Time Heals All Things, Even Rape

Filmmaker Roman Polanski’s arrest this past weekend in Switzerland on a three decade old US charge of having sex with a 13 year old girl has caused an international uproar. Since the arrest, a number of celebrities, politicians and even governments (France) have come to Polanski’s defense. His supporters argue everything from it’s been more than 30 years since the crime was committed and the victim believes the matter should be dropped to Polanski has endured hardship: his mother died at Auschwitz during the Holocaust, and his second wife, actress Sharon Tate, was murdered in 1969 by followers of Charles Manson when she was eight months pregnant.

All of that aside, Polanski raped and sodomized a 13 year old girl and fled the country. It’s true he’s a phenomenal director, but talent and celebrity shouldn’t be exemptions to justice, especially where our children are involved. As a mom and an attorney, it disheartens me the willingness of so many people to summarily dismiss Polanski’s crime. So what it took 32 years to re-arrest him again. So what he is a great artist who has made some really great movies. He shouldn’t escape prosecution merely because he had the luck and the fortune to evade justice.

It also shouldn’t matter that Polanski has suffered some in his life or that his mom died in a concentration camp. Many have suffered similar type situations without inflicting harm on others. After all, if hardship is sufficient justification to excuse a crime, many people in our jail system should be released or never even see the inside of a jail. What disturbs me most, is I’ve seen no evidence that Polanski as he was galavanting around Europe making movies and attending film festivals showed any signs of remorse for a crime he pled guilty to.

At the end of the day, we have to decide what type of society we want to live in. Our children have crimes perpetrated against them everyday. We should be outraged with the Polanski situation just as we would be when we hear about a teacher molesting a child or a priest molesting an altar boy or any other number of situations involving crimes inflicted on our children. And I suspect that many of Polanski’s supporters would view things differently if the 13 year old involved was their daughter, mother or sister.

Bottom line: time can’t minimize the crime Polanski committed. But our willingness to ignore the crime does. Personally we should all be concerned about living in a society that places the making of a good movie over a brutal crime committed against our children. After all, I no longer thought we lived in the dark ages.

Subscribe to Kim Crouch - Associated Content by Email