Roman Polanski and Hollywood’s Rape Apologists

by Amy Hill Schaffer ‘09

The ongoing case of Roman Polanski has had an interesting and disturbing effect on the public perception of Hollywood celebrities. People who were previously disliked, or merely unnoticed, are suddenly showered with praise. The reason? They’re not rape apologists.

This is a sign of how low our standards have become, when the sign of being a good person is simply not supporting a child rapist.

A petition to free Roman Polanski was signed by many prominent actors and directors. Among them: Martin Scorsese, Terry Gilliam, Harrison Ford, Penelope Cruz, Natalie Portman, Guillermo del Toro, and Woody Allen (because if Woody Allen thinks child rape is okay… oh, wait). A much shorter list of celebrities speaking out against Roman Polanski includes Neil Gaiman, Kirstie Alley, Geraldine Ferraro, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Roman Polanski raped a child. None of this “had sex with” bullshit. None of this “well she was almost fourteen” bullshit about how they just have different sexual morals in Europe. It doesn’t matter how old a person is; drugging her, getting her drunk, ignoring her requests to stop, and using your power as an older person and authority figure to gain compliance is rape. Any one of those things alone would be rape. All of them together just makes the case that much more clear.

Polanski has apparently (according to his supporters) had a “hard life” living it up in Europe, protected by France and unable to visit countries that might extradite him. It’s somehow unfair to arrest him in a country where he’d thought he’d be safe from extradition, and where he traveled for a film festival, no less! These film festivals just won’t be safe anymore, what with the government swooping down and arresting convicted child rapists!

So he’s “paid his price,” and it’s up to the victim to get over it, because it happened such a long time ago. As if trauma goes away when the public keeps digging it up, painting it as your fault or painting you as a liar for not reacting in the “proper” way, and saying that your trauma doesn’t matter because the person who raped you is a good filmmaker. No, none of that is relevant. It’s always up to the victim to be the bigger person and to forgive and forget while their attacker defies justice, contributing to a system which screws rape and sexual assault victims over time and time again.

Roman Polanski deserves to go to jail. He doesn’t deserve to be raped in jail; please don’t start down that line of two-wrongs-makes-rape-okay crap that always comes up in these cases. But he deserves to pay for what he did the way he was supposed to pay before he skipped the country thirty years ago. He deserves it not just for his victim, but for the safety of other victims whose attackers might be deterred if they see that even rich and famous rapists will eventually see justice.

Roman Polanski’s arrest is encouraging because it shows that even a famous director who fled the country cannot escape justice forever, but it is also disheartening because of how transparent our society’s rape apology really is. It is disturbing, too, to see that some of his defenders are not denying the attack or its severity, but claiming outright that his artistic achievements should excuse him from the punishment for raping a child.

Tags: Amy Hill Schaffer, sexual assault