Why did American prosecutors decide to go after Roman Polanski last weekend, more than 30 years after the Oscar-winning director fled the United States before his sentencing for the 1977 rape of 13-year-old Samantha Gailey? The timing of his arrest in Switzerland on Sunday might seem arbitrary, since Polanski has been traveling between his main residence in Paris and his chalet in Gstaad for years without incident. But the chronology is not random, and it has everything to do with Polanski’s celebrity status—and perhaps with the hubris that goes along with it.
Society has special rules for the famous. For many years, that apparently helped to shield Polanski from prosecution. Salon’s Kate Harding argues that the only reason Polanski was allowed to roam free in Europe for three decades, making award-winning films and vacationing at ski chalets, was because the normal legal rules didn’t apply to him. But they should have. “Drugging and raping a child, then leaving the country before you can be sentenced for it, is behavior our society should not—and at least in theory, does not tolerate, no matter how famous, wealthy or well-connected you are,” she writes.
Other celebrities have seemed similarly exempt. In 1988, Rob Lowe videotaped himself having sex with a 16-year-old girl during the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta. According to the O.C. Register, the mother of the girl filed a civil suit, but criminal charges were never pursued.
The Hollywood producer Dino DeLaurentis and “half a dozen other cigar-smoking moguls” told Lowe that he “would make it through this seamy dark night of the soul,” according to Entertainment Weekly. They pointed to the precedent set by Errol Flynn. The swashbuckling actor was tried and acquitted for two statutory rapes in 1942 even though “it was never seriously in doubt that he had had sex with Betty Hansen and Peggy Satterlee, both underage,” as EW put it. According to Leo Braudy, a professor at USC and the author of The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and its History, statutory rape “wasn’t seen as a problem” at the time of Flynn’s trial. And so the trial and acquittal “actually enhanced Flynn’s reputation.
Polanski’s crime is more polarizing than Flynn’s and Lowe’s for a few reasons. The first is that while Polanski said the sex was consensual (admitting to statutory rape), Gailey says it was not. In her grand jury testimony about how Polanski vaginally and anally raped her, Gailey sounds disturbingly young—she refers to oral sex as “cuddliness.”
Also bad for Polanski: He was never seen as a lighthearted, suave cad in the tradition of Flynn and Lowe. The career of Fatty Arbuckle, a much less attractive, far darker character, is more instructive. The New York Times describes Arbuckle’s early screen presence as “A leering country bumpkin with barnyard manners and a libido to match.” When he was accused of raping and murdering 28-year-old actress Virginia Rappe, he confirmed his public’s worst expectations, and he was banned from the movie business for several years, even though his name was eventually cleared. As Braudy points out, Polanski is an object of fascination because of the link between his artistic output—movies like Rosemary’s Baby and Repulsion—and his morbid past. His wife Sharon Tate was brutally murdered by the Manson Family in 1969 when she was eight months pregnant, and his mother died in the Holocaust.
Jessica Grose is the managing editor of Double X and the co-author of Love, Mom: Poignant, Goofy, Brilliant Messages from Home. Click here to follow her on Twitter.
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Comments
So many things wrong with this picture.
By: Casey Loufek | Fri, 12/04/2009 - 16:38
What sickens me most about this is that his plea bargin allowed his actual crimes, of drugging and raping this girl, to be thrown out and only have to face penalties for statutory "rape". The message sent by such a bargin is that society finds it acceptable to rape and drug someone (at least if you're rich), so long as that person is not "under age".
Does no other feminist or rights activist see how distrubingly totalitarian and sexist this situation is? Nevermind that age of consent varies widely globally and there is no actual scientific evidence to support a thresh-hold age model. What about the clear message sent: Whether or not she participated willingly and whether she was drugged are not as signifigant to society as her age. In fact in light of his celebrity status those two factors were apparently considered totally insignifigant. Oh sure, her lawyer encouraged Polanski to take the plea bargin, but why offer it in the first place? To protect the girl's identity (well that worked) and spare her having to testify (she already testified to the grand jury). The second reason might make sense, except that if you think about it... she'd already been raped and testified before a grand jury, wouldn't it be better to actually confront him on the matter than go through that much for nothing? The grand jury testimony on it's own would be pretty damning. Victims of other crimes don't generally avoid testifing, and newspapers don't make special considerations for their identities. It is humilating to be a victim, and especially humilating to be a victim of sex crime, but why is it only humilating to stand up to your victimizer if it was a sex crime? It seems to me we are still rooted in very disturbing Puritan ideas. The idea that sex is inherently vile, even if you don't consent or even react you cannot be part of it without being tainted. The idea that it would be better for her if people did not know, even if it meant her rapist went free. With sex crimes we expect the victims to feel as much shame as anger, we even expect them to feel as much shame as the victimizer. This idea that sex is somehow inherently evil has to go if we expect sexually assault to be reliably reported, investigated, and dealt with. This means that technicalties like statutory "rape" have to go. These laws do not help women, who as girls find that their "consent" is up to their parents while boys are less closely watched and if they are actually raped will probably be forced to let their rapist get away with this lesser charge. They do not help men, who, as boys, can and have been prosecuted for engaging in willing sex with partners of a similair age. They are incredibly homophobic, being disproportionately applied to homosexual relationships. I believe they only people such laws actually serve are conservative parents of liberal children. It is an affront to reason to say that a rapist like Polanski is equivlient to a young man having consentual sex with his girlfriend and later being charged by her parents. Yet that is exactly what statutory rape laws do. Rape is rape; "unlawful sex" is not, nessicarily, rape. I don't think it's coincidence that "unlawful sex" is what I hear fundamentalists call pre-marital sex.
Teenage Rape Survivor Starts own Petition
By: Real Deal 101 | Fri, 10/02/2009 - 18:33
Teenage Rape Survivor's petition asks for no preferentail treatment of Polanski. Calls him a coward who fled thinking he was bigger than the coutry who gave him the fame he so much enjoys. I signed it. Hope you do too.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/nomeansnomeansnomenasno
Celeb status
By: kholerik | Fri, 10/02/2009 - 03:43
I agree that he is being treated differently because of his status as a celebrity. If he was an "ordinary" man the prosecutor wouldn't even care after such a long time. Let alone ask the Swiss to arrest a foreign national and extradict him. It is quite ridiculous to see people raving about how other celebs are pleading for Polanski's release and that celebrities get treated better, when in fact his arrest was only because of him being so well-known.
The weight of voices
By: sadpear | Thu, 10/01/2009 - 11:50
It is so disheartening to see not just the usual vicious comments blaming a 13 year old girl for her own rape, but to see so many famous people throwing their support behind a man who admitted to raping a child.
There's a petition for people to demand Polanski be held accountable for his crimes that's gotten more than 1,100 signatures in less than twenty hours. Do the voices of "ordinary" people weigh the same as celebrities?
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/art-does-not-excuse-rape-polanski-must-...
SHE SAID NO
By: feministworkingmom | Thu, 10/01/2009 - 11:17
The simple fact that the girl was only 13 years old and a 13 year old is not able to legally consent to sex makes it rape. Oh, and SHE SAID NO. REPEATEDLY. Read the grand jury testimony. There is not gray. This was rape.
One thing is painfully obvious...
By: BlueDahlia77 | Thu, 10/01/2009 - 05:29
All of the men in Hollywood (Weinstein, Scorcese) calling for the charges to be dropped have not been the victims and survivors of childhood sexual assault. Because if they were, they would not be saying that the charges should be dropped.
I feel for Ms. Gailey, since she is also correct in her belief that she has been victimized worse in the 30+years since the assault took place. However, I do not agree that the charges should be dismissed and that Polanski should go free. What would such an action say to all of the other past and current victims/survivors of childhood sexual assault and molestation? The predators who commit these crimes rely on fear to silence their victims; and the only thing that can help assuage those fears is the knowledge that by coming forward to the authorities, survivors can receive justice in court.
Too many survivors have had to see their attackers go free.
Roman Polanski's Arrest Is His Own Fault
By: Janet | Thu, 10/01/2009 - 02:08
Regardless of or if it was "consensual" he was convicted even it the judge was a media preener. Just because he managed to get away with it for so many years does not justify him getting off of the conviction.If this had happened in this day and age he would have been ruined and mobbed hanged.The girl was just 13, no girl gives consensual consent at that age, not now and certainly not then. He's done a nice job trying to paint the US as a big old prudish meanie, where as the European elite see him as a victim and are more enlightened about sex supposedly. A bunch of garbage. And the only reason I think the woman has now backed off is because no one bothered to defend her, and catch this guy for so many years, letting him get away with it and basically saying too bad at her. Poor woman just wants it to end anyway it can. I hope he goes either to jail or at most gets a new trial.
Best
I, like many commenters here,
By: vardaman | Thu, 10/01/2009 - 01:36
I, like many commenters here, have been rather bemused by the filmmaking community's defense of Polanski. Polanski committed a crime. He pled guilty to that crime. And then he fled. He was perfectly within his right's to remain in exile in France but he has always known he was at risk of arrest as soon as he entered Switzerland. If it's true that we should separate "the man" from the "artist" (a difficult proposition that, nonetheless, I agree with) than surely the flipside to "'The Pianist' is a great film, even though Polanski's a rapist," must surely be "Polanski's a rapist even though he makes great films." Polanski the artist isn't the one who has been arrested, it's Polanski the man, and a the rapist, who has. And I say that as a tremendous fan of a man I consider to be one of the greatest living filmmakers.
Still, I think there are two things troubling about the decision to arrest him. The biggest of these is that the victim herself has not just "publicly forgiven him," as this article points out. She appeared at the hearing to dismiss the charges and asked that they be dropped. She's gone so far as to say that the prosecutors, judge and media all victimized her worse than Polanski. That doesn't mean he should just get off the hook, but it does put things in the right context. The prosecutors are not acting on the behalf of a victim who fears Polanski, or even on behalf of potential future victims, since the surest way to protect the young women of California is to keep Polanski abroad with the threat of arrest.
Secondly, I think it gives the prosecutors in this case far too much credit to say that Polanski "practically dared" them to take action. What he did was question the ethics of one of their colleagues -- the prosecutor who convinced the judge that, against the wishes of all involved parties, Polanski's plea agreement should be ignored -- and ask that the charges be dropped. The DA's office is embarrassed by the case. They can't put him in jail because he's in France. His victim thinks of herself as a victim of their office. And then he dares to ask that the charges be dropped?
It truly is fair to think that in certain ways, Polanski's fame and infamy apply not looser but stricter rules to his conduct. It's difficult to imagine a person whose case didn't generate intense media scrutiny facing an identical situation being arrested at this exact moment. DA's usually have better things to do than pursue the sentencing of criminals who have been in exile for 30 years when no one who was actually involved thinks he should go to jail. But because Polanski and others have dared to embarrass the DA in public, he's been arrested. Even if he deserves it, it's worth keeping in mind the petty, base motivations that actually led to his arrest now, and not many years ago.
Where is Chris Hansen of Dateline : To Catch a Predator???
By: rwradvent | Thu, 10/01/2009 - 01:06
I would love to see Chris Hansen interview this guy in one of those sleazy kitchen or living room scenarios (and also maybe some of his defenders).
Hansen: "So who is the Champagne for sir? Were you gonna give any to the 13-year-old? And what is that in the little bag in your pocket? Just a sliver of a Quaalude? Just what were you planning on doing with that? Did you know how old this girl was sir? I think you did because you recruited her for your photo shoot and you saw the signed documents stating her age."
Polanski: "I read the documents but she was just another sexy young model, you see I just like sometimes to do things with them...have some fun".
Hansen: So you wanted to have sex with her? anal, oral and vaginal, With a 13 year old girl?
....After some listening to somem more oral yammering in a french accent attempting to justify this sex crime against a young girl Hansen finally has enough.....
Hansen: "But Mr Polanski she was 13, THIRTEEN SIR! did it ever cross your mind that you were over 40 and she was 13 and maybe giving her a drug and alchohol, which was also illegal by the way, and having sex with her was very very wrong? And illegal in the USA?"
Hansen: Do you ever watch American television Mr Polanski?
Polanski: sometimes.
Hansen: Do you ever watch Dateline?
Polanski: Dateline?
Hansen: Dateline NBC. Did you ever see our stories on sex predators?
Polanski: No I never do watch that.
Hansen: This is one of them.
Polanski: Sacre Bleu! (as camera crew comes out)
Hansen: Well if you do not have anymore to say to the cameras and the USA television audience now the police are waiting outside to taser you, throw you down on the ground, handcuff you and book you into county jail, fingerprint you and put you in an orange jump suit after taking some really unflattering pictures that will be posted on the internet and youtube and checking your butt for drugs.
Way to blame the victim
By: labecca | Thu, 10/01/2009 - 00:01
Way to blame the victim piperpaulie. Yes I remember girls in their young teens who were curious about 'de nasty' and acted on it but that does not excuse Polanski. The question is not "What the fuck was she doing with him?" It is what the fuck was he doing with her? Polanski should have known (and probably knew) that as an adult he was in a better position to manipulate and take advantage of Gailey. That's why they have statutory rape laws to protect curious teens.
But Polanski did not just statutory rape this girl. There was no consent. He drugged her and he rapped her. She told him no repeatedly. And while she was telling him no (while on drugs and alcohol) he was performing oral sex and then vaginally and anally rapping her. No one deserves or asks for that even if she was a thirteen year old curious about 'de nasty.'
On anther note I loved the article but I was a little upset by the title "Why is Hollywood so nice to Statutory Rapists." I think Slate was being too nice to Polanski because again he did not commit statutory rape he raped a thirteen year old girl. I do not like the media down playing his actions.
And by the way, piperpaulie, the judge couldn't do his job Polanski fled the country before being sentenced. Polanski needs to finish his trial and accept any sentence given to him.