Roman Polanski | Fausta's Blog

October 8, 2009 By Fausta

Polanski apologist self-declared pederast

I had mentioned this in passing, but now the BBC is reporting on it,

In his 2005 book The Bad Life, he [France’s Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand] wrote: “I got into the habit of paying for boys,” saying his attraction to young male prostitutes was not dimmed despite knowing “the sordid details of this traffic”

“All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excited me enormously… the abundance of very attractive and immediately available young boys put me in a state of desire.”

He says

the term “boys” was used loosely

No pun intended?

The perv is finally getting some heat,

But the BBC’s Emma Jane Kirby, in Paris, says that the revelation that a senior cabinet minister was involved in sex tourism, just as the country holds negotiations with Thailand to discuss ways of fighting it, will inevitably embarrass Mr Sarkozy’s government.

It won’t embarrass Mitterand, but it ought to embarrass a government who has him as culture minister.

Related
The other apologists,will they contribute to Polanski’s defense fund?

September 29, 2009 By Fausta

Sick Hollywood defends Polanski

I wasn’t going to post more on the pedophile rapist, but changed my mind after watching this at Big Hollywood:

Listen to Whoopie: “Whatever Polanski was guilty of, it wasn’t rape-rape.”

Let’s review what Polanski actually did:
First, Polanski, who was 44 yrs old, gave a 13-yr old child a Quaalude and champagne. Then he got going.

What I’m going to post is not suitable for work, so it’s below the fold:
[Read more…]

September 28, 2009 By Fausta

What the WaPo didn’t say about the Polanski apologist

WaPo Columnist Has Undisclosed Conflict of Interest on Roman Polanski Matter, namely that she’s married to Poland’s foreign minister, who was lobbying for Polanski’s freedom. In her WaPo column, Anne Applebaum finds Polanski’s arrest in Switzerland “outrageous.”

For those of you not familiar with Polanski’s criminal act, LaShawn has the condensed version

In 1977, 44-year-old movie director Roman Polanski pled guilty to raping a drunk and drugged 13-year-old girl. After plea-bargaining the drug/rape/sodomy charges down to unlawful sexual conduct with a child under 14 and serving 42 days for the evaluation period, Polanski fled to England, then France, to avoid extradition. He’d been on the run ever since. Until September 26. Polanski was arrested in Switzerland.

James Joyner has more,

Patrick Frey, an assistant district attorney in LA whose office is seeking Polanski’s extradition, notes that Polanski “pled guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, in return for the agreement to dismiss several other charges, including rape and sodomy.” He and a co-blogger remind us of the graphic details of the case, which belie the notion that Polanski is some sort of victim. Let’s just say that the girl in question was drugged and the encounter was otherwise decidedly less than romantic. See also the [NSFW] victim’s grand jury testimony, which makes clear the sex was forcible and that, even drugged with alcohol and Quaaludes, she explicitly denied consent. Which, of course, a 13-year-old can not give under the law.

The WaPo has no excuse for not revealing that Anne Applebaum is married to a man lobbying for Polanski’s release.

As for Polanski, I don’t care how good his movies are, or how tragic his life is/was, or what. He should serve time in jail. Whether the victim wanted no further legal action does not matter, since, as James points out, rape is a felony, not a tort. But let Kieran Healy pour some scorn on his defenders:

Puritanical Americans simply do not have the enlightened attitude toward wine at the dinner table, quaaludes, and child rape that the Europeans do.

Among the Europeans, French culture minister Frédéric Mitterrand, who, as Erik will remind you, “wrote an autobiographical “novel” about going on trips to Asia for sex with young boys.”