Roman Polanski

Well, they finally got him. I know that this is an unpopular move, and many people have decried it because of the overcrowding in CA jails and the fact that we just signed a law releasing 40,000 criminals (inmates, if that fits your perspective better - assuming they were all captives in an unjust system and victims of an overzealous state - of course, the actual truth is somewhere in the middle) due to budget issues and because the victim has since forgiven him, etc., etc., etc.

Here is the problem that I have. Let's say he wasn't a famous film director, just the creepy Polish dude who lives down the block (irony duly noted, given my heritage and somewhat creepy disposition). Suppose this 44 year old guy invites a 13 year old model for a "photo-shoot", plies her with wine and barbiturates, gets her in a hot tub and has sex with her. He is then arrested, pleas guilty to a statutory rape charge instead of child molestation, and is released until sentencing. This guy then flees the country and spends the next 30+ years evading authorities. Would we have sympathy then?

I would say that most people would not, and given that these were the circumstances as I recall them (I don't know what he actually plead to, but I figured it would be something like statutory rape), I think that his personal issues stand separate from his directorial accomplishments. He is no better or worse than the rest of us. The European mentality stems from both an openness towards sexual mores (which I do not think really apply here, given the coercion) and from the fact that Europe is a classed society, where there is a long history of one class being better than another and getting to flout the law as a result. They are much more comfortable with this double standard because it has been culturally ingrained in them for thousands of years. It is also one of the reasons that we have an equal protection clause in our Constitution and why people are supposed to all be equal under the law. This was a guiding principle in the formation of the government, though it was not always put into practice - and this fundamental difference is what separates us from many other nations. A celebrity should not be free to get away with more stuff than anyone else - Paris Hilton goes to jail for a few days on a drunk driving charge just like anyone else in her situation (and yes, most people receiving a 30 day sentence for a similar charge get out in five days due to overcrowding - she shouldn't be punished any more because she is a celebrity either). Phil Spektor gets convicted of murder when he kills a young aspiring actress.

Obviously, there is some difference, celebs and the wealthy afford better representation, and can pull strings to get away with some stuff, but this should not be encouraged - Michael Skakel could have actually been tried as a juvenile and dealt with his problems after murdering his young neighbor, but the fact that he was part of the Kennedy "royalty" and the local DA was beholden to the Kennedy clan delayed his conviction until after his adulthood, leading him to be sentenced as an adult because of the continuing conspiracy to conceal the crime as an adult. Treating celebrities differently only creates problems in our legal system, and it does nothing to set up the sense of fairness that is supposed to underpin our system. This attitude is fine in Europe, but it cannot be tolerated here. Sorry, Roman, and I do love your movies, but you have to pay the piper. I liked Hemingway to, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a crotchety, depressed, suicidal drunkard. I appreciate Spektor's contribution to the music industry by bringing a number of great bands to the public eye, but he is still a murderer.

I never really liked Aurthur C. Clarke, however, and he is still a child molester, whether I like his work or not (but that brings new meaning to his novel, Childhood's End, now doesn't it?)