in a nutshell

[the_siobhan]

You know I've really liked a number of Roman Polanski films.

That doesn't in any way change the fact that he's a fucking asshole.





(Woody Allen,Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Tilda Swinton - that makes you assholes too.)

Comments

[greylock.livejournal.com]

I think the only really good thing that can be said of him is that, as far as we know, this was a once off.

But the more I think about it the more I doubt that's true, even if this was the only kid he ever fucked.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Woody Allen? The man who seduced a girl who was, in many respects, his own daughter? He belongs on that list anyway.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Damnit. I'm actually reading the text of the petition.
It's a "case of morals"? WTF?

And the suggestion that somehow film festivals should be safe spaces for art? You know, I know what they're getting at. We recently had some issues with China over just that issue, but still... they should go fuck themselves.


/ranty

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

Couldn't agree more. I've been on Twitter like crazy about this. Kate Harding (http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/09/28/polanski_arrest/) and Katha Pollitt (http://www.thenation.com/blogs/anotherthing/479379) (with bonus dig on Katie Roiphe!) have both written excellent pieces, and there's a list here (http://chrismm.livejournal.com/578016.html) of Hollyweirds who still deserve your respect.

P.S. Natalie Portman's an asshole. This is almost as upsetting as Tilda going over. :(

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Kate Harding has been my hero for a long time.

RE: The Katha Pollitt piece.
Wow, Debra Winger. That actually surprises me.

I was less surprised by Whoopi Goldberg. She's always given me the impression there is more than one person in there.

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

I love Harding too. Shapely Prose has done a lot of good for my head.

I thought that about Winger too. She always struck me as a pretty capital F feminist. :(

Whoopi. Rape-rape. *head*desk*

[greylock.livejournal.com]

The funny thing about the rape-rape comment is that they kinda make sense if you work through her thought process (I had to, because I had no idea what she was on about and, yes, apparently it wasn't violent... okay, that's nice) and then you get to the end and you go WTF?

And I had no idea Polanski had "an affair" with 15-year old Nastassja Kinski.

Those articles are great, but I am sad about Natalie Portman. Very sad. I just can't get my head around it.

[fragilemuse.livejournal.com]

this article (http://www.boxofficepsychics.com/2009/09/29/a-plea-for-roman-polanski/) is good.

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

I think that because we group such different crimes as violent stranger rape, stupid drugged out old man on young teen rape, drunken loss of inhibitions date sex regretted the next day rape, asshole spouse rape, stupid spouse rape*, and sex between a 16 year old and an 18 year old statutory rape under the same term, it becomes very hard for a fairly common-sense thinker to grasp how these could all be the same thing. I do think this muddies the water, because the whole "rape is a violent crime of anger and power" is a continuum. From the perspective that all heterosexual, penetrative sex is a power play -- an extreme position, and probably true of some, but not all, men -- these could all be the "same" but in practice, I doubt that's the case. And for the average person who doesn't really understand that rape is a crime of violence, not sex, if violent stranger rape is the same as out of control sex at a party with someone who may have been too drunk to give consent, then we will have a hard time explaining the whole violence and power thing. We at once take the teeth out of real violence and power rape, and make rapists of people were merely stupid, clueless, and drunk (there's a lot variation in between, of course).

I don't seriously believe that Polanski raped the victim as a violent act against a world that emasculates and drags him down, as one might expect of the violent stranger rapist. I think he was a horny old man who, drugged up on the 1970s and the sexual revolution, not to mention a 'lude, found it unimaginable that anyone, especially a sexually active, drug-experimenting prospective model, would tell him no. (I do not think that a sexually active person cannot be raped, obviously, but that distinction may not have been as obvious to Polanski.)

That leaves me in a quandary, because I can simultaneously see both sides of the coin, maybe 3 or 4 sides. I hate that having a reasonable conversation about rape is so difficult because of all these layers of meaning. We accept that premeditated murder is completely different from accidentally knocking someone over and having them hit their head and die. Having someone jump up and shot, "Murder is murder! There are no accidents!" is not very helpful in that discussion. Likewise, I think there's a slippery slope somewhere in the idea that all sex is rape unless it's 100% consensual, meaning between complete equals who are in no way under the influence of any chemicals, because any power difference or influence renders consent illegal. Half the sex I've had in my life would be termed rape, if being sober enough to give informed consent was a prerequisite, and I can't be alone in that. But clearly, while I've had some sex I maybe regretted the next morning, I've never felt the need to call it rape. "That wasn't okay," is about the harshest thing I've ever said, and always to an apologetic and contrite person.

Depending on where they were, Polanski and Kinski's affair could have been consensual (age of consent: 14 in Germany, where she was from; 15 in France, where I think he was living by then) or statutory rape.

* I draw a distinction between the asshole man who rapes his wife as a show of power and anyone who has ever gotten drunk and had semi-nonconsensual sex with their also-drunk partner, who the next day says, "Dude, I was NOT in the mood for that." I did that to an ex-BF once, and yes, *I* was contrite and apologetic. Consent in long-term relationships can be a sticky thing.

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

I haven't read it myself, but he supposedly admitted to doing it other times in some autobiography he wrote, so i doubt it was a one-off.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Having just learnt about the Kinski thing I am strangely not surprised.

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he obviously has a thing for VERY young women, but as I noted below, it is situationally criminal. Even our idea of what is "sick" is anything but universal; the age of consent is as low as 9 in the world. Even in Western history, a 13 year old girl may have been married off to a 45 year old as a matter of course. Our modern brains reject such notions, but it was as natural as anything at one time. Penicillin and modern medicine changed all that, but we're not as far from it as we like to pretend. (I have, in my life, met a woman who was married by 12 and having babies soon thereafter, in the U.S. I guess this wold have been in the early 50s.)

Being such a relativist is really annoying. Sometimes, I long for a good, hard opinion unmitigated by "maybes" and "what ifs," and "but thens" and so on. :)

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Word.

[serpentstar.livejournal.com]

I agree with pretty well 90% of what you say, above, and it ties in fairly neatly with some stuff that resonated with me in Camille Paglia's articles; concepts like "no law in the arena", and the need for a recognition of the difference between seduction and rape. There's a huge difference between getting drunk and having sex one later regrets or is uneasy about, and being raped.

Likewise, I agree that cultural differences are important, and that ages of consent vary, and so on; personally I wouldn't consider a sex act between two similarly inexperienced teenagers (even with an age difference between them) to be something that called for legal action.

Still -- from the victim's testimony, in this case, and from Polanski's admission of guilt, it does seem very clear to me that he did rape her. Yes, I'm sure it happened like you say -- he just didn't believe she wouldn't want to fuck him -- but that doesn't make it ethical, or legal, and it doesn't mean he shouldn't be punished. There was a massive difference in power between the two of them, for all kinds of reasons; and just because some cultures, including some historical Western cultures, either explicitly or tacitly accepted such behaviour from powerful men in the past, is no reason for us not to be working towards a more ethical society that DOESN'T accept such behaviour. It's important to demonstrate that even talent, power, and influence is no longer enough for a man to get away with rape. That's not the sole reason, or even the main reason, to make sure he faces justice -- but it is a pressing reason, particularly given the Hollywood elite stepping up in support of him and in a slightly more subtle support of their own privilege.

[megiddo-lj.livejournal.com]

Drugs and booze always blur the picture but in this case the drugs were provided specifically FOR the purpose of lowering the girl's inhibitions. The girl said No. Repeatedly. She asked to be taken home. Repeatedly. That's different, to me, than the 2 of them ending up at a party wasted and rolling into bed under questionable circumstances which is how the night has been portrayed in some circles. This wasn't a Lolita seduction of an older man. This wasn't a girl who knowingly drank too much champagne at a party and got hit on by a creepy older perv. The fact that the girl had previously had sex with a boy her own age is irrelevant.

Polanski, a 44 year old man, lured a girl he knew was 13 to a (mostly) empty house and then encouraged her to drink and take drugs to lower her inhibitions for sex. The mere fact that she said 'No' and he heard her means to me that he knew she did not, in fact, want to have sex with him. Whether he 'believed it' or not is inconsequential and removes the whole idea of some kind of accidental rape scenario. I find anal penetration while a girl is saying 'No, I need to go home NOW!' to be fairly violent. Perhaps he wasn't holding a gun but it was still a violation of a young girl's body. He told her not to tell her mother or anyone else. Again, he knew what he was doing was wrong. He was a predator and there are clear signs it probably wasn't the first or last time.

Besides the Kinski affair, Polanski has for years now brushed the matter off as 'all men like sex with young girls' and 'Americans are just uptight' and has admitted his preferences run to the lower side of puberty. On top of this he ran from justice and for that he needs to be prosecuted. Our system cannot stand if the monied elite are allowed a pass to France when they are worried they won't get special treatment or might be forced to abide by the judicial system of the land.

[megiddo-lj.livejournal.com]

I'm very disappointed by how Hollywood is handling this matter. I lost a lot of respect for people like Swinton and Lynch defending Polanski's behavior. I wonder if some of these women have ever been 13 year old girls dealing with unwanted sexual attention from older men. I'd gather not.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Yup. Agree completely.

FYI, here's a very good piece (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/roman-polanski-freedom-fighter/article1307599/) from Margaret Wente about the Polanski case.

[ravensee.livejournal.com]

HITLER WAS AN ARTIST TOO.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

Ah, Margaret "I never met a transsexual I liked" Wente. Always the voice of reason.

[the_axel]

Wente writing a piece that I agree with?

WTF!!?!

That's a sign that this issue is about as black and white as 'Was the Holocaust a good thing?'

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

On some of the Feminist blogs I read people are having an equally difficult time with the fact that they now agree with Bill Maher on something.

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

Your whole comment is right on the money.

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

GODWIN'D! *slap*

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I get how this is relevant. Laws and morals do exist in a cultural context, but our culture has agreed that drugging somebody and forcing objects into their anus is a criminal act. I've decided that it also makes him an asshole.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

As the saying goes, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.