All The Opinions On Roman Polanski’s Rape
ROMAN Polanski is in the dock. How does he plead. His supporters shout: “The Pianist”. His enemies shout “Rapist”. But is 30 years in France enough punishment? Let’s see:
The Big News
The French government has dropped its public support for Roman Polanski, saying the 76-year-old director “is neither above nor beneath the law” – BBC
Well, not quite:
After French politicians across the spectrum initially voiced strong unease over the arrest, a government spokesman modified the official line on Wednesday, saying that Polanski was “neither above nor below the law.”
“A judicial procedure is under way concerning a serious case, the rape of a minor, and the U.S. and Swiss justice systems are doing their work,” spokesman Luc Chatel told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
“On the other hand, there’s emotion, and we can understand the emotion stirred up by this belated arrest, more than 30 years after the events, and the method of the arrest,” he said – Reuters
It’s not law – it’s opinion.
But what we really want to know is what the nodding heads think of it all:
Whoopi Goldberg goes on The View to add to her comments that it wasn’t “rape rape”:
“Some people got the idea that I was condoning what he did. I’m going to be very clear: I was trying to make sure we had our facts straight because that’s my job – particularly about what he was arrested for and what he was charged with, which was unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, not rape, which was my point.” – Contact Music
What her point is is a moot point.
Other views:
Richard Cohen, Washington Post: “A squalid excuse for a man”
Joan Smith, The Guardian: “An unrepentant sex attacker”
Washington Post: “He absconded like a weasel”
Richard Brody, New Yorker: An Oscar is not a get-out-of-jail-freecard (much as it looks like it belongs on a Monopoly board).
Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News: “Even the most ardent and doctrinaire sexual liberationist in the world would be disgusted”
Andy Ostroy, The Huffington Post: “An admitted rapist; an on-the-lam coward”
Don Surber, Daily Mail: “A millionaire fugitive from justice (and admitted child rapist)”
Politics as Usual: “A twisted, mentally ill pervert”
Jerri Thompson, The American Spectator: “abhorrent and deviant”
Michael Wolff, The Huffington Post: “Little Hitler”
Robert Stacy McCain, The Other McCain: “A particularly vile pervert”
Jennifer, In Jennifer’s Head: “Deserves to have his nether regions removed with a rusty scalpel by a drunken, near sighted, baboon.”
Rachel Abrams, The Weekly Standard: “You’d think he was Alger Hiss come back to life and sent back to prison–instead of a convicted pedophile who drugged and raped a little girl.”
Vanessa Feltz, Daily Express: “The American Ronnie Biggs…Biggs’s part in the Great Train robbery involved thuggish violence. Polanski’s crime was even more fundamentally repellent.”
Joe Scarborough, MSNBC: “When a 13 year old girl is raped by a powerful movie director who mocks the legal system by fleeing, I say ‘no mercy.'”
Kate Harding, Jezebel: “Fugitive. Child. Rapist.”
New York Times: “To hear the protests from the French, the Poles and other Europeans, you might have thought the filmmaker was seized by some totalitarian regime for speaking truth to power.”
John Nolte, Big Hollywood: “What exactly would Roman Polanski have to do in order to become a pariah in this town … I mean, besides vote for Sarah Palin”
Robert O. Doherty, Film Spunk: “A low-life scumbag who deserves to do his time.”
Amid all the noise, no one has yet to really mention the most unthinkable consequence overshadowing all of this: that Polanski, 76, could die in jail, either fighting his extradition in Switzerland or withering in a cell in Los Angeles. Surely that couldn’t be justice, could it? For a Holocaust survivor and Manson Family widower (whose wife and unborn son’s killer, coincidentally, died in prison last week) to perish while battling a prosecutor’s politically motivated whim, however legally sound? – Movieline
Cartoon via
The defence:
Robert Harris, NY Times:
I make no apology for feeling desperately sorry for him. The almost pornographic relish with which his critics are retelling the lurid details of the assault (strange behavior, one might think, for those who profess concern for the victim) makes it hard to consider the case rationally. Of course what happened cannot be excused, either legally or ethically.
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Posted: 30th, September 2009 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
