Roman Polanski arrested, Hollywood up in arms
I know, it is ignorant of me to believe that anything other than bottom-feeder opinions would come out of Hollywood, but I still have this small part of my soul that believes that not even Hollywood or the pathetic bunch of talentless vagabonds out there would embrace a child rapist. I just didn’t truly believe that it would happen. Sadly, I was wrong.
The petition went through the film community to leave Mr. Polanski alone, which apparently drew signatures from well over 100 movers and shakers in the film community.
Most are European and unfamiliar, but among the people whose movies I’ll never watch again: Jonathan Demme, John Landis, Michael Mann, Martin Scorsese, and, bless his heart, Woody Allen, who I guess was forced to sign lest the press seize on the idea of a guy who married his almost-stepdaughter passing judgment on Polanski. Open question to any of these rape-defending turds: How far would you have let Polanski go before deciding that, hey, he probably should serve some time after all? What if he punched the kid in the face when he was raping her? Beat her with a tire iron? Seriously, how far?
Of course there was also Whoopi Goldberg, who made one of the truly inane, ludicrous, stupidly mystifying comments I have heard in quite some time. She stated that whatever Polanski was guily of, it wasn’t rape-rape. This apparently sweeps us into the parallel universe where there is rape, and then there is rape-rape. No apparent explanation from the always intellectually stimulating Goldberg as to what actually defines rape-rape, or if there may be a higher level of rape-rape-rape. For those not familiar, Polanski plead guilty, and admitted to drugging, sodomizing, and having sex with a 13 year old girl back in 1976. So apparently the three-pronged attack he unleashed on this young girl doesn’t qualify as rape-rape. I guess it depends on what is is….
Then there are the French. Our good friends the French. 
One thing that is missing in this entire debate that is being had about film director Roman Polanski. He has been evading the law for 30 years. It is not as if they have been actively pursuing him for 30 years. He has been conciously staying out of countries that have extradition treaties with the United States, so he will not have to face the justice he deserves. He simply made a mistake based on his own ego to travel to Switzerland to receive some other useless award to make himself feel good, and uh-oh…someone tipped off the US Marshall service, and he was arrested.
But oh, the French government has something to say about this (Polanski is a French citizen).
While other politicians decline to comment, the French culture minister, Frédéric Mitterrand, says he is “dumbfounded” by Polanski’s “absolutely dreadful” detention, declaring forcibly that it made “no sense” for the director to be “thrown to the lions for an ancient story, imprisoned while travelling to an event that was intending to honour him: caught, in short, in a trap”. The film-maker, Mitterrand continued, has “had a difficult life” but has “always said how much he loves France, and he is a wonderful man”. There is, he added for good measure, “a generous America that we love, and a certain America that frightens us. It’s that America that has just shown its face.”
Meanwhile, a large group of French actors and cinematographers including Fanny Ardant, Pierre Jolivet, Jean-Jacques Beineix and Bertrand Tavernier have signed an angry petition calling for Polanski’s “immediate liberation”, considering it “inadmissible” that “an international cultural event paying homage to one of the greatest of contemporary cineastes” should be turned into “a police trap”. Polanski, said their petition – organised by Thierry Frémaux, director of the Cannes film festival – is “a French citizen, an artist of international renown, and is now threatened with extradition. That extradition . . . would deprive him of his liberty. We demand that he be freed immediately
French president Sarkozy as well as Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner have called on the Swiss government to release Polanski as soon as possible. Apparently, the law abiding citizens of this country who think that Polanski should come home and face the music (no pun intended) represent the “certain America that frightens” the French. That is one seriously pathetic statement from a high level French government official.
What is the obsession with this man? Really…I can’t figure this out. He is a pedophile, yes he has lived a rough life, but one must remember that he willfully imposed hell on a 13 year old girl that had been entrusted to his film career. He admitted to this. There was a deal in place (who knows what it might have actually been) but he was facing possible imprisonment and fled like a coward. Yet, he is some Kennedy-esqe lionized figure in Europe and throughout the Hollywood establishment. Its a twisted morality and lack of values that haunts the establishment, and its on full display right now.
Congratulations to the United States Marshall Service for apprehending Roman Polanski. It is about time he came back to the US and be brought to justice.
