First one-sheet for Roman Polanski's Carnage — Page 2

I'm not sure how I feel about watching his films.

I abhor his behavior, but how does watching his work equate to condoning or supporting it? It does make me feel a litte uneasy though.

And where was Carnage actually filmed?

---

It boils down to this: I don't believe ex-offenders should be deprived of a livelihood, no matter what there job is.

I fully agree with you, henrick. The problem lies in the fact that he's not actually an ex-offender. He never served his time. He never paid the price for drugging and raping a 12-year-old girl. Had he done that, I'd feel the same. Let him resume his career and make as much money as he could.

And Kad, I kind of have the same feeling as you. I staunchly refuse to watch anything by Mel Gibson. Mostly because I feel personally offended by his remarks about gays and Jews. But I can still watch Rosemary's Baby on cable and not feel all that bad. Maybe cause I wasn't the one who was raped. I don't know. This types of feelings are complicated.

I guess I've learned in the last few years that living with moral dissonance (great phrase!!) is not a terrible thing. I've become much more comfortable in my contradictions (some may call it hypocrisy). I can only truly act on what I feel strongly about. I feel strongly that Polanski should have paid for his crime. And, to that end, I won't do anything that actively puts money in his pocket. However, I do like Rosemary's Baby (though not necessarily a fan of some of his other work). I'd like to see Carnage. I'll just wait till it's on HBO and my money is going to lots of different programming options.

As for Mel Gibson...I truly believe that he holds his opinions about gays and Jews close and sees nothing truly wrong with them. And I'll be good goddamned if I'm going to spend a single red cent on someone who refuses to recognize my humanity.

But everyone needs to make these choices for themselves. I truly hope that my expressing these opinions doesn't indicate that I think you (general 'you') should feel the same way and do the same as I. My conscience is the only one I have to live with...and I certainly would not want the responsibility of worry about anyone else's!

"The problem lies in the fact that he's not actually an ex-offender. He never served his time."

He's an ex-offender in the sense that the offense in question was committed decades ago. In addition, he's also been convicted of the offense (by virtue of his guilty plea), and although he's never served time, he was promised that he would receive a sentence of probation after completing an inpatient psychiatric evaluation. And I for one believe that his leaving the country was, if not justified legally, mitigated by the political and self-serving games that were played with him by the judge, which even the prosecution has conceded were unforeseeable and objectionable.

Sonof, I can understand drawing the line at Gibson as well, because I can easily draw the distinction between criminal activity, however objectionable and including sexual predation and abuse (at least of the statutorily defined nature - while I believe people who have sex with minors should be punished, of course, I am also aware that many of our great, great grandparents were already married by the time they were in their early teens, and in the case of our great, great grandmothers, often to much older men; while I don't condone those practices, I think they give us some sense of the degree of immorality we are talking about in Polanski's case)....

As I was saying, I draw a distinction between criminal behavior and someone who has repeatedly shown himself to be an inveterate, hateful, discriminatory, homophobic, anti-Semitic, misogynistic bastard.

What Polanski did was revolting. Who Gibson is offends me to the core.

But having said all of that, I confess that if Gibson were in something I was truly interested in seeing, I would probably go.

Updated On: 8/16/11 at 01:38 PM

"You don't think that committing rape says anything about a person's character?"

Yes, I do. And I think committing statutory rape says something quite disturbing, but nevertheless less disturbing, than forcible rape, about one's character. Especially since statutory rape, studies have shown, is often committed by people who were themselves sexually abused as children (not to suggest this is nec. true in Polanski's case).

"To me that act is far more misogynistic than anything Mel Gibson has ever said about women"

I don't think that a man's sleeping with an underage girl is necessarily misogynistic, although I'm willing to consider that in certain unusual cases it may be the manifestation of a deepseated hostility or hatred toward women. Allow me to further explain:

Although I do think a man's sleeping with an underage girl is immoral, I would say that a woman's sleeping with an underage girl or boy or a man's sleeping with an underage boy would be equally immoral. However, in all of these cases, I don't think sleeping with an underaged person automatically reveals a hostility or hatred toward a particular gender, be it the actor's own or its opposite.

Updated On: 8/16/11 at 02:55 PM

I don't believe anyone thinks that the rape was not forcible, do they?

Initially, Polanski was charged with rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under fourteen, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor.

As I understand it, the plea bargain down to the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, a charge which is synonymous under California law with statutory rape, was to avoid putting the girl through a trial.

At any rate, all the accounts I've read (and I can't claim to have studied them or anything) make it pretty clear that she wasn't a willing participant.

Right, the plea bargain was just to help her avoid further emotional distress. This is not just a case of statutory rape.

In her grand jury testimony, she claims that she repeatedly told him no and even once tried to leave, at which point he pulled her back into the bedroom and had sex with her again.

He disputes that she was unwilling, but I don't believe he disputes that she was under the influence of drugs and alcohol, which would render her incapable of consent even if she had been of legal age.

Rumor has it that this is not the only girl he has done this with, but she is the only one who reported it.

---

No one will ever know the truth, unfortunately, but it is very common for victims to recant. It wouldn't surprise me if she's saying that so she can move on with her life and not be bothered by the media anymore.

---

Updated On: 8/16/11 at 06:34 PM

Also, she doesn't say "it was only rape because I was thirteen." I'm afraid you added the word "only," which I think signficantly changes the meaning.

I wouldn't put too much stock in the grand jury testimony. Grand jury testimony is not subject to confrontation by the defense. I'm not saying that grand jury testimony isn't accurate, I'm only saying it is untested. And from what the complaining witness has said, as an adult, in this case her grand jury account, as is often the case in grand jury presentations of any kind of charges (lest I sound like a rape victims advocate's worst enemy, which I'm not), may very well have been an inaccurate account of what happened.

As has been said, we may never know, but we certainly don't know enough to condemn Polanski for anything more than what we do know, that decades ago he had sex with a 13 year old. Which isn't a good thing, far from it, but it isn't something that makes me, speaking personally, refuse to see his films. Although I can understand that some people might, and do, feel differently, as is their prerogative.

I'm getting a broken image.


(Googled for it and found it, I really like it as well!)

---

Updated On: 8/18/11 at 05:23 PM