There was a huge uproar, with many filmakers, actors, and producers coming out in support of Polanski and his "unjust treatment" because of his "extraordinary talent."
To recap: Polanski drugged and raped (and sodomized) a 13-year-old girl. He pleaded guilty to "engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse," a lesser offense, in a deal to preserve the girl's anonymity. To escape sentencing he fled the country and never came back. He remarried and lived as a free man in Europe for thirty years. He continued to work. The 13-year-old-girl, now all grown up and wanting to move on with her life and stop being asked about Polanski all time time, tells people to just let it go.
For the record, the situation with this child was hardly a solitary "lapse in judgment" on Polanski's part. His first two wives were younger than he, though both were certainly legal. Then there was the 13-year-old-girl. Then 15-year-old Nastassja Kinski when he was 43 (they dated for a few years). He's currently married to Emmanuelle Seigner, who is 33 years his junior. That wouldn't be so unusual for Hollywood, perhaps, if it weren't for the larger pattern. She was in her early 20's when they married. (See link below for his chilling commentary on the normalcy of his desires.)
My thoughts:
Does this mean that I can ignore any laws I want as long as I'm talented enough?
Ridiculous!
If rape is wrong, then rape is wrong. Why should a convicted rapist get a free pass because he left the country and eluded arrest for years? Horrible precedent.
Backlash builds against support of Polanski
"on ABC's "The View," in which panelist and actress Whoopi Goldberg made the comment that she didn't believe the original charges against Polanski were for "rape-rape," as what he views as a pervasive attitude.
"I assume [Goldberg] regrets saying what she said, but she really didn't say anything that is not under the surface anyway," Weeks said. "This is just the attitude, that children are property and crimes against them are not real crimes." Video Watch a discussion of about Polanski's supporters »
Goldberg's fellow panelist, Sherri Shepherd, said during the show that she believed Polanski should still be punished.
On Twitter, she tweeted, "Whew... long day at 'The View'... two shows today... hot debate over the Statutory Rapist Polanski. 45-year-old man plies a 13-yr-old w/drugs & Liquor and anally & orally penetrates her w/o her consent is a RAPIST. We hunt down 75-year-old Nazis. We must protect our children."
Actress Kirstie Alley wrote on Twitter "JUST FOR THE RECORD....RAPE IS RAPE...this is one HOLLYWOOD STAR who does not CELEBRATE or DEFEND Roman Polanski..his ART did not RAPE her.""
Earlier in that CNN article (link above) there's a list of celebrities who signed "a petition which states, "Roman Polanski is a French citizen, a renown and international artist now facing extradition. This extradition, if it takes place, will be heavy in consequences and will take away his freedom.""
Well, yes. That's generally how we punish rapists. And child molesters.
Filmmakers demand Polanski's release
Artist Rally Behind Polanski
Reminder: Roman Polanski raped a child Finally arrested 32 years after he fled sentencing for unlawful sex with a minor, the director is ... a big hero?
"Everyone wants to f--- young girls."
Sanity: Roman Polanski Has a Lot of Friends (I really wish I could write like Pollitt.)
I'm going to remember the names of some "stars" who support Polanski:
Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and John Landis
Penelope Cruz, Tilda Swinton and Monica Bellucci
and many, many others.
A positive suggestion from the internet: "Instead of making the petition about releasing Polanski it should be stated as a petition for the social approval of drugging and raping a 13-year-old child."
Petition for the Release of Roman Polanski
12 comments:
While you were skimming through your drafts folder, you should also have skimmed through the facts of this case before you began pontificating from your 'bully pulpit'.
The reason for the uproar is due to the fact that they know the actual facts in this case...you apparently don't.
To recap: During her Grand Jury testimony (which is not subject to cross-examination) Ms. Geimer said that he anally raped her twice. In his Grand Jury Testimony, Dr. Edward Larson who examined Ms. Geimer at Parkwood Hospital that evening, stated and to quote: "Simply that I had no physical evidence. I have no bruises, hematomas, tears of mucous membrane, areas of irritated mucous membrane for physical findings." If, as Dr. Larson pointed out that there was no tearing of the mucuous membrane, or no pbysical evidence, it kind of makes it difficult to accept that Ms. Geimer was so brutally raped as you contend. Further, Dr. Larson took vaginal washings and anal washings (standard rape kit at the time) and perserved them to be handed over to Police Tech Lee Mann, a criminalist with the LAPD found no fluids including sperm or saliva anywhere on or about the body of Samantha Geimer as all the slides taken in the rape kit tested negative for all fluids. So do tell me how such a 'vile' and disgusting rape can occur without evidence of such rape? It simply can't.
As for ages of Polanski's wives: It is irrelevant. The same thing could be said of John Derek who's wives got progressively younger to the point he was dating jail bait in Bo Derek, the two of them having to escape to Germany for a time until Ms. Collins (Bo's real last name) became of age and they finally returned to the United States. Interesting that Mr. Derek didn't face any statutory rape charges upon his return. Could it be, perhaps, that his non-foreign status (psssst, he's an American) mean that he wasn't subject to the same laws Mr. Polanski was apparently abused with? Nooooo, couldn't have been that!
....continued....
As for Kinski, she has admitted she wanted the relationship. Unlike Ms. Geimer, who's constantly painted the 'victim' Ms. Kinski openly admitted to the relationship with Polanski. She then went on to have a full on relationship with Music producer Quincy Jones. Does that mean in your vernacular that Mr. Jones isn't the same as Mr. Polanski in that both men prefer younger women? I would hope not. But then I forget, Mr. Jones is....AN AMERICAN!
Back to the facts again here ma'am: As for the drugs. At no time during her Grand Jury Testimony does Ms. Geimer ever state that Polanski forced the drugs on her. In fact, she states just the opposite, even testifying that she was the one who identified the tablet in the orange bottle as a Quaalude. She never once states that Polanski gave it to her or that he forced it on her. She states: "I took it." Concerning the alcohol, she states he poured three glasses of a bottle of Champagne from Nicholson's fridge for himself, Geimer and Nicholson's caretaker, Helena. At no time did she state he pushed the drink on her, nor does she say he forced her to drink it. She says again, she took it. It has only been lately she's embellished her words with ones such as 'afraid' and 'creepy'. She also says she felt this way at the first photo shoot with him on February 13, 1977, yet felt no 'fear' or 'creepiness' when she went with him again on the 10th of March. One would think that self-preservation would mean something, don't you? If she felt this way about him she'd have told her mother and both would have decided to nix the idea of her becoming a model. With Ms. Gailey's 'connections' within the Hollywood community given she was an actress of little note, one would assume she'd have had other ways for her daughter to 'make it' in the biz. Why was Polanski the only way to do it?
As for the validity of Ms. Geimer's being a 'child'. She was not. She was three weeks shy of her 14th birthday, if you believe her mother's and her contention she was 13 at the time. My research has found records indicating she was 15 at the time. Certainly consistent with Anjelica Huston's statement that Ms. Geimer could have been anywhere from between 15-25 as she first told the detectives. And according to Ms. Huston, "she didn't look like some scared little thing." Jackie Bisset, whose home Polanski and Geimer stopped by before going to Nicholson's, did not see Ms. Geimer as anything but mature and older than her years.
....continued....
Your statement "the 13 year-old, now all grown up and wanting to move on with her life...." has not only asked to stop being asked about Polanski, but has openly campaingned for his immediate release upon his arrest in Switzlerand, and even filed two briefs, one in December 2009 and January 2010 for the case to be dropped and Polanski to be cleared of all the charges. Hardly the 'victim' you paint her to be if she wants the charges dropped and the case dismissed as if it never happened. The reason Ms. Geimer tells people to just let it go, is likely due to the fact that if Mr. Polanski wished, he could retract his original plea and force a new trial, which would force Ms. Geimer to take the stand and to either have to plead the fifth against self-incrimination, or be jailed for contempt.
About those laws you said can be ignored: It seems you are utterly unaware as to how Judge Laurence Rittenband, the original judge in the Polanski case, flouted those laws to force people to do as he wished. Take a look at the case he was handling at the time he drew Polanski's. In that case, a rape victim was on the stand being grilled by the defense attorney. The woman was going into complete mental breakdown and Rittenband was forcing her to talk, which she couldn't. Because she couldn't, Rittenband had her jailed for contempt. She went into complete mental withdrawal. On the bus back from jail, she'd been beaten up by others on the bus who believed she was being aloof. The woman was brought back to court in an orange jumpsuit and cuffs. Rittenband was taking heat from those at Hillcrest Country Club for his abusing his power and having that woman jailed, and was told by those members of Hillcrest they would not allow him to browbeat Geimer. When told by an aid of Roger Gunson (the prosecutor) about Samantha's antics with her mother's boyfriend inside the prosecutor's office with regards to some inappropriate activity, Judge Rittenband found it not relevent to the case and told the aid to 'drop it'. Rittenband also had a habit of telling Douglas Dalton (Polanski's attorney), Lawrence Silver (Geimer's attorney), and Roger Gunson how to conduct their cases. He scripted each and every hearing removing the ability for each lawyer to do what was legal and present their cases as they saw fit. He renegged twice on his promise not to imprison Polanski. He also renegged on not using the 90 day psyche evaluation period as punishment. He also illegally was going to force Polanski to self-deport after his time in prison. Something he had no legal right to impose as it is solely an INS matter. And there is more as to Rittenband's illegalities concerning the Polanski case.
....continued....
Your contention that a 'convicted rapist' getting a free pass is incorrect. Polanski was never convicted of anything, much less rape. And it is a horrible precedent when people like you continue to feed the hungry masses with your inaccurate and slanted information.
Further, none of the psychiatric evaluations Polanski underwent during his 42 day incarceration at Chino State Prison (the same prison where at the time, Charles Manson and Charles "Tex" Watson were imprisoned....you know, the architect and chief murderer of his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate) stated that Polanski wasn't a threat to society, nor a mentally deranged sex offender and not to likely reoffend. So according to the professionals, of which you are not. Mr. Polanski was not diagnosed as a child molester nor a rapist. In consultations with the 'victim' and her mother, one of the psychiatrists also noted that there was an air of permissiveness in the home and called into question the actions of Geimer's mother. If we punish 'rapists and child molesters' then what do we do about a mother who allows her 'child' to run around unattended. Ms. Geimer in her Grand Jury testimony admitted to having had two prior sexual experiences at eight years old. She also admitted to having taken Quaaludes and alcohol before Polanski. She was not unaccustomed to either. In fact, Ms. Geimer's older half-sister had been in and out of rehab for Quaalude addiction and they were freely avaialble around the house. The mother's boyfriend was involved in drug distribution and drug paraphernalia, yet the only one to face drug charges at the time was Anjelica Huston who was forced to 'turn' on Polanski in order for the charges to be dropped. Samantha Geimer had also had prior sexual intercourse with her 18 year old boyfriend, Steve. If you intend to apply the law fairly, then there should have been other people in that docket besides Polanski. But no one else other than Huston did face charges.
I am all for the prompt prosecution of rape and child molesters, however, in this case, there was no proof he did what you and others are accusing him of. There is no physical evidence. There is no fairness in the prosecution of this case, ergo, the other men other than Polanski who should have been charged alongside Polanski, and Geimer's mother who supplied the means for Polanski to take her daughter off without chapperone. Could that reason be because they are ... American? I would hope not.
You ask why these actors/writers/directors and alike support Polanski? Perhaps it's because they know more about the case than you apparently do.
And as for the flight from persecution: It's a little hard to take you or others seriously on this count when the original prosecutor, Roger Gunson, stated in the Marina Zenovich documentary "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired" that he wasn't surprised he ran. On the Larry King Show in 2003, both Samantha Geimer and her attorney Silver, both stated they were glad he ran due to the judge's conduct. So again, much hyperbole in your case. It seems they and others know more about this case than you do.
end.
Hah! OK, wow.
The grand jury testimony seems to be here, if anyone's interested: http://www.dailywackos.com/RomanPolanskiTranscripts.pdf
(It's really disturbing.)
Point the first: "brutal" or not, "bruising" or not, this point is indisputable. Roman Polanski admitted to having sex with a 13-year-old girl. Per the evidence, Polanski supplied the girl with alcohol and drugs and took pictures of her at least partially nude. He left semen in her underpants. No matter how hard she fought - or didn't - that's rape.
Point the second: Here in the States we have laws about "age of consent." In her grand jury testimony the 13-year-old girl (per her state certified birth certificate) repeatedly said that she was afraid. But even if she weren't, even if she were hot for Polanski and eager to take his drugs, it's still rape. He's still an adult and she's still a child and it's illegal for him to give her booze and drugs. It's illegal for him to have sex with her.
Whether the victim, years later as an adult, wants the admitted sex offender jailed or not is irrelevant. This is not a civil matter, it's a criminal one. He broke the law.
Third point: of course it's legal for a judge to order the deportation of a criminal immigrant.
As to other judicial misconduct, it's wonderful grounds for an appeal.
Last point: Polanski is a convicted criminal because he pled guilty. It's a legal term and applies whether a jury found him guilty or he professed his guilt.
"Rapist" is not a diagnosis.
But all this is beside the point, which was clear from the outset. Roman Polanski broke the law. In fact, he broke several laws. He admitted it. And he fled the country before being sentenced for his crimes.
Interesting summary: http://www.vachss.com/mission/roman_polanski.html
Leave it to you, Sarahlynn, to succinctly respond (and, in my opinion, effectively conclude) what it took a Polanski zealot probably hours to expound.
Wow.
Thanks, Jessica. :-)
So let me get this straight, in your book, sleeping with a minor, is ‘rape’ – so what is forcible rape then? ‘Rape-rape’? I doubt any genuine rape victim will accept your so willing and unsophisticated blanket condemnation, or to cite this wholly unconstitutional ‘statutory rape’ law on Polanski. Or on anyone else for that matter, having caused him and others untold suffering, or even Geimer. Everyone who was ever convicted of statutory rape, was sent into hell and danger of being raped by inmates on a daily base in more or less brutal form and by their own guards who looked the other way, locked up in a vicious cycle of sexual abuse.
Your blind stance on ‘the law is the law’ is an insult to all genuine rape victims, the men who were, are and will be raped, and even killed, traumatised for life. You don’t seem to care about them or such systematic and ‘court ordered’ atrocities like prison rape, yet bother to obsess over and vilify some aging ‘foreign’ director’s sex with a teenager of decades ago you probably never even heard of before his rearrest, while others did the same yet no one pursued and demonised them without end. It’s YOUR oh so glorious US ‘anti-sex laws’ that keep victimising and endangering men pointlessly for having casual sex – not any ‘victim’. ONLY forcible rape is ‘rape’ – NOT underage sex. Let’s hope you will never know the difference first-hand.
Anyone saying that all men like to f*** young girls is hardly wrong, except they won’t advertise that fact today anymore or be seen as paedophiles, with people like you having successfully turned all men into rapists and child abusers, put them into the same basket of violent sex offenders. Congratulations. There are more men being raped right now in YOUR US prisons than any non-incarcerated woman in the USA, or anywhere else, FACT, traumatised for life and in no hope of seeing these criminals being punished for any of it. People like you disgust me, and no, I’m not a man, I unfortunately for one know exactly what forcible rape and sodomy is, being violated by a man, and anyone ‘crying rape’ after casual sex is a disgrace to all genuine rape victims scarred for life, so don’t bother me with any sanctimonious replies. Continued...
That’s why they call it ‘unlawful sex with a minor’– NOT ‘rape’. But you’re obviously too bent on supporting punishing people for having sex within different age groups and destroy lives. Have you ever talked to any male rape victim, who was sent inside for sleeping with his own underage girlfriend? I doubt that, it would only shake your belief in all men are rapists and out to raping women myth, no, they rape each other, because people like YOU sent them there for YOUR laws! I find it highly offensive to say what happened between Geimer and Polanski was ‘rape’ at not the slightest proof in the first place, and wholly trivialises forcible rape I like many others had to suffer, and automatically makes the man a sex offender, I deeply resent too, which, I’m sure, you in contrast fully support as seen with your self-righteous reply to Dianne B.
I’m sure had it been your own father, you’d asked to cut him some slack by now and think twice of wanting him inside with hardcore criminals, especially after the courts keep spinning it out for nothing but revenge since years now while letting real rapists run free, when they could have sentenced Polanski in absentia ages ago. It indeed seems many people know more about the much maligned case, like Dianne B, than those pathetic busybodies who talk about it in their unusual know-nothing self-satisfaction and name-calling diatribe. Just like ‘Sherri Shepherd’, who claimed that Polanski had penetrated Geimer orally, (like a certain ‘biographer’ who fabricated that lie first in 1980) when the girl in fact never even said that in her to this day unchallenged grand jury testimony.
I guess, Ms S along with these other idiots has been there to know better what happened. Or in fact never read the court transcript properly, or they’d noticed what cock and bull story the oh so innocent girl had delivered them. No pun intended. Which is ‘disturbing’? I’d rather say it a great show of fabrication And ‘fear’? Don’t make me laugh. I know what real fear of rape and genuine rape is and she wasn’t raped, end of. I also know what ‘false imprisonment’ is she had sued him for ten years later. It’s an insult to any genuine victim who could not just walk out the door she had plenty chances of doing, and never saw a penny of deserved ‘compensation’. There’s nothing wrong with a young girl exploring her sexuality with older men, nothing, and if that’s immoral to you or others, that’s YOUR problem. It’s a fact of life to have sex and no laws can prevent that. Continued…
In Hollywood that’s certainly nothing unusual, only the crying rape and absurd ‘sodomy interuptus’ afterwards is immoral. People who never engaged in anal sex have zero clues that it’s painful even if wanted, requires extra lubrication and always shows when forced on dry friction, like it was forced on me without the slightest ease. That’s why her mother was so keen on that plea bargain, since the good doctor said no to the forcible rape and ridiculous sodomy claims outright. The prosecution had no case of rape or they’d gone to trial, especially with a prominent defendant like Polanski to nail him to the wall for drugged rape, not ‘unlawful sex’. That’s why YOUR piously punitive laws invented the plea bargain unlawful everywhere else in the civilised world to sign off unlawful sex cases.
It was NOT to preserve the girl’s anonymity (since the Euro press got hold of her name and photo in nil time), but to ‘spare’ her from testifying under scrupulous cross-examination by the defence she would have failed in equal nil time and perjured herself. Along with her ‘acting’ mother and conspiring entourage, before Rittenband had his own game to play with them all. And now that corrupt and in fact class-action lawsuit facing DA Cooley keen on making an example of Polanski, is playing his own game with not the slightest justice in mind, after misconduct on misconduct piling up since decades, after the corrupt US courts gave the Swiss falsified records on top, which, I’m sure you find hilarious in your own flippant way of describing the mounting judicial transgressions in this case.
This is much more complex than what you’d like it to be, and Polanski never was ‘convicted’ of anything yet since there never was a trial or sentence, hence, he’s not a ‘criminal’ legally either, nor ever admitted to anything other than what he did three decades ago, have sex with her, like everyone else had then and now. Technically that’s against ‘your’ oh so glorious ‘anti-sex laws’, true, but he neither ‘supplied’ nor ‘gave’ her the champagne or drugs either. There never even was count for alcohol plying. She willingly accepted both the champagne and Quaalude taken from Nicholson’s fridge and bathroom she could have simply refused, and Polanski didn’t force either on her. But I guess, with a family that had porn and marihuana mags flying around and a history of underage alcohol use and drug abuse, that’s hard to expect.
He didn’t leave any semen in her underpants either, since he never ejaculated inside her vaginally let alone anally, and the good doctor didn’t find any at any rate. But I guess, the fact that the underpants were fetched two days after the events and that she had a boyfriend doesn’t make any sense that it was his semen, not Polanski’s. That’s corrupted and inadmissible evidence in any case. Continued…
Polanski certainly never drugged, raped or sodomised anyone let alone the only woman to have accused him of all that, after he had slept with enough women in his life before and after and NO one else ever had cried rape, only for her to pronounce some years back in an interview, and I quote: “He had sex with me. He wasn’t hurting me and he wasn’t forceful or mean or anything like that,” and, ‘that the event had been blown out of all proportions’. Indeed, by sanctimonious people like yourself.
That doesn’t sound like ‘rape’ to any intelligent person, and there’s no such thing as a ‘onetime rapist’, let alone paedophile. Polanski most certainly never was a paedophile either since you like so many have no first clue what a paedophile is or does, and most men are older than their partners in the first place, and the young age of his long-term partners is irrelevant since he dated older women too. Paedophiles are only attracted to children below the age of puberty. Geimer was certainly not a ‘child’ anymore either, as per your own law classifying her as adolescent, and the doctor who examined her declared her an ‘adult female’ for her very advanced development. So ‘child rape’ is also BS.
These people are repeat offenders and long-term abusers and no one but Geimer had ever ‘cried rape’. Or rather lied about her ‘rape’ on mom’s ‘advise’. The fact that the law didn’t allow her to consent, doesn’t change these facts, and has caused untold damage to men, their very own girlfriends and families. Maybe you should look for a real rapist or paedophile, who was probably bred by your own oh so moral ‘US laws’ to begin with, before wanting an aging man who never harmed anyone and suffered untold traumas in his life, punished for what people practice/d every second of the day and night on this planet at their perfects rights. Except in YOUR sexually repressed country, obviously, having the highest incarceration rate in the world, with many of the cases being ‘statutory rape deals’.
Now go and pat yourself on the back for supporting the glorious cause for innocent men getting raped in jail, condemned to suffering brutal abuse by those YOU accuse them to be in the first place: rapists, victimised and created by YOUR laws, prison inmates and their own guards in a vicious cycle of self-perpetuating lunacy.
DeMoy/Dianne, it's not *my* "book." Statutory rape/rape of a child/sexual knowledge of a minor/etc. is the law. If it's "unsophisticated" of me to believe that a thirteen year old (and especially a drugged thirteen year old) is not legally able to consent to sex with a 43 year old man, then I'm guilty as charged.
Regardless, it comes down to the facts of the case. Polanski gave drugs and alcohol to a child, then had sex with her.
Societies around the world have determined that all of these actions are crimes. As it happens, I fully agree with the vast majority of the rest of the civilized world on this issue.
Polanski committed crimes. He pled guilty to a crime. (Under the law, this does indeed mean that he's a convicted criminal.) He should be held accountable for his crimes.
(For the record, what Polanski did is a crime even in France, though that does not matter because the crime was not committed in France: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe#France)
Whether or not you believe the crimes should be crimes is beside the point. We have laws. He broke them. There are penalties for breaking laws.
Whether or not there are "worse" criminals is also beside the point. Should a murderer go free because there are mass murderers out there? Of course not. There's always a "worse" criminal and such qualifications are subjective. If we break the laws of the societies in which we live, we should pay the consequences.
As for prison violence, that is a separate issue and not an insignificant one.
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