… I would keep my mouth shut and hope that people just forget about me. Polanski is the film director who pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a 13-year old minor after drugging her, and then fled abroad to escape serving his punishment. Following the recent spate of charges of sexual harassment, abuse, and rape, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has expelled him, along with Bill Cosby. Why it did so long after his conviction is clear. Cosby was recently found guilty for his actions and expelling him while keeping Polanski would have raised awkward questions.
You would think that Polanski would be thanking his lucky stars that he is not serving jail time. After all, he is presumably living in luxury in Europe. True, he cannot return to the US but that would seem like a small price to pay for his escape from justice, and expulsion from the Academy would be seen as trivial, especially since it refrained from doing so for 41 years. But no, it seems to have rankled and he has decided to publicly whine about his travails and in the process hit out at the #MeToo movement.
The Oscar-winning filmmaker has called the #MeToo movement a “collective hysteria of the kind that sometimes happen in society.” Polanski’s diagnosis of what is otherwise considered a galvanizing and meaningful reckoning with pervasive patterns of sexual misconduct appeared in the Polish Newsweek.
…According to the Associated Press, which first flagged the Newsweek interview, Polanski also said, “Everyone is trying to sign up, chiefly out of fear.” He compared those participating in the movement and the ensuing investigations to public mourning in North Korea when leaders die: Everyone cries histrionically because “you can’t help laughing.”
“To me this is total hypocrisy,” he said.
….Facing a comeuppance as his industry discovers its conscience, Polanski’s reflex unsurprisingly isn’t just to dismiss the movement entirely, but to retaliate with self-victimization, a uniting refrain of so many of the accused.
Polanski’s lawyer called the Academy’s expulsion “psychological abuse of an elderly person” for “populist goals.”
It is astounding that Polanski does not realize that he is perhaps one of the last people we want to hear pontificating about the #MeToo movement. The lack of self-awareness and sense of entitlement of these people is unbelievable.
There’s actually a good case to be made for hypocrisy: The Academy didn’t expel him for years. The movie studios and distribution companies made money off him. His subsequent films were eligible for awards for those who helped him make his movies and build his fortune, even if he couldn’t attend the ceremony. (I presume at least a few of the actors, cinematographers, composers and what have you were nominated and got to be celebrated for their work with Polanski, but I haven’t checked.)
Now they throw him out?
Yes, with so many people involved in one way or another over the years, it’s impossible that none of them are guilty of hypocrisy. Nevertheless,
1. It’s also impossible that none of them are genuinely trying to do the right thing after a legitimate change of heart about what constitutes justice in Polanski’s case
2. It’s also impossible that none of them have consistently opposed Polanski’s ongoing embrace by the Academy but couldn’t organize a majority to throw him out until recently
and
3. Even for those who are genuinely hypocritical on this issue, it’s good to remember that there are much worse things that a person could be than a hypocrite. A convicted child rapist is one.
(I presume at least a few of the actors, cinematographers, composers and what have you were nominated and got to be celebrated for their work with Polanski, but I haven’t checked.)
Come on, Crip Dyke, next you’ll tell me that Adrien Brody won Best Actor in a film directed by Polanski!
Oh, wait, bad example
They should have booted Polanski years ago. What he did was horrible, and he was a complete coward about facing up to it.
To be fair, there were already plenty of awkward questions being asked about that. Prior to Cosby however, they were happy to simply ignore them.
It occurs to me, immediately after hitting post, that the Weinsteins and similar might actually be reluctant to have Polanski join their martyrdom club. Most of them remain free as they have not been convicted of anything criminal, Cosby of course being a major exception, but then even Cosby protested his innocence throughout. Polanski on the other hand took a plea bargain, admitting to having sex with a 13 year old, and then fled sentencing.
Mano, if you were Roman Polanski you’d be living in LA right now because you wouldn’t have committed rape in the first place.
Well, if I was Roman Polanski I wouldn’t have drugged and sodomized a 13 year old girl. Heck, even Bill Mahar thinks that was completely out of line.