Saturday, October 3, 2009

Roman Polanski and the Little Girl

I was working for the Fat Bald Jew (that was how he answered his phone-more on him another day) in Denver while my last husband got his PhD at the University of Denver, when Roman Polanski got busted for drugging and raping a thirteen year old girl, whose mother had given permission for her daughter to have a photo session with the famous director. As I recall two other bad boys were on the premises at the time of her rape. I remember both Jack Nickelson and Warren Beatty were there that day. She should have had an adult with her. Notice I do not imply that any of the three men could be called an adult supervisor or agent/parent surrogate. I've never really thought of any of this trio of old bad boys as "adults."

I remember that all of the men I knew at the time, including the Fat Bald Jew and the graduate students at DU who were friends and acquaintances of my last husband, all thought it wasn't rape. "The girl looked at lot older than thirteen." "Her mother gave her consent to the photo session." "Come on now, rape, really?" Yes rape! No one thirteen is capable of giving consent ~ drunk, drugged or sober. There is no place in the United States where getting a thirteen year old drunk and drugged and having sex with her in several orifices is considered okay or legal. If she were your daughter and anyone, famous or not, got her drunk, drugged her and had anal sex with her, would you think it was "not worth prosecuting?" "Her fault?" Or any other bullshit rationalization for giving Polanski a pass? If you answered yes to any of that, you are not fit to be a parent. If, like this girl's mother you gave consent for her to go to Roman Palanski's place for a photo shoot without an adult chaperone, you are not fit to be a parent. But no matter how unfit the thirteen year old's consenting parent was, it isn't her fault Polanski drugged and raped her daughter. It's Roman Polanski's fault and it's illegal anywhere in this country. It's a crime and no matter how it's handled, there will be long lasting consequences for the child, now a mature woman. And there were nude, provocative photos taken. That makes it kiddie porn. So let's all stop bullshitting ourselves as to who's guilty of what. Roman Polanski not only pled guilty, he skipped bail and left our jurisdiction. He should be prosecuted for that. And I don't give a shit how talented or special he is. He's a pedophile in my book.

I had screaming fights with almost every man I knew over this case, when it was everywhere in the news and everyone had an opinion. However, not one of those men was a father of a girl. They argued that because she looked so sexy and mature the crime was maybe not such a bad crime. And they argued that the mother gave consent to the whole thing. They argued that it was a shake-down, that the mother and daughter somehow set the whole thing up to get money from a famous man. I did a lot of screaming of the word "Bullshit!" What was wrong with all those men?