Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Hollywood really has lost touch with reality

It appears that Hollywood really has lost touch with reality with the recent arrest of director Roman Polanski on a rape charge from 1977.  Let's review the facts of the case first:

  1. Polanski allegedly had a 13 year old girl in Jack Nicholson's home (the actor was not present) on the premise of a photography session.
  2. He also allegedly gave the girl quaaludes & champagne, then had sex with her in different ways, each time even after the girl said "no" repeatedly.
  3. After being charged with rape & furnishing a controlled substance to a minor, he plea bargained down to a charge of unlawful sex with a minor.  He was then ordered to undergo an evaluation at Chino prison for 90 days (he was released after 42), but after hearing he would then be put in jail on his charge by the sentencing judge, he fled the United States for France, who does not extradite their citizens to the US (Polanski has French citzenship).
First of all, he committed a felony under his original rape charges, but his charges were reduced (leaving people to think due to his celebrity).  Instead of fighting a potential jail sentence, he fled to somewhere he knew he could not be touched by US authorities.  Second, we have all these Hollywood people (some of which haven't been heard from in years) coming out of the woodwork demanding Polanski be released, because he went to Switzerland not thinking the US would be waiting to bring him back.  It doesn't matter that the girl now doesn't want him prosecuted for his crime, because the case is to the point of sentencing, justice needs to be served.

I have some questions for these "Hollywood elites":
  1. Would you be so apt to request the release of a rape suspect if it was YOUR 13-year-old daughter he allegedly committed these crimes against, even if it was 32 years ago?
  2. How do you think your "public image" would be affected by your support of a convicted child rapist?
  3. Give me ONE valid, legitimate reason (not that Switzerland is a neutral country, which is irrelevant) why Polanski should be released?  Remember the outrage of the early release of the Lockerbie bomber by Scotland on "humanitarian grounds"...
Anyone in Hollywood who thinks he should be released just goes to show how "out of touch" they are with reality, and how hypocritical they really are, to support a rapist just because he's "one of them".  BTW, this might be why people quit going to movies, is because people see just how detached from the mainstream Hollywood (for the most part) has become.