As we noted the other night, Roman Polanski holds duel French and Polish citizenship, and both nations’ governments have been assiduously lobbying for his release, because evidently both governments believe that being famous allows you to rape kids. This has allowed leaders in both countries to join Hollywood in declaring that this is really just a case of American puritanism. Yes, we silly Americans, believing that forcibly raping a child is something that should be punished! Surely our European brethren are much more sophisticated, and understand that it’s okay to drug and rape a barely pubescent girl.
Except — funny thing — it turns out that far from finding Roman Polanski to be a charming guy who makes swell movies and just once kinda sorta raped a child, and then — funny story — only entered into a relationship with a fifteen-year-old for a while, the European public seems to view Polanski as a creepy pederast rapist who should probably face the music.
We start in Poland, home of Anne Applebaum’s husband. Do the Poles think Polanski should go free? Only about as much as they detest the polka:
One of these steps is an appeal letter to Hillary Clinton. Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner are sending it jointly (Polanski holds dual citizenship – Polish and French). The main reason the authorities have now started to take a low-key approach is their electorate. An opinion poll published today shows that less than 25 percent of Poles would like to see Polanski escape another trial. “This is a very surprising result,” says Jan Stolarz, a sociologist with a polling organization.
He told ABC News that “in light of the near-hero status Polanski enjoys here, this is very telling. People no longer believe that achievement can buy you immunity and that all are equal before the law…This is very encouraging,” adds Stolarz.
Results of the opinion poll are reflected by many Web site comments. Most readers would like to see Polanski extradited to the U.S.
“I’m ashamed that my president and a few ministers are protecting a pedophile,” reads one. “Law is law and money cannot buy you justice. Polanski, Obama or Mr. Jones — in a lawful state all are equal.”
To many Poles, Polanski had been an iconic figure. Events from 30 years ago, his past, were just an ambiguous blur, certainly nothing that could overcast his greatness.
Today, there seems to be a change. With Polish public reaction so vocal and negative, with the past once again revealed, Polanski’s tarnished image may never recover in his homeland. Only a handful of politicians and fellow artists appear to be dedicated to saving the icon.
Huh! You don’t say! It seems that the folks in New Europe ((Just wanted to see if I could get all y’all old-school blog readers to flash back to February 2003.)) don’t think it’s okay to excuse an artist for raping a child, just because he happens to be famous. But we all know how those Eastern Europeans are. So Soviet. So repressed. Why, they eat barszcz! And pirogies! Hardly a nation full of extra savoir-faire. So let’s turn to the nation that gave us the beguiling word coquette, la République française.
One would think that France would certainly have rallied around Polanski. This is, after all, the country that gave us Maurice Chevalier, best known for “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.” Lock up a man simply because he got a bit forceful after experiencing le coup de foudre? Quelle horreur!
Now, let me preface this by noting that I have not been able to locate a scientific poll of French attitudes on Polanski. But the anecdotal evidence certainly suggests that far from seeing Polanski as the victim of a femme fatale and a repressed America, they feel that whatever the director’s œuvre, his actions seem pretty close to meurtre de sang-froid:
Marc Laffineur, the vice-president of the French assembly and a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ruling center-right party, the UMP, took issue with the French culture and foreign minister’s remarks supporting Mr. Polanski, saying “the charge of raping a child 13 years old is not something trivial, whoever the suspect is.”
Within the Green party, Daniel Cohn-Bendit — a French deputy in the European parliament whose popularity is rising — also criticized Sarkozy administration officials for leaping too quickly to Mr. Polanski’s side despite the serious nature of his crime. On the extreme right, the father and daughter politicians Jean-Marie and Marine Le Pen also attacked the ministers, saying they were supporting “a criminal pedophile in the name of the rights of the political-artistic class.”
Meanwhile, an international team of lawyers was fighting Tuesday to free Mr. Polanski from a Swiss jail, where he’s being held for possible extradition to the United States. The arrest last weekend of the 76-year-old filmmaker as he arrived at Zurich’s airport to attend a local film festival is quickly exposing deep fault lines between his supporters in the arts, entertainment and politics and his increasingly outspoken critics.
[…]
Marie-Louise Fort, a French lawmaker in the Assembly who has sponsored anti-incest legislation, said in an interview that she was shocked that Mr. Polanski was attracting support from the political and artistic elite. “I don’t believe that public opinion is spontaneously supporting Mr. Polanski at all,” she said. “I believe that there is a distinction between the mediagenic class of artists and ordinary citizens that have a vision that is more simple.”
The mood was even more hostile in blogs and e-mails to newspapers and news magazines. Of the 30,000 participants in an online poll by the French daily Le Figaro, more than 70 percent said Mr. Polanski, 76, should face justice. And in the magazine Le Point, more than 400 letter writers were almost universal in their disdain for Mr. Polanski.
That contempt was not only directed at Mr. Polanski, but at the French class of celebrities — nicknamed Les People — who are part of Mr. Polanski’s rarefied Parisian world. Letter writers to Le Point scorned Les People as the “crypto-intelligentsia of our country” who deliver “eloquent phrases that defy common sense.”
Mon dieu! It seems the oh-so-above-it-all French are, like people everywhere, properly horrified by the rape of a child. Far from being a sign of American prudery, the arrest of Polanski seems to most of France and most of Poland the way it seems to most of America: as the reasonable outcome of a thirty-odd year flight from justice.
Frankly, I’m not surprised. It always seemed to me to be absurd to believe that the French would see rape as a trifling matter. Still, as with the general left-right agreement in America, it’s heartening to see. And it’s a reminder of just how out on an island Polanski’s strongest supporters are.
Frankly, this whole deal seems like a horribly miscalculated populist stunt: Bashing the U.S. usually nets at least a few political points, but this time they picked an issue on which the U.S. and European general public agree on.
Okay, as a member of the Dutch greens, I really happy with Daniel C-B.
But then, we greens tend to consider ourselves feminists :)
Great post, Jeff!
Another data point: According to the AP, the Prime Minister of Poland is (very politely) criticizing members of his government for defending Polanski:
Marie-Louise Fort, a French lawmaker in the Assembly who has sponsored anti-incest legislation, said in an interview that she was shocked that Mr. Polanski was attracting support from the political and artistic elite.
Good. Now maybe the public (both in France and the U.S.) will start questioning some of the OTHER things that the political and artistic elite are telling them.
Ron,
Do you really think people are in such thrall to celebrities that they believe everything they tell them? And is this really the appropriate place to be pushing that line?
Frankly, I think a lot of the rallying around Polanski from his colleagues or whatever you want to call other people in the industry is the same-old, same-old “he’s talented and nice and I’ve sat with him at dinner and not been immediately struck by what a cold-hearted sociopath he is, so rather than rethink my ideas about rape and who commits it, he must not have really committed rape.” This happens at every level of society, and I don’t think it’s unique to the “political and artistic elite.” Those just happen to be who Polanski’s friends are. (While I agree that Levy’s use of the word “common” is very telling, if Polanski were someone else, there would be some other adjective to distinguish him from the “real” criminals.) What’s unique is that Polanski had the resources to leverage his support into escape from justice and continued professional success and that his supporters are people who have, say, newspaper columns and widely read blogs, as opposed to people who are ranting in their living rooms.
Marie-Louise Fort, a French lawmaker in the Assembly who has sponsored anti-incest legislation…
What struck me about this line is, does France not have anti-incest laws?
chingona,
I think there also is a lot of ignorance around the facts of the case. For example, I’ve noticed that many of Polanski’s defenders make much of the judge’s and prosecutor’s ex parte communications (which are indeed improper and sufficient to get them both kicked off the case), and seem to believe that these breaches in legal ethics poisoned the actual prosecution of the case. In fact, Polanski had already pleaded guilty at the point that these breaches occurred. If you enter a plea of guilty and are duly convicted, and then say you’re not really guilty, you can pile perjury on top of the charges against you because you just lied to the court.
If after your guilty plea, the judge and prosecutor then act improperly in determining what your sentence should be, you can get them dismissed from the case and have a new judge assigned. Indeed, the judge who had been presiding over Polanski’s case voluntarily handed it off to another judge after Polanski fled the country. But it’s not like misconduct in obtaining evidence or in witness testimony or in any other aspect of building the case at trial against the defendant. Post-conviction misconduct doesn’t endanger the conviction itself.
Sweden, the Netherlands and France do not prosecute incest, but Sweden is the only one that actually allows siblings to marry.
Oh God, this is all so good to hear. I just saw the cover of the NY Daily News (or was the Post?) calling Polanski’s capture a “perversion of justice”.
Can you get more fucked than that?
I wonder: How many of Polanski’s defenders are mistaken on the facts (or allowing themselves to be willfully misled on the facts) and thus justifying their defense of him, versus how many actually don’t think raping a 13-year old is such a major deal?
If I had faith in human nature, I’d want to believe that most of them are in the former category and susceptible to correction. I lack that faith, unfortunately. Quotes from Polanski 30 years ago, like this one don’t help:
“If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But … fucking, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to fuck young girls. Juries want to fuck young girls. Everyone wants to fuck young girls!”
I suspect that this is true for a modest minority of people (rather than “everyone”) and that those people are tired of the cruel society forcing them to bend to its antiquated moral codes, and see this case as a chance to maybe express that resentment a little bit.
Normally I’m pretty receptive to resentment of cruel society, but in this case, you know, fuck ’em.
And it is weird to be 100% on the same page as Jeff. Go, Jeff.
Robert,
I think there is some sentiment that statutory rape shouldn’t be a crime, and that’s the only crime of which Polanski was convicted (having pleaded to it). A very large number of people are not convinced that the girl was “rape raped” in Whoopi Goldberg’s phrase; they are not convinced that there was any force involved or that she refused consent. The “she’s a slut” defense to rape still looms large socially even though it’s no longer admitted in court, and the fact that the victim admitted to prior sexual experiences means that to some people, she’s not “rape rape”-able despite being 13.
Well, when I’m king those people are going to be looking for their heads.
I’ve seen comments by many people who don’t think statutory rape is a big deal… the fact is that a shapely body doesn’t magically appear when a woman turns 18 and a lot of guys can’t mentally make the distinction between “lusting after” and “it’s okay to have sex with”….
And even those statutory-rape-apologists still say “he drugged her and screwed her in the ass while she was telling him to stop, and 13 is a little outside what I had in mind”.
I think that the concept of “statutory rape” gets a bit difficult when we’re talking about, say, a 13 year old and a 15 year old engaging in sexual activity, and both agree that it was consensual. It’s possible to question whether consent is meaningful for children at that age, but at least there is less likely to be a significant difference in power/authority that could lead to forced “consent” by the younger party; I’ve always assumed those were the main reasons for statutory rape laws.
Exactly. Even if you’re troubled by how statutory rape laws may be applied under certain circumstances, in this case, the significant difference in ages, the significant difference in power, and the fact that the child was drugged and repeatedly said no makes it rape.
I’ve seen plenty of comments to the effect that there was no rape because the 13 year old girl was a slut. Those people either don’t know the facts of the case (drugs, saying, “no,” etc.) or they don’t care about them. They scare the living shit out of me.
In most places, I think there has to be a minimum age difference between perp and victim to be considered statutory rape. Sex under a certain age is illegal even if the partner’s age is similar in many places, but usually these laws aren’t seriously enforced.
But I’m not that knowledgeable in this part of the law.
Hell, I think that statutory rape laws can be draconian. A seventeen year-old boy and sixteen-year old girl who are dating shouldn’t be prosecuted to take an example.
But troubling border cases have nothing to do with this. In HIS version of the story he (a 41 year old man) gave her (a 13 year old girl) quaaludes and champagne before having sex with her. And he isn’t one of those “oops I didn’t know she was underage and she looked so much older” cases either. He had actual knowledge of her age. Even if the facts were exactly as HE portrayed them, he didn’t get railroaded.
The opinions in Europe are instructive in that they illuminate part of the class difference which really is somewhat stronger in Europe. The average person on either side of the Atlantic sees this as disgusting. The ruling class in Europe is a bit more disconnected but in Europe they don’t have to care as much about general opinion on anything. (Which is not to say that the US is free of disconnected elite–but that the markers aren’t as relatively strong, and the disconnect isn’t relatively as large).
Sylphhead: I think my concern about laws that aren’t “seriously enforced” is that to me, that suggests that sometimes they might be enforced when perhaps they shouldn’t be, or not enforced when they should be, and that if the law isn’t seriously enforced, there is a risk that the crime will be dismissed as less serious.
I should have specified that I’m not a lawyer myself, though.
Additionally, and I don’t know what to make of this, this reveals another split. The left and right wings of the blogosphere are for the most part in unison on this issue. The split is between new media and old. The defenders appear in op-ed columns and on TV media. I don’t know if this is a reflection of the class issue, or if it is something else. But it seems worth noticing.
Sebastian,
HuffPo is pretty new media, and it’s been a bastion of Polanski defenders. I think the split is more fundamentally between “the kind of people who have met or are likely to meet Polanski” (Hollywood, diplomats and their spouses, famous novelists) and “everybody else.”
From novelist Robert Harris in the NYT:
Another instance of someone who appear to believe that post-conviction misconduct negates the conviction itself.
You know, Mr. Harris, you could shield the victim and her family from distress if you stopped naming her. Why not give her the respect that you appear to want to give her? Also, there are lots of criminals’ young children who want their doting fathers home. Alas, our justice system doesn’t really factor that into sentencing.
Not to mention another depressingly predictable fallout: increased distrust of those perceived as intelligentsia.
I would take the Polanski apologist position on the victim seriously if at any time in the past 30 years, any of them had suggested to good ol’ Roman that he might want to get the case settled, so that his victim could get on with her life. Funny, it wasn’t that important when it didn’t work in our pal Roman’s favor.
Can anybody fill me in on the Feminist Majority Foundation? Here’s the opinion of their founder on the matter, in the 11th pararaph:
I wonder what Ms. Yorkin’s opinion would be if Mr. Polanski was an abortion opponent who had suffered much personal tragedy?
It was most distressing to me that Milan Kundera was one of those who signed the petition. Kinda puts his lofty ideals in a whole new light for me. What a shame.
With regard to a sexual assault victim who wants the extradition of her assailant stopped because she’s tired of the publicity, MSN.com has brilliantly decided to prominently feature a picture of her on their website for “Week in Search” with the caption “Who is Samantha Geimer?”
That. Is. Fucked. UP. Anything for a click.
One particularly wrong-headed argument I’ve seen is that Roman Polanski is 76 years old and therefore doesn’t pose a danger to society – I suppose because at his age he probably can’t get it up anymore, or is at least unlikely to have the energy to assault any more 13 year olds. This argument is completely missing the point.
The danger Polanski poses to society is the danger of allowing a convicted child rapist and fugitive from justice to get away with it. He’s a bad example. He says to all of us, “if you’re rich and famous and have enough influential friends, you can do whatever you want, and the law doesn’t care.”
This damages our already fragile (Cheney?) faith in the impartial administration of
justice. That’s the real, and quite serious, danger Polanski poses to society. Nobody cares what his withered member may or may not still be able to do.