http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=5371
Kevin MacDonald
Over 30 years ago, director Roman Polanski raped a 13-year-old girl. The details aren’t pretty. According to the girl’s Grand Jury Testimony, Polanski plied her with enough alcohol and Quaaludes to make her dizzy and disoriented. He then had oral copulation with her, followed by sexual intercourse, and ending with sodomy because he did not want to get her pregnant. In her testimony, the girl made it clear that she went along with Polanski’s advances because of fear.
The girl declined to testify at trial, so Polanski was able to plead guilty to one charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor even though the Grand Jury charged him with rape of a minor, sodomy, rape by use of a drug, and other crimes. He served 42 days in a psychiatric observation facility before fleeing to France. Since 1997, the victim has urged that the charges be dropped, but apparently did so only after receiving a substantial financial settlement.
Polanski’s life as a fugitive has not exactly been a vale of tears. He has directed a number of movies, some with major Hollywood stars. His 2002 Holocaust movie, The Pianist, was widely acclaimed, winning an Oscar for Best Director, among other awards. Of course, we shouldn’t make too much of the fact that The Pianist received quite a few awards, since making movies about the Holocaust is well-known as the key to Oscar success. On the other hand, making movies like the Passion of the Christ brings nothing but opprobrium and charges of anti-Semitism. Why this should be so is one of the great mysteries of life.
Be that as it may, Hollywood is not like the rest of us, and the fault lines are apparent in reaction to Polanski’s recent jailing in Switzerland while awaiting extradition proceedings. An L. A. Times article discusses the gap between the attitudes toward Polanski among Hollywood’s elite and the rest of the country:
From Michael Moore’s politics to on-screen sex and violence, the movie business is constantly being assailed for not sharing the country’s values. Rarely has the morality argument been as rancorous as with the Roman Polanski case.
Hollywood is rallying behind the fugitive filmmaker. Top filmmakers are signing a pro-Polanski petition, Whoopi Goldberg says the director didn’t really commit rape, and Debra Winger complains “the whole art world suffers” in such arrests.
The rest of the nation seems to hold a dramatically different perspective on Polanski’s weekend capture. Even if decades have passed since he fled Los Angeles before his 1978 sentencing, Polanski must be extradited and serve his time, the thinking goes. There’s no excuse for forcing sex on a 13-year-old girl. People who defend him have no principles.
In letters to the editor, comments on Internet blogs and remarks on talk radio and cable news channels, the national sentiment is running overwhelmingly against Polanski — and the industry’s support of the 76-year-old “Pianist” Oscar winner.
The article goes on to suggest that Hollywood’s refusal to condemn Polanski is simply a matter of protecting their own. As evidence, the article notes that even when Mel Gibson spewed his anti-Jewish rant after being arrested for speeding and drunk driving by a Jewish police officer, no one in Hollywood seemed to care.
Actually, there was quite a bit of negative reaction to Gibson’s comments by the powerful in the movie industry, most notably from Rahm Emanuel’s brother Ari. While over 100 of the most prominent Hollywood celebrities have signed a letter supporting Polanski, I am not aware of even one Hollywood celebrity who went to bat for Gibson over his anti-Jewish comments.
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/articles/MacDonald-Polanski.html