- The then 13 year old child was 13 years old. Mr. Polanski in his 40s.
- Roman Polanski requested permission from the victim's mother to photograph the victim for the French edition of Vogue.
Some would like to argue that she appeared older than she actually was. My counter: why would Mr. Polanski bother to ask her mother permission to photograph her, if he believed at the outset that the victim was not a minor?
This isn't intended to be a post concerning the legal ins and outs of this case, but one thing stands to reason: Mr. Polanski obviously did not want to go to trial for the several charges levelled against him by the State of California in the 1970s. He accepted a plea bargin to reduce the charges to a statutory rape charge. If he was really so adamant about his innocence of the charges presented to him, the he would not have accepted a plea bargain, basically an admission of guilt, to face a charge of a much less severity. He would have been angry at such accusations and would have defended himself to the end.
Instead he accepts a plea bargin and after some time served for psychiatric evaluations, was released on bond where he promptly fled the country, being "on the run" for 30 some years.
I don't know about you, but all of that just screams GUILTY AS HELL to me!
Ok, ok. I will give him the fact that he was probably freaked out and possibly very intimadated as a foreigner by the American justice system. As an American living in Germany, I'll vouch for a very real fear of foreign law enforcement, courts and their processes. I'll also allow that he was scared of the outcome and decided to leave before being wrongly convicted (in his eyes). Why then stay on the run for over 30 years? Wouldn't you want your good name cleared as soon as possible, instead of having these nasty accusations floating around that you're a child raper?
Obviously not.
My point of all this is: why are so many "actors" and many others in the arts coming to his defense? He's allegedly plied a 13 year old girl with drugs and booze and used her however he pleased against her wishes. At the very least he's admitted to having sex with a 13 year old girl (that's what the plea bargain amounts to). Doesn't anyone else find that absolutely appalling? Of course there is the phrase "innocent until proven guilty", so we cannot unilaterally say that he did rape a young girl every which way till Sunday.
However he did agree to the plea bargin, which does amount to sex with a 13 year old girl. Let's forget all about Roman Polanski for a moment. At a work get together, you discover a work collegue who is in his mid-40s, is bonking consenting 13 year old little girls. Your co-worker earns a lot of money because of his job and likes to spend it. He appears wealthy and influential.
The girls are consenting so it's not this big secret you discovered appalls you, right? Riiiiiiight.
You still look at your co-worker the same way and totally respect him still, right? Riiiiiight.
The truth is, if you had a similar situation arise in your own life, you wouldn't think twice about thinking the worst sort about this sleazy person-and that's just someone who sleeps with consenting 13 year old girls, not someone who drugs them to make the raping easier.
Yes, some 13 year old girls develop crushes or infatuations with much older men or men in authority. However, this is what separates the children from the adults. The adults are supposed to know that sexual relations between a person aged in their mid-40s and one that is 13, is just wrong.
I would have thought anybody would have known that. I mean, duh.
So I don't understand this may-jah outpouring of sympathy for Roman Polanski. Arguements of "it happened 30 some years ago" don't really work logically. Good point dipshits! Should we also forget about the Holocaust because it happened 60 years ago? What about the U.S. Civil Rights movement? According to that logic we should start updating our history books as we have a 30 year statue of limitations now.
What should have been a simple plea bargain agreement to a charge which would have pretty much amounted to a slap on the wrist in the grand scheme of things has turned into one of the most ludicrious I've witnessed this year.
Just go to California, go to court like a man and like you should have done ages ago, get your fine/2 week prison sentence/community service deal, what ever it is, and just be done with it. Statutory rape is not the worse charge you could stand trial for, it is not first-degree murder, and as he is now 70 something they are not going to put him away for years and years for being on the run.
Go to California. Stand trial. Accept responsibilty. Stop looking like bitchy old nag.
