POLANSKI - Good Riddance

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by Meini Again

Thank you scounds for this background.

It has been refernced in this thread, but until now, NO LINKS and specifics.

A lot of your quotes... and if we follow them up, as I've done.... are ALL ABOUT "Artistry" as forgiveness.

LOOK AT THE TIMES !

Jagger and the Stones were arrested for smoking pot - photographed in handcuffs.

THE TIMES made one of it's most sensational editorials... to this day....
"Who Breaks A Buterfly On A Wheel"
- from Alexander Pope's Essay in History.

Polanski, a couple of years later was the US Cause, after Sharon/Manson etc.....loads of luvvies poured in support for a new "Broken Buttefly"

- and I doubt they did with knowledge.... Of his Actions against a CHILD


A Peadophile is a Peadophile

You have made a shrewd point about the over-fixation with Roman Polanski as an artist. He was a passable actor in his prime and an exceptional fim director - Chinatown, for example, is a great classic latter day film noir. At least some of his erstwhile Hollywood champions will have seen him as a latter day Oscar Wilde; a great artist being unjustly persecuted for his sexuality. But they needed to assess the facts of the case, which showed only too clearly that Mr Polanski was not the victim in the story at all, no indeed.

Having assessed the facts quite wrongly and taken a view that Polanski was being badly done to, they are no longer speaking out. The Me-Too movement has had an effect and has made many highly vocal critics of the legal proceedings against Mr Polanski suddenly turn quiet. Not many people have as yet made a public retraction and/or apologised to Mr Polanski's victim. I can see how they might have deluded themselves that Polanski was not a nonce, but it's hard to see how they can still believe that anymore and if they don't, they really ought to eat their humble pie in public, the same way they fought in public against justice for a 13 year old girl.

[cginok]

Originally Posted by dill99

Bravo. Standing with you on this as well. I self-examined and began my move to rid myself of sexist tropes, misogyny, and flawed perceptions of womanhood back in my mid-twenties, and with the long overdue #MeToo movement providing clarity regarding the fortification of equal rights for women for millions of men across the globe you're not alone in your new place of self knowledge. Yet you are correct in that it is difficult to change one's belief structure on issues that may have been held by a different point of view over a long period of time.

Though this quote is from a classic sci-fi film it still rings with resonance in its relevance to life in ever-changing sociology: " If there is to be a brave new world our generation will have the hardest time living in it." (David Warner as Chancellor Gorkon in 'Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country')

Live long and prosper in your new world Meini Again.

You say while visiting a webpage whose main purpose is to show pictures of naked women.....

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by cginok

You say while visiting a webpage whose main purpose is to show pictures of naked women.....

That old cliche.

How frightfully shocking to think that men who desire women and who admire the female form might also have ethical understanding, brains, taste or class.

No one is making you stay here cginok. But if you do, be a nice kitty.

[Meini Again]

A kind of defence...........

I'm not a prude. I was at Art School and drawing 'Life Models' when I was 16 years old.

Always broad-minded and tolerant, I'd felt.
Especially toward 'nudity' in Art History as well as film.

The exploitation of women, I'd always shrugged aside, because I liked viewing.

Until the #MeToo movement.

As I posted at the start..... I regarded Polanski as a 'hero' for the fact that he was filming under the support of Tenser and the Compton Group, in the UK, and breaking the envelope, as they say. Our response to the Goddards / Trufauts / Resnais' / Chabrols of the French 'nouvelle vague'...at last.

Now, NONE, AFAIK, of the "New WAVE" of French directors writers, who all delved into sexuality, and possible 'exploitation' were ever accused, arrested nor tried for paedophilia.

In my youth, Polanski was up there as an innovator-genius alongside my other heroes of 'nouvelle-vague'. ... alongside German artists like Fasbinder etc.... Some of those 'heroes' failed, in terms of drugs / alchohol and lowering-self-esteem... NONE abused their actors or aspirants.

Polanski said in an early autobiography, that as an inducement to 'sign-on' for a Hollywood film the studio offered him an actress ~ a well known actress who had an Academy Nomination ~{he named her, BUT, not mentioning her, because I need to get the Reference} .... which, to me. in retrospect, explains a lot about Polanski's feeling of being 'fireproof' in Hollywood. Being able to be open and honest about his lifestyle... which drew Manson it's said.

Ive said more than enough.... and gone on too long.

A paedophile is a paedophile.

[Nilpy]

Sorry, I read your initial post, but I am still confused.

Are you saying he is a pedophile first or a pedophile second?

First: He is a pedophile and we cannot watch or enjoy his work?
Second: He is a great film maker and a pedophile and we can only watch and enjoy any of his work that we cannot see pedophilliac refferences?

A little clarity in your attitude would be nice.
If you can find me a director/actor that was not compromised during the advent and heyday of hollywood, I would love to see a name. Fatty Arbuckle was railroaded because of his alleged 'potential'. I have no problem with Polanski's guilt, but I do take issue with others hijacking his actions for their own agenda.

[cginok]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

That old cliche.

How frightfully shocking to think that men who desire women and who admire the female form might also have ethical understanding, brains, taste or class.

No one is making you stay here cginok. But if you do, be a nice kitty.

Oh I know nobody...or very few...will agree with what I said, and don't care either.


But the #metoo/feminists have always opposed pornography and soft core...meaning Playboy and such...as exploitative of women. By the definition of the people he claims to support, he is exploiting women by coming to a porn site. You can't have it both ways...unless you're a hypocrite.

[otokonomidori]

Originally Posted by cginok

Oh I know nobody...or very few...will agree with what I said, and don't care either.


But the #metoo/feminists have always opposed pornography and soft core...meaning Playboy and such...as exploitative of women. By the definition of the people he claims to support, he is exploiting women by coming to a porn site. You can't have it both ways...unless you're a hypocrite.

I'm inclined to agree - a collective consisting of depraved oglers and onanists aren't best placed to criticise anyone for their unlawful saucy pranks forty odd years ago when the world had very different values

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by otokonomidori

I'm inclined to agree - a collective consisting of depraved oglers and onanists aren't best placed to criticise anyone for their unlawful saucy pranks forty odd years ago when the world had very different values

I'm inclined to disagree of course. There are lines one doesn't cross. Among these lines are:

• Consent. Mr Polanski's victim made it extremely clear in all her statements that she did not consent and was forced. That was considered very wrong indeed even in 1977.
• Underage sex - I would accept that we have greatly tightened our standards on underage sex since 1977, just as we have become much more accepting in other areas such as homosexuality. But 13 year old girls were not fair game even in 1977 and if you had even fully consensual relations with a girl aged only 13 and it became known about, the flashing blue lights would flash and the silver bracelets would click.
• Abuse of power. Mr Polanski was in a very powerful situation in Hollywood in 1977 and the record shows how he abused his power as much as he possibly could.

These weren't saucy pranks. He was a nonce in 1977 and he is a nonce in 2019.

We are not living in glass houses here, except that inevitably there will be some sex criminals in our membership because we have no way to identify and ban them for things which didn't happen on VEF. Most of us have confined crime to things like motoring offences. Many of us have female relatives and in the analogue world feel protective towards them. I for one do indeed appreciate the material available on this site but I also appreciate the models who ultimately are providing the material and I expect members to respect them and treat and speak of them well, which is also a VEF rule BTW. I think that as a rule they get much more considerate treatment from VEF members than from the Moral Majority types, who actually treat women with abject and miserable contempt and certainly don't stand up for rape victims or the rights of women.

No. I think we are allowed to talk about Roman Polanski.

[otokonomidori]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

These weren't saucy pranks. He was a nonce in 1977 and he is a nonce in 2019.

I was a grown up back in 1977 - don't know if the "nonce " word even existed in that context in those days - for better or worse they were very different times .

Much as Polanski's behaviour shocks and disgusts people today, I very much doubt it would have got such a strong reaction at the time.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by otokonomidori

I was a grown up back in 1977 - don't know if the "nonce " word even existed in that context in those days - for better or worse they were very different times .

Much as Polanski's behaviour shocks and disgusts people today, I very much doubt it would have got such a strong reaction at the time.

There's no doubts in that because it didn't.

However it excited a reaction sufficiently powerful that he ran away to avoid sentencing. The irony is that even with a judge who had very clearly taken a strong dislike to him in 1977, what Polanski would have got had he stayed and faced the music was nothing like as severe as what he would be likely to get today if he went back to California. Also, anything more than two years would be much like a death sentence at his age.

The thing is, had he stayed and faced the music, he would have been out after a few years maximum (first offender of course) and the chances are he would have riden a wave of Hollywood luvvie sympathy, become a European independent filmaker exactly as he did when he ran away, and he'd be very little affected by the Me Too thing because he would have done his time and the case would be so long ago that few people would be interested. Possibly he'd have done an interview explaining how much he regretted his past transgression, explained how he was not in his normal mind for years after losing his wife in such a horrid way, how with the changing times he had come to realise how wrong it was and was frightfully ashamed; and any people who needed to see him grovel would have been satisfied and found another hobby horse.

But he ran away. Now he has to live with the situation he created. Of course, I'm really unhappy for him.