I've delayed a posting on the whole mess surrounding Roman Polanski, mostly because I wasn't sure that I should be that concerned. It's not like he hasn't been tried already. The basis for his extradition is for sentencing, not trial. He plead guilty to charges of statutory rape 30+ years ago. So let's not delude ourselves into thinking he deserves some special treatment. Which he has in effect already received by avoiding swift and sure justice of a sentence, at the time given to be basically a thorough mental evaluation and no "real" penalties like say, jail time. Nor should we pretend that some great justice will be served by penalizing him now and throwing the book at him. It won't. This was 30 years ago. The way you detail a penalty within the context of the criminal justice system is to catch people quickly when they violate the laws and penalize them quickly and with some level of certainty in their guilt. We have the certainty part. I presume this was caught quickly relative to the event and brought to the attention of the courts. But coming back around to it 3 decades later doesn't seem all that useful as an example of justice. It's not like he escaped judgment, because we already decreed his guilt through the courts, he instead escaped punishment.
What should have been done is a blacklisting of his abilities in the absence of that legal penalty until he dealt with the problem himself and accounted for the responsibilities involved in cleaning up his own mess. We're seeing this rape described in all manner of defensive characters, from "wasn't rape-rape" to "a moral problem", presumably the moral problem being the age of consent for sexuality rather than the factual assertions that demonstrated guilt of a non-consensual rape in the case, now so far removed as to be described as a "moral problem" rather than a legal one. Instead of that accountability for legal failures that we should demand of people of people who we place some higher levels of trust and attention, what has happened is the cult of celebrity has circled the wagons around someone who was often a vehicle or colleague in that fame. This is not surprising. It's still stupid. But it's not like we have a culture that succeeds in penalizing the powerful when they violate and abuse their authority.
Remember, we're still waiting on the torture memos to get their day in court. Many of the same people attempting to defend that sort of discourse and activity regarding torture are the ones calling for Polanski's head now (WaPo's editorial page for example). Living as I do in some requirements of moral and legal consistency, I'm calling for both of their heads rather than winking at the people who happen to be of a political or professional persuasion affiliated with me and defaming those who happen to be of one which isn't.
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Good for you for saying so. I haven't been able to compose anything beyond a linkfest of the best and worst quotes surrounding the whole fiasco. The old, I want to say something but it's all been said is totally overwhelming on this one. I hadn't noticed that regarding the torture issue correlation. Interesting.
There are plenty of law and order folks, Hollywood types, and the libertarian crowd I frequent who are being consistent and I will applaud that. But there's plenty of mainstream/old school media types that will bend over to protect the Cheneys and Yoos but are going apeshit over Polanski. That bugs me.
I think it's hard for people to separate what they see as personal, sexual, private from the governmental, military, security, etc., even if the very same principle is at stake. Not that that's an excuse, but I just don't think people make the connection. I mean, I wouldn't have if you didn't!
The law ought to be applied equally for the powerful as for the powerless. Simply put, a great artist can be a great artist and a child molester (or not). We can perhaps still respect their art (or not, I know plenty of people who won't listen to old Michael Jackson songs even going back to the Jackson 5, I don't get that sort of revulsion being unable to parse out the person from the productions of the person). But we shouldn't tolerate their behavior when it is illegal and unethical. So what they can make great or powerful movies, songs, paintings, or books. He still raped a teenage girl. We should not have to have this discussion about "what if he wasn't a famous Hollywood director", or commonly in sports a famous athlete, and in politics a governor or a Congressman, in order to debate the penalties and legalities of what was done. Those laws should be the same regardless.
It seems pretty obvious from Roman's behavior, from his own statements, and from the opinions of some of his supporters, that he hasn't seen this as something that he needed to fix or as something wrong. That problem is the same regardless of the source of power. So tying it down to something else, seemingly unrelated, to point out that we just have trouble doing this in a general way relating to any sort of moral and legal boundaries regarding the use of power and authority shouldn't surprise people. If/when we start having different laws for the powerful and the powerless, the outrage over detaining Polanski is probably the "appropriate" response. We're not supposed to have different laws however. So it is misplaced and dumb. These are the same people who enabled him to remain free and continue to work for 30 years. They are, in some cases, complicit in allowing him to "get away with it". Should it be that surprising that they would rush to defend him now? Same deal with WaPo on the torture front.
No, it's not necessarily surprising that they'd do so, I just think it's abhorrent, especially in light of your pointing out (which shouldn't need pointing out) that we DON'T have different laws for the brilliant or powerful and the not so much either.
Sometimes we do by having laws which have disproportionate effects (drug laws concerning crack versus marijuana for example). But the laws themselves are supposed to be inflexible in their application at least.
That's very true. Even crack vs. coke sentences are disproportionate. Which would make sense if you were really sentencing on the basis of addiction potential, but I think cokeheads probably do more harm than crackheads overall. To stay within the spirit of the law via its application seems to be where we get all fucked up. Obviously, I guess.
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