Someone I respected gave it to me, and said, 'I signed this. Will you too? It was a mistake. The thing I feel like I gained from it is empathy towards people who have made mistakes. We lived in a different world, and that doesn't excuse anything.
But you can have your eyes opened and completely change the way you want to live. My eyes were not open.
Thanks to MeToo and the Time's Up campaign, we are now living in a dramatically different climate when it comes to discussing sexual harassment and assault. But as more artists come forward to speak out against Woody Allen , the same can't be said of Polanski, who remains venerated in Hollywood.
Despite the ongoing campaign to highlight abuse and misconduct in the film business and other industries, Polanski remains venerated in Hollywood as one of the leading auteurs of his generation. Alongside Asia Argento and Emma Thompson, Natalie Portman remains one of the few celebrities to apologize for signing the petition.
We reached out to some of the most high-profile signatories to see if they had changed their mind about supporting Polanski in light of the MeToo and Time's Up campaigns. Polanski, who has lived lavishly in Europe for decades after fleeing the US criminal court system, is the real victim here, they say: He lost his mother in the Holocaust. He lost wife Sharon Tate and their unborn child in the savage Manson murders.
Not fair! Cate Blanchett named one of her sons after him. Hollywood awarded him the Best Director Oscar in , replete with standing ovations from many, including Martin Scorsese and Meryl Streep. In , HBO ran a gauzy documentary on him.
When Polanski was arrested in Zurich in in a failed attempt by the US to extradite him, more than celebrities signed a petition demanding his release. Jerry Lee Lewis anyone? Melanie Griffith was 15 when she moved in with Don Johnson who was in his 20s. Now I'm not condoning any of that, but these are the ones who we know about.
So my point is that it wasn't uncommon. So those who grew up or spent a lot of time in the industry might not think it a big deal, and have no issue supporting him. In any plea bargain the prosecutor will tell the defendant that they will tell the court that they will support probation instead of prison time, 1 year or whatever the two parties agree to, but they prosecutor will also explain quite clearly that the judge has the final say on the sentence and may or may not go along with what the prosecutor suggests.
That is how it has been done for decades and any defense lawyer Polanski would have had would have known that and told them up front those very facts. While it isn't common for judges to say fuck the agreement the SOB needs a harsher sentence, it does happen. They would have know who the judge was and what his track record was before making the deal Now once he fled the country you can guarantee that his action pretty much guaranteed that when or if he ever got hauled back to court that he would be smacked down harder than under the agreement based on his actions.
As for groupies and rock stars The normal motius operandi for rock stars was sex for backstage passes and shit like that, it wasn't going out finding a 13 year old girl, getting her drunk, giving her drugs and then fucking her while she protested. If you read the full transcripts of what happened and what Polanski admitted to it was far beyond what any rock stars at that time did It was also in another time than the Elvis and Jerry Lee crap, though in the case of Elvis and Jerry Lee, neither of them drugged the girls and then raped them.
The real point that you are missing is the fact that rock stars getting blow jobs from teen groupies are not forcefully raping them Polanski was not just a statutory rapist he was a full on Bill Cosby drug her and raper rapist and he did it to a 13 year old.
Again, I wasn't condoning the behaviour. I was asking about the plea deals because I really only know what I've seen on tv, and I was suggesting a reason why other celebrities would support Polanski not saying that I support Polanski.
Or any of the others that I mentioned for that matter. I mean Steven Tyler convinced one of his groupie's mother's to make him her guardian so she could legally travel over state lines. I also honestly can't say that others haven't drugged and raped teens. I'm saying they haven't been caught. The problem is you are throwing out what ifs. There is no what if with Polanski he was arrest and he admitted he was guilty. You can't equate a, "maybe someone did something just as bad" to "he did it and said he did it".
The OP brought up the other celebs. I lumped my replies because I'm lazy. I replied to you as I didn't know about plea bargains. Of course my guess on why others are making excuses are what ifs and speculations. Well, the rockers I mentioned did have sex with 14 and 15 year olds. So that would be statutory rape. I would also assume that drugs and alcohol were involved.
But my point is that if you are in a situation, ie the entertainment industry as these defenders the OP mentioned are,one might not see this as big of an issue as the rest of us. I'm not equating anything to anything else. You continually bring up 14 and 15 year olds as if it is the same as the 13 year old Polanski raped. It isn't. In some states in the 's a 14 or 15 year old could legally consent to sex. At that time no state allowed a 13 year old to consent.
I don't think I've ever heard of any rock stars making claims of fucking 13 year olds. My mistake, where I live, even in the 60s and 70s , a 14 year old couldn't consent to sex with an adult. Yes, but he did only plead guilty to "unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor" statutory rape and none of the other 5 charges, which included rape by use of drugs. Just to be clear. He entered that guilty plea in exchange for dropping the other charges.
There was more than enough physical evidence to nail him for drugging the girl and raping her. If they had more than enough evidence for those charges, they most likely wouldn't have dropped them. I thought it wasn't that uncommon for the prosecuter to "overcharge" to get a more favourable plea agreement. Anyway, the point is that he only plead guilty to having sex with a minor. Reading the quotes, those people seem to be aware of that, they just don't think it's a big deal for whatever reason.
Actually a prosecutor is unlikely to put up charges he can't support with the evidence because if he does the defense attorney will know the charges will not stick and will most likely simply file a motion for a directed verdict on the outlandish charges and quickly get them kicked out. The prosecutors on the other hand are well aware that even when you have all the ducks in a row for a case that a jury can still bite you in the ass, so most prosecutors never want to actually go to trial and will almost always be willing to give up some greater chargers for the certainty of a lesser charges being admitted to by the defendant.
It isn't a good system and is really just the product of lazy prosecutors and prosecutors that have political ambitions and would rather get a iron clad win on a lesser charge rather than go through the process and risk a not guilty. I've googled it and apparently "overcharging" is not at all an uncommon tactic used by the prosecution.
This is one of them. Yes you can have instances of overcharging but give the evidence in this case there was no overcharging. Polanski was getting off easy and still didn't have the balls to face the music. I said I googled it and many legal sites came up explaining this is a common tactic. You could give it a try yourself. Why would they drop the charge of raping a child if they had "more than enough evidence"???
Because of pressure from people in Hollywood, overloaded schedule, maybe a bribe, who the hell knows. But it is pretty damn common for certain crimes to get dropped from a serious crime to a near misdemeanor all the time. Moreover, more allegations have been made against him: in , British actor Charlotte Lewis said Polanski abused her in when she was Last year, four more allegations emerged: former US actor Mallory Millett said Polanski tried to rape her in ; German actor Renate Langer said the director raped her in Gstaad in when she was 15; a woman identified as Robin M said Polanski assaulted her in when she was 15; and a third, Marianne Barnard, accused him of assaulting her in when she was Polanski denies the claims.
So I decided to ask them how they felt about Polanski now. I start by emailing Zenovich to ask if she feels attitudes towards Polanski have changed since she made her movie and its follow-up, Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out, about the Zurich arrest.
But she is too busy preparing for Sundance to engage. A few will only talk off the record. The rest say they are too busy. Again, some ignore me, a couple will talk off the record, some are too busy to talk at all. Only one person who signed the petition agrees to speak on the record: the actor Asia Argento, who has since accused Weinstein of abusing her. I ask why she signed the petition in the first place. I foolishly went along. Since Argento went public with her allegations against Weinstein in October, a lot has been written about how the film industry will no longer cover up abuse.
I hope the tide is finally turning. While researching this article I had a couple of off-the-record discussions with actors and film-makers about their true feelings about Polanski. But mainly I heard people insist their friend is not a rapist. They trotted out the familiar defences: the Holocaust and Sharon Tate, of course.
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