Roman Polanski: It's worth repeating

[eumelia]

My last word on Roman Polanski, because honestly, what more can be said that hasn't.

I'll just repeat; the fact that he himself was a victim of violence, had a traumatic life and is a brilliant artist (yes, I love Rosemary's BabY and Chinatown) doesn't excuse the fact that he raped a child.

Drugged and raped a child.

Plead guilty in a plea bargain and then ran away because the deal looked as though it was about to fall through.

Art, power and money doesn't excuse the fact that he committed a crime against the body of a girl-child (btw, if it had been a 13 year old boy, I think we would be hearing a very different tune) and against the basic ideas that the law applies to every single one of us, no matter how clever, powerful and the fact that people really, really like the stuff we make.

For some reason, this is a hard concept to grasp for some people.

Art Does Not Excuse Rape.

These people make me happy for the amount of time I take to think about this issue.

This is not just about Roman Polanski. This is about the character of our society. The justice system is not perfect anywhere, but accountability and responsibility should not be taken for granted and the default of the oppressive patriarchy that has allowed Polanski to evade justice for so long should not be upheld.

It wounds and hurts too many of us to count.

N.B.
The Pianist was probably the worst movie he ever made.

Edited to Add:
In the comments avgboojie says, quite rightly, that 13 years of age, isn't really a child:

I want to stress one important point: a 13 year old girl is not "a child".
Sorry. I don't know of any definition by which a 13 year old girl is a child. 13 year old girls are almost always post-puberty, sometimes (perhaps often) have active sex lives of their own, and while they are considered minors by law, they are not children (for instance, a person having sex with a 13 year old is not a pedophile, since these focus on pre-puberty children).
I think referring to a 13 year old as "a child" (something which is most probably done because "raped a child" sounds far more shocking than "raped an adolescent" or "raped a young woman") is disrespectful towards the 13-year-old person, disowning them of any right to be considered a semi-grown person with free will and any capability for adult reasoning.

The legal status of minors renders them as powerful as children in the eyes of the law, but not in their own eyed.
Her age and own perception doesn't make the rape and assault any less criminal or heinous.
The acknowledgement of this, is also of importance.

Comments

[avgboojie.livejournal.com]

While I don't have an opinion about all else (I have decided not to actually form an opinion about criminal issues until I read at least part of the evidence material or similar stuff, since what you read in newspapers is usually populistic crap, and very seldom has anything to do with reality), I want to stress one important point: a 13 year old girl is not "a child".
Sorry. I don't know of any definition by which a 13 year old girl is a child. 13 year old girls are almost always post-puberty, sometimes (perhaps often) have active sex lives of their own, and while they are considered minors by law, they are not children (for instance, a person having sex with a 13 year old is not a pedophile, since these focus on pre-puberty children).
I think referring to a 13 year old as "a child" (something which is most probably done because "raped a child" sounds far more shocking than "raped an adolescent" or "raped a young woman") is disrespectful towards the 13-year-old person, disowning them of any right to be considered a semi-grown person with free will and any capability for adult reasoning.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

[nods] that's a very good point and one I lapsed on.

Would it be all right if c/pied your comment to the body of this post (with credit of course!)?

[avgboojie.livejournal.com]

Of course.

I beg to differ.

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

First of all, to be pedantic, 13 year old girls are most often (NOT "almost always") post-menarche, but are much less frequently post-puberty. But I don't think that it makes sense to use the onset of puberty to determine when people have the maturity to be capable of consenting to sex with someone several years older than themselves.

I do, however, think that treating 13-year-olds as children under sexual assault law, and using language that reflects that, makes the utmost sense. When one is trying to adjust to the changes of puberty, someone who's been through that can easily exploit the uncertainty inherent in pubescence; there's a huge power dynamic. That of course is on top of the power dynamic inherent in the fact that thirteen-year-olds spend their whole lives being told what to do (by teachers, parents, etc.) so while at that age they're likely beginning to assert themselves, saying "no" on something big is likely not something they've done before. In cases with a huge power dynamic it's impossible to consent. So in terms of their ability to consent to sex with a 30-year-old, a 13-year-old is just as much a child as a 5-year-old.

[(Anonymous)]

Regarding the age question (which was posed as a semantics question - and I agree with the oiint that the term 'child' has been used in this case for emotional impact - but still relates also to the matter of age and consent), I saw a very poignant thing about this in the Salon article 'Reminder: Roman Polanski raped a child' (linked below the quote):

"Though of course everyone makes a bigger deal of her age than her testimony that she did not consent, because if she'd been 18 and kept saying no while he kissed her, licked her, screwed her and sodomized her, this would almost certainly be a whole different story -- most likely one about her past sexual experiences and drug and alcohol use, about her desire to be famous, about what she was wearing, about how easy it would be for Roman Polanski to get consensual sex, so hey, why would he need to rape anyone? It would quite possibly be a story about a wealthy and famous director who pled not guilty to sexual assault, was acquitted on "she wanted it" grounds, and continued to live and work happily in the U.S. Which is to say that 30 years on, it would not be a story at all. So it's much safer to focus on the victim's age removing any legal question of consent than to get tied up in that thorny "he said, she said" stuff about her begging Polanski to stop and being terrified of him."

http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/09/28/polanski_arrest


And okay, she also uses 'child' for emotional impact. So what. The more important thing in this matter is not to forget that it was RAPE, pure and simple. She was drugged. She said no. Her age was way under the consent line, but even if it weren't, she did not consent. And yeah, if the fact people see her as a 'child' instead of as a 'young adult' helps them concentrate on the fact that what he did was INCREDIBLY WRONG, then let them call her a child.