Getting a woman drunk in order to have sex with her ...is rape.
Giving a woman drugs in order to have sex with her ... is rape.
Having sex with a woman who has said "No" ... is rape.
Having sex with a woman below the legal age of consent ... is rape.
Roman Polanski did all of these things. He is a rapist. He has plead guilty and has been convicted.
Instead of going to jail, however, Polanski hopped on a plane and fed-exed himself to France, evidently thinking that he is a genius and as such above such bourgeois mundanities as the law.
And instead of asking him who the fuck he thought he was and hauling his ass to jail, the world nodded and went "Oh, right, of course. He's a genius. How rude of us to have bothered him in the first place." (Because really, what would have become of us if he hadn't given us, the poor, non-genius masses, the wonder that is "Pirates".) And they left him alone. They left him alone for years, and that idea of poor, poor Roman Polanski as a victim of heavy-handed "justice" (which was probably motivated by envy, anyway) took root and festered, until people were saddned that poor, poor, Oscar-nominated Polanski couldn't attend the award ceremony.
And now that he has finally (FINALLY) been arrested, people who have power and a voice, people who really ought to know better, are outraged and - it would seem - almost insulted on a personal level. Frédéric Mitterand has apparently said that this is "a terrible thing and very unfair." Bernard Kouchner called it "not nice at all."
D'you know what I think is a terrible thing? A society that teaches men that being a genius means you can rape girls.
Giving a woman drugs in order to have sex with her ... is rape.
Having sex with a woman who has said "No" ... is rape.
Having sex with a woman below the legal age of consent ... is rape.
Roman Polanski did all of these things. He is a rapist. He has plead guilty and has been convicted.
Instead of going to jail, however, Polanski hopped on a plane and fed-exed himself to France, evidently thinking that he is a genius and as such above such bourgeois mundanities as the law.
And instead of asking him who the fuck he thought he was and hauling his ass to jail, the world nodded and went "Oh, right, of course. He's a genius. How rude of us to have bothered him in the first place." (Because really, what would have become of us if he hadn't given us, the poor, non-genius masses, the wonder that is "Pirates".) And they left him alone. They left him alone for years, and that idea of poor, poor Roman Polanski as a victim of heavy-handed "justice" (which was probably motivated by envy, anyway) took root and festered, until people were saddned that poor, poor, Oscar-nominated Polanski couldn't attend the award ceremony.
And now that he has finally (FINALLY) been arrested, people who have power and a voice, people who really ought to know better, are outraged and - it would seem - almost insulted on a personal level. Frédéric Mitterand has apparently said that this is "a terrible thing and very unfair." Bernard Kouchner called it "not nice at all."
D'you know what I think is a terrible thing? A society that teaches men that being a genius means you can rape girls.
Atheist Amen.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely right. The whole Polanski thing is a shame. And inviting him to honorary events is not exactly what society should do with/to men like him.
ReplyDeleteO tempora...
(for intellectuality's sake ;) )