Klavan On The Culture

September 28th, 2009 5:02 pm

Vengeance Is Nolte’s

The always-terrific John Nolte has been kicking butt and taking names over at Big Hollywood on the subject of Roman Polanski’s arrest. By way of full disclosure, let me say that I’m proud to call His Nolteness a friend, but his terrificosity is beyond dispute in any case.

Anyway, as you probably know, Polanski, the Oscar-winning director of Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown and The Pianist was busted in Switzerland last week after 30 years on the run from American law. He pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor in 1977, then beat it for France, where I’m not sure that’s even a crime.

Those in the movie biz have risen almost as one in Polanski’s defense and all I can say is: they’re lucky Nolte does his work with a word processor instead of, say, a baseball bat and a pair of pliers. The movie bizzers plead that Polanksi suffered through the holocaust as a child, and suffered horribly again as an adult when, in 1969, Charles Manson’s psychopathic followers brutally slaughtered his pregnant wife Sharon Tate… but somehow, after the words “forcibly sodomized a child,” my man Nolte loses his hearing and these pleas fall on deaf ears. The man must have a heart of stone… or morals or something!

Here’s the thing: Even if you think anally raping a 13-year-old is peachy as long as the rapist happens to be very, very rich and makes really neat-o movies, I don’t see how you can argue to give a fugitive any kind of break until he faces the law. I mean, how can we begin to think about legally forgiving someone who hasn’t even accepted his legal guilt and punishment? It doesn’t matter that the victim, now in her forties, says she’s forgiven him. What force does the law have if you only need to run from it to avoid it altogether? Talk about a point of view that privileges the rich and connected above all others!

Clearly, Polanski should be brought back to the US and be made to stand before the judge as anyone else would have to. As punishment, I would be glad to settle for a sentence of one hour alone in a room with Nolte. But I don’t want to watch. I have a weak stomach.

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11 Comments

1. MarkJ:

Gee, one would have thought Polanski would have watched his own movies (particularly Chinatown and The Pianist). If he had, he would have come to an obvious conclusion:

To wit, powerful and well-connected men are all too capable of doing hideous things. And they can always count on not a few others to willingly cover for, and justify, their actions because it’s in their interest to do so.

Sep 28, 2009 - 7:23 pm 2. bakerp:

Maybe you could get Mr. Nolte to talk to Roger L. Simon? It is nice to see some very strong moral clarity on this.
It gags me when I see and hear the defenders of Polanski say, “He’s suffered enough.” BS FLAG! He lived in comfort, persued his career and received the approval of his peers. Where is the suffering?

Sep 29, 2009 - 4:40 am 3. glenn:

One cool thing you can do if your local paper is in with the lapdogs is use the comments feature to spread the news thay won’t cover. In this case pasting the relevant portion of the hearing transcript where the 13 year old vic describes being penetrated vaginally and sodimized is a powerful antidote to the idiots like Whoopie (It wasn’t really rape-rape) Goldberg.

Sep 29, 2009 - 9:25 am 4. Professor Guvinoff:

Mr. Klavan, I understand your modesty, but I personally would put your own excellentitude in the same league as Mr. Nolte’s terrificosity, not to diminish in any way Alphonzo Rachel’s rethoricifications, nor Steve Crowder’s impactiness, even less Bill Whittle erudite argumentity.

Sep 29, 2009 - 1:13 pm 5. gernot:

Perhaps we should just bring Polanski back, sodomize HIM, and send him back to France a wiser man.

Sep 29, 2009 - 2:14 pm 6. Raba raba:

klavan

we could put you in a room with polanski for one hour, but i am truely afraid he would whip you.

Sep 29, 2009 - 4:42 pm 7. Gaffe Prices:

Mr Klaven, I think you worthy of a nice “I told you so”, a victory lap and some bragging rights for the prescience of your “Are You a Rascist” post previously: In it you said that the worst of behavior of celebrities is not only encouraged, but rewarded. And just what happened? Just what you outlined inthat vid.

Sep 29, 2009 - 7:04 pm 8. Mark Woodworth:

I agree that it doesn’t matter that the victim has forgiven him. Forgiveness is really something we do for ourselves, to lay down the burden of anger and fear and move on to a better place. If she has been able to move on, I am glad. But that really has little to do with her attacker.

Sep 29, 2009 - 9:26 pm 9. gus3:

@Raba raba:

If the events of Polanski’s life have left him so devoid of empathy that he can no longer appreciate the physical and psychological torture he caused a 13-year-old, no time in a room with any quantity of moral outrage is going to faze him.

He has no notion of right and wrong, and he clearly poses a danger to the people around him. Remove him from society for the rest of his life.

Sep 30, 2009 - 12:37 am 10. raba raba:

9. gus3

i am not disagreeing with your view. I just making fun of kalvan. klavan said putting him a rum alone nolte for an hour would be punishment enough. Klavan thinks of himself as a tough guy, but if he got locked in a room with polansky, polansky would kick his butt, i think. the only thing klavan has ever fought in real life is a cold.

Sep 30, 2009 - 11:02 am 11. Ddc:

French Foreign Minister apparently singing a different tune after the published testimony of the victim she “was afraid” of Polanski and Polanski’s saying “I didn’t think anyone was hurt.”

[According to Arts Beat, a French government spokesman said, "Roman Polanski is neither above or below the law... We have a judicial proceeding underway that is a serious affair, the rape of a minor, for which the American and Swiss justice systems are carrying on their work."]

Who woulda thunk it possible for the French it “get it” where a PJ contributor doesn’t.

Sep 30, 2009 - 5:06 pm