived the Holocaust and the murder of their loved ones deserves a break."
That is probably the most asinine thing I have ever read. There are literally millions of people who survived the Holocaust and the murder of loved ones and yet somehow managed to live the rest of their lives without RAPING 13 YEAR OLD GIRLS!

Miller Nicols

thank you daddy for your open-handed slap down on thx1138. To the Moderator: edit much?

THX1138

Daddyquatro

I should have been clearer, I’m not defending his actions they were of course abhorrent.

However I do think that as a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, the camps and the Holocaust and as someone whose pregnant wife and friends were butchered by that freak Manson, he somehow deserve something that isn’t due the rest of us- A break, especially as the victim agrees . I don't believe that set of circumstances applies to "literally millions of people" but so what they deserves a break too.

And yes he is great filmaker Rosemary’s Baby, Tess & The Pianist are exceptional films and the have certainly added more pleasure to the world than the bitter ranting of Miller Nicols.

Fergal

Interesting quote from the Amis interview. It's something that is often heard from padophiles, that they are only doing what everyone wants to do. Theyt often are so oblivious to their own transgression that they think it's only the law, or fear of getting caught that stops everyone else from raping kids. That reference to the jury, which would presumably sentence him harshly in order to compensate for its own innate padophilia, is a classic of the form.

a former 13 year old girl

Thank you for writing this essay.

I have been appalled at the Hollywood/ sycophantic apologists whose main source of facts seems to come from the distorted documentary about Polanski, colored by an admiration of his work and/or an acquaintanceship with him. They are doing their friend no favors, making excuses for him....their sort of attitude is what enabled this to happen in the first place. It's sick.

No wonder this girl, now a woman, wants this to go away....Polanski supporters have been so harsh about her and dismissive of what he did to her...it's known as The Second Rape....and it's often worse than the actual act(s). These people disgust me for their cluelessness and lack of compassion and justice....and many are people whose work I have admired and whose work I will, in some cases, no longer enjoy.

Many of these people consider themselves progressive, but their fudging the facts and their resorting to outdated attitudes about rape and sex crimes and the victims of sex crimes is anything but progressive. I would like to see if they would offer up their 13 year old sons and daughters or grandchildren to a pedophile to be drugged and violated the way this child was.

The victim was unfortunate enough to have a mother who was either naive, complicit, starstruck, manipulative, ....whatever .....and who allowed her daughter to spend time w/ an adult who was unreliable at a minimum and a rapist. Regardless, it is not the kid's fault that she was surrounded by adults who were jerks. It appears that the jerk environment still exists within the entertainment industry.

How many 43 year olds (or just grown ups) do you know who would do this to a child? How many adults do you know who think it is ok for someone to do this to a child?

The excuses of his murdered wife and the Holocaust past are pathetic. If anything, he should have had a greater value for how people are treated and how sacred life is.

The man is powerful and knows powerful people (clearly)....he can afford the best legal counsel. Why he has not tried to serve his time or come to a legal settlement before now is beyond me.....my guess is that he will not have to serve any time. That's how it goes w/ the rich, famous and powerful.

Taylor

I think Massie has said everything that needs to be said on this matter.

RIRedinPA

Agree with everything you wrote except the part of potentially being able to be friends with someone who raped a 13 year old girl. I couldn't.

nbr65

Ex parte, Thanks for enlightening us on that. I read the entire transcript of the hearing where the judge accepted the plea and I was mystified as to why Polanski thought he had a deal with the judge. He was explicitly asked to affirm that no commitment had been made to him about sentencing in return for his plea of guilty, and he had not even yet been evaluated for sentencing. I know things can be different in California, but it would have been in the twilight zone of American procedure and practice if things had been as RP suggested.

THX1138

Daddyquatro

It would appear that you haven't been looking very far for your "asinine" comments.

Frederic Mitterrand the Minister of Culture in the right wing French Government was “dumbfounded” by Polanski’s arrest, and said he, “strongly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already experienced so many of them.”

I.e Give the guy a break.

Stephen Fox

If you sympathise with Polanski, try imagining that the admitted rapist and paedophile is an American businessman on a drug and booze fuelled junket after wrapping up some lucrative deal in Europe for his multinational.
Still keen to protect his sorry ass? If not, why not?

A. MacAulay

RP's liberal and artistic friends are making themselves look very bad indeed. It is the State of California that is prosecuting RP, not the victim, whatever her views may be now.

The next person to be prosecuted is the victims mother, who left her 13 year old daughter as fresh meat for the sordid fun of RP. Caring for a minor is something else.

Vulture

I've met Robert Harris and spent a very pleasant afternoon with him, but the guy does seem to have a blind spot when it comes to his pals: after all, Peter Mandelson is Godson to one of his kids.

This seems to be a case of luvvieland rallying round one of their own and pleading that he's a special case just because he makes great movies - in Harris's case, he's in the middle of filming one of Harris's own books, so no wonder there's a special urgency in his plea to let my Roman go.

Let's be plain: Polanski is a predatory paedophile who raped and buggered a 13-year old child after drugging her to the eyeballs to 'relax' her. The fact that his father, wife and unborn child were horribly murdered is no mitigation. It should, if anything, have made him more sensitive to such suffering. High time he did his time.

Christopher Fry

It would be difficult to beat the sickening hypocrisy of a local architect and socialite who wrote the following letter to The Nation in Bangkok.

"Open letter to French Minister of Culture Frederic Mitterand

Published on September 30, 2009

Dear Minister, I am saddened by the arrest in Switzerland of Mr Roman Polanski, who is a member of l'Academie des Beaux Arts.

As a friend and fellow artist, I know that Mr Polanski has gone through indescribable suffering in the past, and I feel that he has more than compensated for whatever failings with his gift of art to the world.

I hope that the French government will persevere with the Swiss authorities to have him return to France so that he may continue discharging his duty to the world as an artist.

DR. SUMET JUMSAI

CHEVALIER DE L"ORDRE DES ARTS ET DES LETTRES

MEMBER OF THE FRENCH ACADEMIE D'ARCHITECTURE

NATIONAL ARTIST, THAILAND"

Pancho

Can someone tell what the difference is between Roman Polanski and Gary Glitter?

David Short

His punishment will be over the top, cruel and unusual in other words, and that's why he should not be sent back.

This is a political act by a US government and legal system that thinks it can tell the world what to do, with impunity, because of force.

Polanski fled because he knew he would not get an appropriate, light punishment but would spend decades and decades in the hell that is the US prison system, where people get gang-raped daily, and the perpetrators get off scot-free.

The people who are calling for Polanski's punishment are nauseating to the worst degree. The sex with this 'girl' was not so non-consuensal as all that. If anyone should be punished, it should be the mother who delivered her 'child' to the director, knowing full well his and the reputation of all Hollywood directors.

If the 'victim' wants to forget all about it, what is the use of a trial, apart from boosting the fame and reputation of some Californian DA, and pleasing the insane feminists of America.

There can be little coincidence in the fact that this arrest occurred during the watch of the mad feminists' arch-priestess, Hillary Clinton.

W.W.

David I take your point about the responsibility of the parent.
However I have a number of questions, firstly what is the difference between Polanski and Gary Glitter.
What if he had done this to your 13 year old daughter.
Lets be honest about this, he got her drunk, drugged her, then raped and sodomized her. why should he recieve a light sentence for that.
"The sex with this 'girl' was not so non-consuensal as all that" A very interesting turn of phrase, she was 13 years old, (is that not a 'girl'?) with an older male, who also happened to be famous, rich and powerfull, who abused his positian, and abused her in a cruel, selfish and cowardly way.
Personally I hope he gets what ever justice is deemed appropiate (ie, a long stretch).

I find your defence of him somewhat odd, to say the very least.

W.W.

A. MacAulay

A sexual encounter between an adult and a child is never a meeting of equals.

Michael Antony

This case is fascinating for the sheer muddle of attitudes it has revealed. In France they make much of the notion of a statute of limitations-- how unfair to revive such an old case. But a statute of limitations was never based on the principle that time effaces guilt: merely that time effaces proofs. It may be unfair to investigate an old crime because the facts can no longer be established. This does not apply in this case. The facts were thoroughly investigated and established, and a guilty plea entered. There is therefore no statute of limitations. Then there is the hoary old notion, popular in France,that great artists are above the law: this is something Dosteveysky demolished in Crime and Punishment. Finally there is the notion that a 13-year old girl, pushed by an ambitious mother, was somehow asking for it in going for a photo shoot to a film-maker's house. This supposedly constituted sexual consent to being drugged and sodomized. Yet the same people who defend RP were probably happy to see Mike Tyson do four years for rape after a 21-year old entered his bedroom at one in the morning. Why? Because a thuggish boxer is not one of the beautiful people who have advanced the cause of sexual liberation (with films that repeatedly associate sex with sadism and violence.) Finally the Swiss are being vilified for executing a warrant under an extradiction treaty which they were legally bound to honour-- having been given details by the Californian prosector as to when and where RP would be. Should they have revoked the treaty? Just because they didn't arrest RP off their own bat when he entered Switzerland to go to his chalet doesn't mean they could refuse to do it when specifically requested to by the US. One can criticize the stupidity of their film festival officials who didn't check with their own police. But RP has nobody to blame but his own imprudence and over-confidence in believing that his French friends could save him forever from the consequences of his acts. Michael Antony

alex

I don't understand how any one can come up with a defense of what RP did. It is very simple YOU DON'T TOUCH KIDS and if anyone doesn't understand that I suggest they are put on the sex offenders list for monitoring because their morals seem rather doubtful to say the least.

CJ Lucey

The fascinating aspect of this case is less RP and more the reaction of elements of the artistic community.

They appear to imply that different rules should apply to a person who has made a major contribution to the arts. For it is hard to imagine such a fuss being made over anyone else who had:
(a) drugged and had sex with a 13-year old;
(b) admitted guilt for same; and
(c) jumped bail.

Yes there may be mitigating circumstances: RP's persecution by the Nazis; the muder of RP's wife and unborn child; and a trial of questionable quality.

But he has admitted drugging and having sex with a 13 year-old. That is simply a most serious crime. He has evaded justice for too long.

Rosemary

In various interviews with the victim, although not wishing Polanski to be extradited, she still described him in unfavourable terms and appeared to still have lingering trauma. A 13 year old is a child and not able to make mature decisions about sexual acts. Polanski was in a position of authority and he has been legally convicted of rape of a minor. His past does not excuse the criminal act he has committed. On the BBC this morning, on the Andrew Marr show, the act was described as 'minor'. Rape is not a 'minor' crime. Rape / sex with a child is indefensible, illegal and an outrage and can never be condoned, under any circumstances. If 'Joe Bloggs' had been convicted of sex with a minor and evaded justice for 30 years, would the 'intelligensia' be so quick in their defense? Polanski should therefore be extradited and serve his time. Child rape can never be justified, or allowed to 'let slide', under any circumstances.

Henry

If it had been my daughter I would want him sent to the electric chair. Wht? Because it is a particularly unpleasant way to die. I'm serious

Olaf Rye

I have no compunction for RP ... rape is a vile act that cannot be excused by the sad events that befell him. We are not looking at a case where someone made an error of judgement--he drugged and sodomised a thirteen year old. His sufferings are irrelevant and if he deserves a break, it is for the judge to decide this at sentencing. He has run from justice for years. It is amazing that people are defending rapists ... for Christ's sake, what the hell is wrong with these people ?

Lauren

"Anyone who survived the Holocaust and the murder of their loved ones deserves a break."

So, if you've survived the Holocaust, you get a free pass to drug and sodomize a young girl? Are you related to Whoopi Goldberg?

shez from Oz

THX1138 and all the rest of you who feel that RP deserves a break because of his expereinces with the Holocaust and the murder of his wife and unborn child.
My grand father watched while the Nazi's murdered his wife and two young children. He lost members of his family and went through the unimaginable. All the while maintaining his moral inegrity. My husband's ex-mother inlaw who was a young girl during tne holocaust and still is unable to talk about what she went through in the camps finds the "he went though the holocaust and other stuff" abhorent.
Part of the problem of our society is our inability to say this is wrong. NO excuses. Just plain wrong. Every offender has a reason for what he did - some reasons are better than others. These excuses do not provide a free pass for bad behavior. Mr. RP commited an vile act. He has not exhibited remourse. While serving his sentence can be treated for his trauma and taught that being a "great artist" and having suffered much is no excuse for harming another person, let alone a child.

Fabio P.Barbieri

The bloodthirsty ranters who want to see Roman Polanski end his life as he began it - behind barbed wire and in the company of brutes - should consider how the vile Swiss government has protected for decades another fugitive from American justice, Marc Rich, who unlike Polanski was a professional, repeated and wholly unapologetic fraudster. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander - except, of course, when the gander is a banker in the land of bankers.

Cybrludite

Mr. Barbieri,

First off, many of us were equally outraged at the pardon of Marc Rich, and the whiff of corruption which surrounded it. Secondly, there were no bankers rallying to Rich's cause the way so many in Hollywood & elsewhere are rallying around Polanksi. And finally, Rich stole a substatial amount of money. Roman Polanski drugged, forcibly raped, and sodomized a thirteen year old child. Do you not understand the difference between a crime against an object vs. a crime against a person, or does Polanski's fame reduce that child to just an object in your eyes?