Good For You, Swiss

A Swiss court has denied Roman Polanski's request to get out of jail free (again).   Good for them.

On Women & Hollywood, Melissa Silverstein is assembling a list of women in the entertainment industry who are publicly NOT supporting Polanski.  The list is alarmingly short.  Shame on us.

And I've been thinking more about good ol' Roman.  Where he's coming from.  Why he's been fighting and denying what he did so vehemently and for so long.  (Other than that he just flat out doesn't wanna go to jail.)

I'm not a psychologist, of course.  But here's what I've concluded: I believe that Roman Polanski has convinced himself that all of this is the girl's fault.  I think he believed it at the time, and that the years have just made the delusion (and it is a delusion) stronger and more deeply rooted.

He believes this, I think, because he convinced himself at the time that she wanted him. She did, after all, agree to take off her shirt when he told her to.  That she did so because he was an older man in a position of authority who was supposedly photographing her for French Vogue was and is lost on him.  As is the fact that she repeatedly told him no.  Because he ignored her words, and focused on the fact that she was drinking champagne and taking half a Quaalude and telling her mom, over the phone, that everything was okay.  What he's missing is that she did all of those things because she was a thirteen-year-old child in a situation she was completely incapable of handling.  And she was afraid.  So afraid that she faked asthma when he finally got her naked in a hot tub.  

Polanski is incapable of accepting responsibility for what he did, so he has no choice but to blame the victim.  She wanted him, she seduced him.  If she didn't want him to have sex with her, she shouldn't have taken off her shirt.  She shouldn't have drunk the champagne.  She shouldn't have put herself in that situation in the first place.  That little minx, she knew what she was doing all along.  She trapped him!  She deserved what she got.  So why should he have to suffer?  Why should he have to pay?  

He twists it all around, and makes it all her fault.

Predators do it all the time.

Comments

[twitter.com/la_luna_sangra]

I think that might well be true. But really isn't that what they always do?

And let's face it: society's not even making it hard for them to build and keep this delusion. I can only speak for myself of course, but in my expirience people are fast in blaming anyone but the rapist himself.

Good example in the Polanski case is the Mother. Why did she let her 13 year-old go there alone in the first place? Isn't that what people were/are asking? So, in peoples eyes, she was being irresponsible. Meaning: she actually is partly to blame. Completely letting go of the fact that all she actually did was letting her daughter go with a relatively famous filmmaker who promised her a job a girl dreams of. Naive? Probably. Her fault all this happend however? NO!

The fact that the victim naturally always partly blames itself doesn't help here either, which the Polanski case again is a great example for.

I mean, come on. I don't know about US media, but on german media I've seen the "Even the victim says to let him go!"-card played to death. Only question that's running through my mind time and time again is: yes, she does. But did anyone think about WHY so?

Reasons spontaneously coming to mind:

1. You're always asking yourself if you could have done something different. "If I've only gone earlier." "If I've only told my mother to get me when on the phone." "If I only..." You eventually come to the point where you notice it didn't matter what you would have done.. or did it? (Meaning: some of this doubt is always there. At least from what I can tell.)

2. THIS was a hell of a trauma for a 13 year-old. A trauma that stays with one years and years after, if not forever in parts. Did anyone, anyone at all, stop to think that all of this is brought right back to her now? That she has to think about it and relieve the whole drama again and that maybe, just maybe, all she want is for it to be over and done with? And sure, simply setting him free would be the easiest way to get to this.

I could go on, but.. to what effect? Everyone in at least half a sane mind already has that figured out anyways and the rest.. well, they most likely don't even CARE to see it this way.

So, all I'm really saying is, considering the above, it's shockingly easy to imagine how one can even start to go into such delusion - and more so - keep it up for 30 years. We really are making it easy on them, aren't we?

Which partly is the exact same way of thinking that got us into this whole absurd discussion..

[Reese]

I completely agree with you. I don't usually follow news stories like this, but because it happened so long ago and there still hasn't been a resolution to this is something that is disturbing, yet fascinating at the same time. Unfortunately, he has a lot of support, especially from the upper echelons of French society and government. He is a sick man, who needs to seek professional help. He is responsible for his actions and therefore he must be made to understand there are consequences. I may be half-way across the world, but I think all women should stand together on this issue.

Cheers for your great blog!

[amy]

This week's New Yorker (Santa and POTUS) on cover has a piece by Jeffrey Toobin on Polanski and the trial. Very interesting and for the first time I actually could tolerate reading about Polanski. I can't find the link online, sorry, but if the edition is on the stands now (and if you are a subscriber it should be in your mailbox today). Has anyone seen the HBO documentary on Polanski which came out in 08?