Above the Law?

For me the Roman Polanski saga is fairly clear-cut. He broke a law years ago and fled the country in order to get out of paying the time for his crime. That's deplorable. I don't know a lot of the finer details, but from the bones of the issue I don't see a lot of grey area.

That he's finally been caught and made to face up to it is a good thing, I think.

It sickens me a little to see the Film Community (so self-important than I think they need capital letters) getting behind him. They're even stating that it's wrong of the police to use an artistic event as an excuse to catch him - poor artistic famous people! How inconsiderate of the police. Art should be above law.

I think it's awful that he's been able to, in such a successful and high-profile way, flout the law for so long, continuing to be free and successful overseas.

I actually don't see how he can even argue the case - 'Yeah I raped a 13 year old, but I was smart enough to get out of the country.... so you should leave me alone! I'm famous! I am outraged that you ruined a party by arresting me! I'm furious that I thought this was a safe and dodgey country for me to go to and I was wrong!'

No sympathy from me. He drugged and raped a 13 year old. Even if it was 'consensual' and she mislead him about her age, he still needs to face the consequences. I'm not going to feel one ounce of sympathy for someone who reacts in the way he did. It's cowardly and self-important.

I don't really care if he gets any more jail time out of it. The principle is that it's a good thing that police co-operate around the world to make sure people can't just run away and thumb their nose like that. They need to go through due process.

I may sound rather militant here, but it's rape of a 13 year old, not speeding tickets. And his only argument seems to be '...but I'm famous! They'll pick on me! I just want to make movies!'

It's a pretty good signal of the morality of the whole thing that Woody Allen is among his chief supporters.