I am baffled why many people are expressing outrage that director Roman Polanski has finally been arrested. Yes, I like his films as well, but the art and its artist are not one and the same thing. I love the work of Henry Miller, for example, but he was a sleazebag.
You can express admiration for Polanski's work, but you cannot use his work to dismiss that he plead guilty to the rape of a child. And despite the questions relating to judicial and/or prosecutorial misconduct in the case, Polanski lost the right to make those arguments now the moment he fled the country while he was awaiting sentencing then. This rape occurred in 1977 and since then, Polanski has had a wonderful time abroad.
Let me give you some of the arguments people are making in defense of Polanski:
Confronting these developments, we must affirm the law's the law, right? And what Polanski reputedly did with a 13-year-old girl all those years ago was unquestionably the act of a sick individual.
But the story of what Polanski suffered even before the unspeakable trauma of having his pregnant wife Sharon Tate butchered in the spooky twilight of the turbulent sixties makes me believe that overall, he's as much victim as predator himself.
We know what Polanski did and it is not an allegation. He plead guilty to the charges of raping a 13 year old girl "vaginally" and "anally" and "orally" despite her repeated demands uttered in NO and STOP. If he did not do this, then he should not have plead guilty and if there was judicial and/prosecutorial misconduct - which many suggest there was - then he should have used that as part of his defense. But once you plead guilty and then run to avoid accountability, you have lost the benefit of the doubt.
Farr continues with the following "what if" straw-man:
"These horrors by no means excuse his crime, but they are mitigating factors, are they not?"
Yes and what if and what if to infinity. The reality, however, is that whatever mitigating circumstances should have been taken into account, Polanski plead guilty and then fled the country. In other words, he lost the argument for himself, not as a victim of something or someone else.
As for why he raped this girl, Farr is using a straw-man built from tragedy sadly . Yes, the murder of Polanski'ss wife (and unborn child) by Charles Manson was a tragedy and certainly that tragedy should have been considered during sentencing and maybe would have been... had he showed up.
And yes, it is also certainly a factor that he could have used in his own defense... but he plead guilty.
That said, what happened to him in no way excuses what he did, which was still a crime and it was a very serious crime. He did not, for example, rob someone during grief driven hysteria. This was not a victimless crime and short of murder, I can think of no other crime worse than rape.
Perhaps if Farr were anally raped, he might feel a bit differently about this entire situation. But leave it to a man to make an argument for a child rapist. How very typical.
Then we have this idiocy from the LA Times:
"Meanwhile, Polanski's victim, Samantha Geimer, long ago announced that she had forgiven the filmmaker for his transgressions and supported various efforts to have the case against him dismissed. I don't think that you'd find many people who would approve of Polanski's behavior, which was disgusting -- he drugged his victim with champagne and Quaaludes before raping her during a 1977 photo session at Jack Nicholson's house."
Let's see. He fled and continued to be famous, while she was painted as a gold-digging hussy if memory serves. If I were in her situation, I might just take the money and claim forgiveness as well just to escape being victimized over and over. Would you forever want to be known as Polanski's Lolita? But that is neither here nor there. The law does not forgive him, despite the victim's "forgiveness." It is not for her to decide, is it?
Then we have a woman - someone I actually respect believe it or not - defending Polanski. Non other than Anne Applebaum:
"Here are some of the facts: Polanski's crime -- statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl -- was committed in 1977. The girl, now 45, has said more than once that she forgives him, that she can live with the memory, that she does not want him to be put back in court or in jail, and that a new trial will hurt her husband and children."
"She can live with the memory?" That must be a nice god-damn life then. But Applebaum goes further and repeats the same talking points as the others:
"There is evidence of judicial misconduct in the original trial. There is evidence that Polanski did not know her real age."
Okay, where to begin with this... I have already addressed the first point - the judicial and/or prosecutorial misconduct issue could have been address had Polanski not skipped out of dodge.
As for him not knowing her "real age," is Anne arguing that rape of an adult female is okay by her? Because whatever age Polanski thought she was, he did still rape her after all. Oh and by the way, even if we assume he did not know she was 13, he clearly still knew she was a minor, because he asked her mother's permission to photograph her.
Anne goes on to then state the following, mind-blowing argument in defense of Polanski:
"Polanski, who panicked and fled the U.S. during that trial, has been pursued by this case for 30 years, during which time he has never returned to America, has never returned to the United Kingdom., has avoided many other countries, and has never been convicted of anything else. He did commit a crime, but he has paid for the crime in many, many ways: In notoriety, in lawyers' fees, in professional stigma. He could not return to Los Angeles to receive his recent Oscar. He cannot visit Hollywood to direct or cast a film."
He paid with money? So, is Ann arguing that people who can afford to should buy their way out of being held accountable for breaking the law? Sure sounds like it to me.
It was a tragedy what Charles Manson did to Polanski's wife and child. There is no doubt about that. It was pure evil. But it does not excuse what Polanski then did to his victim. And while I fully believe that he could have presented this argument as part of his defense, he ran from his crime and hid in the lap of luxury, marrying, having children, making films and so forth. He has not paid his debt to society despite whatever credit he has earned with his exceptional art. I admire the art he has made very much, but I cannot and will not use it to argue in defense of a man who raped a 13 year old girl.
Sorry, but the victim has rights too, even though the only thing his rape has made her famous for was his rape of her, as though she were the villain and he the victim.
The only sensible thing I have read today on the topic is this, by Kate Harding.
