https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_petition_against_age_of...
The ongoing Duhamel scandal makes it sound like there was quite a lot going on, in certain elite circles, everyone knew and nobody talked:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/10/france-begins-...
Acknowledging the artistic talent of a villain does not make you vile. Not at all.
Imagine a clearer example. Imagine that somebody is on a life sentence convicted of a murder that they have commited. Do you think that this person has the right to write a book? Can this book be sent for participation at a literary contest? Can it win? Does the jury that gives the prize condone the killing perpetrated by the winner? Are they vile?
That's the post-war treatment given to studies of hypothermia that came out of Nazi Germany - because the means by which those studies were conducted was by putting Jews and PoWs into barrels of ice water, and measuring how long it would take them to die.
You recognize the results, while condemning every single person involved in the methods.
It doesn't excuse the murder, but I think talent should be rewarded, doubly so if the person is a villain. The problem with most criminals is that we can't think of them as other than criminals, and it is a vicious circle because it drags people deeper in the world of crime.
We should give a message such as: you have been sentenced to 10 years, if you have a talent, use that time to develop it, and you can use it to have a good life after you get out. Just look at the other guy who won the literary contest while serving a life sentence, just because you did bad things doesn't make you can't get recognized for all the good thing you can do.
I've seen work mentioned as the magic bullet for rehabilitating criminals. Not as a punishment but actually useful work. And if the criminal in question has a particular talent, that should be taken advantage of.
Why doubly so, it is literally rewarding the bad behavior? A person that does not abuse people should be rewarded as much as those who do abuse them. And it seem to me that current culture or at least culture last twenty years was rewarding abusers more then non-abusers or their victims. And it just leads to more abuse.
But you rise an interesting point about victims. A criminal shall pay damage to the victims, and a successful author can do it. A worthless thug or someone perceived by society as such can't, not just that but he will continue to be supported by society for as long as he lives.
The reason I think society today is more "lax" towards criminals is that we focus on rehabilitation. That's the only way for criminals to repay their debt to society. We used to have them do slave labor, but modern society doesn't need slaves, it needs skilled workers. We can also kill them all, but that's extreme and carries a whole lot of other issues.
People who do vile shit should not be celebrated at all. To me, it's a requirement: if you want to be considered a person of great accomplishment, then you should be an upstanding citizen.
I also think that celebrating vile people is a reflection on the "jury" here as well. If I discover someone celebrates the works of Hitler, Stalin, Mengele, Saddam Hussein, etc, then they are definitely knocked down a few pegs in my book. I wouldn't go so far as to call them vile on that alone, but I definitely question their moral compass.
I honestly would be fine with the award if Harrison Ford had simply continued on to explain that Polanski could not be there on account of being a child rapist on the run from justice. That would have put things nicely into perspective and, I think, clarified that they were awarding the accomplishment of the film and not honoring Polanski himself.
Good luck being the one with the power to decide what an upstanding citizen is. This is cancel culture in a nutshell.
There’s a reason “don’t meet your heroes” is a saying. The problem is not appreciating the good works of someone who has also done bad things —- the problem is when we assume prima facie that just because someone is celebrated for one thing, that they are an upstanding citizen in all other areas of their life.
There would be a lot less Harvey Weinstein’s in the world if our fallible human herd mentality didn’t elevate someone to sainthood because they were a bigshot in one aspect of their life.
The Sophisticate: “The world isn’t black and white. No one does pure good or pure bad. It’s all gray. Therefore, no one is better than anyone else.”
The Zetet: “Knowing only gray, you conclude that all grays are the same shade. You mock the simplicity of the two-color view, yet you replace it with a one-color view . . .”
—Marc Stiegler, David’s Sling
It's true that "all humans are both sinners and saints at the same time" - but it's absolutely not true that all, or even most, humans have done something as bad as raping a child (to say nothing of the other people mentioned in the parent comment). This kind of sentiment is appropriate when considering the kinds of mistakes or sins that all humans commit, identifying the grey areas that people are consistently in. The existence of grey areas does not mean that somethings aren't black and others aren't white. I think, in this case, we can clearly see that what Polanski did was very bad and worthy condemnation and not "Who among hasn't..."
The point I'm trying to make in return is that while it is true that all humans do good and bad things, some humans, like Polanski, do genuinely terrible things, and the fact that all humans do bad things should not be an excuse for ignoring or looking over genuinely terrible things.
depends on the way of the acknowledgement. If the movie is the best - you give the Oskar as that is the rules of the game (though you can also follow the example of many professional associations like say doctors and lawyers who completely exclude criminally immoral people, talented or not, from their ranks. Movie industry not doing it is already a kind of a tell about the industry's ethics.), yet you definitely don't have to applaud and celebrate. Applauding and celebrating is what makes you personally vile and supporter and validator.
There is disagreement on opinions and there is outright immorality.
The best basis for "outright immoral" is universal agreement - I don't know that there is on this topic. Recognition of a work isn't the same as praise of the individual - good work can come from bad people. And in the case of a work like a film, there are multiple stakeholders.
I'd also like to note that "paedophile" in this case is probably being used to mean "child molester", i.e someone who has committed a crime.
At least from my understanding, society takes a hard line on pedophilia so this is universal agreement on its immorality.
Like whether a persons genius has something to do with the bad deeds or the worst part of themselves has something to do with their genius.
There is an excellent essay by Heinrich Oppenhiemer called The Rationale of Punishment [0] It's quite the thought provoking read despite being over a century old. People then struggled with the question of justice - what is fair - just as we do today.
The idea of fairness, to mete out punishment and dole out reward with equal measure, should be the foundation of justice. Yes, we should lock the molester in a dark cell for life for his crime, but justice demands that if he has done good works - those be recognised with the exactude of their contribution, not with spite.
Some old Chinese texts on Mohism should also be an entertaining read - with good leaders both in government and military said to have mastered fairness in reward and punishment [1]
So I'm hoping at the least you can see nothing is so black and white when it comes to the justice of reward and punishment. The idea of being just is seen as virtuous throughout the ages across all cultures from the Zulu to the Muari to the Aztecs to the Sycithians to ancient Egyptians to Han China - because it hard.
[0](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/intejethi....)
Its not obvious what a "hard line" on sexual abuse is, or how you think society behaves on the matter; it doesn't obviously include denying recognition of works.
I don't mind being wrong.
But drugging someone to rape them is particularly vile.
But not only did he drugged and raped a woman, that woman was not a woman but a girl. A 13 year old one.
For the life of me I can't understand how people defend this guy. I mean, all his pedo rapist friends in the entertainment industry obviously wouldn't be too hard on him, but everyone else.
Also, did anyone ever ask Jack Nicholson how an unaccompanied minor got into his party?
I think Samantha Geimer has been doubly victimised – first by Polanski, then by a legal system which cares more about itself than about the interests and wishes of the victims it is supposed to protect.
I think Geimer feels, that as Polanski's victim, she should have some say – some power over – what happens to Polanski. But society doesn't want to give her that power. Polanski made her powerless then, and the system makes her powerless now. And when she complains about the system making her powerless, people misinterpret that as either some defence of what Polanski did to her (which she doesn't agree with and wishes never happened), or start (horribly unfairly and cruelly) dismissing what she has to say as the result of "Stockholm syndrome" or "grooming".
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/sep/18/samantha-geimer...
The state holds a monopoly. All the victim gets, is the right to be consulted by the prosecution, but the prosecution is free to ignore the victim's opinion, as they have done repeatedly in this case.
Geimer asked the courts to drop the case, because she was sick of the whole thing and wants it to go away. The court refused, because it isn't about her, she's just the victim: https://apnews.com/article/683568177ab04a7081dad4e3664b13aa
> (In particular, was she his only victim? That seems unlikely.)
The case in question is only about what Roman Polanski did to Samantha Geimer, not about what Roman Polanski did to other people. Indeed, other women have said that Polanski abused them (Valentine Monnier, Charlotte Lewis, Renate Langer, Marianne Barnard). But, this prosecution is only about what Polanski did to Geimer, which I think means Geimer's wishes ought to be respected by the prosecution. If Polanski were to be prosecuted for what he did to one of his other victims, Geimer would have no say in that, and she wouldn't claim she is entitled to any.
Of course there is the risk that victims might move for leniency due to psychological domination, grooming, threats, etc. However, I don't think that is what is happening in Geimer's case, when decades later, as an adult woman, she is asking for the prosecution to be discontinued – indeed, I think to suggest that is happening in her case is deny her agency, to continue her disempowerment. I think the system could be designed to have safeguards against those risks while still giving victims such as Geimer some legal rights over the proceedings. So that would not mean giving victims an absolute right, but a relative right, as opposed to no right which is what they have now.
If a thirteen year old girl doesn't want her abuser to be prosecuted, I think it is legitimate to disregard that on the grounds that as a minor she doesn't understand her own best interests. But when she says the same thing forty years later, to refuse to listen to her, as the California court system has done to Geimer, is to treat a grown woman as a thirteen year old. That's insulting.
If there's credible evidence (as reviewed by a grand jury, resulting in an indictment), society has an interest in seeing him tried for the reason above at least. If Geimer doesn't wish to cooperate in that trial, she should not be compelled to testify for the prosecution, but she should not hold the sole power to stop the trial from proceeding. (all in my opinion)
I don't think this is solely, and maybe not even primarily about the state seeking power, but rather properly exercising power granted it by the people.
If Polanski hadn't fled, how much time would he have actually spent in prison? He had a plea bargain for time served (he'd already spent a bit over 40 days in prison) and probation. That plea bargain was approved by the victim and her parents. The judge started (rather unprofessionally) bragging to people he was going to cancel the plea bargain and send Polanski to prison for 50 years. Polanski heard about it, panicked, and fled. But, realistically, the judge was unlikely to give him anywhere near 50 years. He probably wasn't even going to get 50 months – possibly, the unprofessional bragging might have been all for nothing and the judge might have stuck to the plea bargain. Even if the judge decided to overrule it, given sentencing practices at the time, the sentence probably wouldn't have been for very long (more likely months than years), and a heavy sentence would have had high odds of being overturned on appeal. Indeed, lawyers who have looked at the case say that, were Polanski to voluntarily return to the US (or somehow be captured by US authorities), he is unlikely to serve much time at all for his original crime of abusing Geimer – if he is facing serious time for anything, it is going to be for fleeing from prosecution rather than the underlying offence.
If Polanski had got time served (original plea bargain), or a few months in prison (likely outcome if it the judge overruled it), how much protection of children from harm would have society actually received? If Polanski spends 6 months in prison, that's a mere 6 months in which he can't abuse anyone. He might not have abused anyone in those 6 months even if he were free. It is hard to take the preventive justification for sentencing seriously in the context of the magnitude of the sentence Polanski was likely facing.
> I don't think this is solely, and maybe not even primarily about the state seeking power, but rather properly exercising power granted it by the people.
Geimer feels abused by the system, and I think her feelings are entirely legitimate. The prosecution and judges should take some responsibility for what they've done to her (a real flesh and blood person with real thoughts and feelings) rather than hiding behind this inchoate abstraction of "the people".
Is it a genuine desire to forgive? Or is it out of fear/undesire to relive the experience?
I honestly don't know and it's not my place to guess, but it's a problem that we see in other areas too. This line of reasoning is part of why DV cases move forward even if the victim doesn't want to.
We don't need to "map" Samantha Geimer's neurons to understand her motivations. We can listen to what she has to say herself about that topic, in her media interviews, in the book she wrote, on Twitter. Have you listened to what she has to say? Or are you saying that it doesn't matter what she says? Isn't that denying her a voice, and denying her agency? And, isn't denying her agency what Polanski did to her to begin with?
> This line of reasoning is part of why DV cases move forward even if the victim doesn't want to.
In many cases of domestic violence, the victim may still be under psychological domination by the abuser, and I agree in those circumstances there may be times when it is right to overrule the victim's wish that their abuser goes unprosecuted.
But in this case, Geimer and Polanski haven't see each other in person in over 40 years. She has had her own life – she married, had kids, a career. She explains her desire that the case be dropped as about what's good for her – escaping the continuing retraumatisation by the legal system and the media. I really don't see any evidence here that she is presently (or even recently) being psychologically dominated by Polanski.
If Geimer, as a thirteen year old, was arguing that Polanski shouldn't be prosecuted, I think it would be legitimate to overrule that wish. But, when she's arguing that as a fifty-seven year old, I don't think overruling her wishes is still legitimate. And, take note, her problem was not with the original prosecution in itself – she was happy with the original outcome that Polanski pled guilty and she didn't have to testify. Her objection is to the case being dragged on for decades against her will.
She's also angry about the judicial misconduct in the case – which, who cares about whether it hurt Polanski, it harmed her (the judge's unprofessionalism betrayed the victim); and by people who want to use the events of her life for political and media ends – it's her trauma not theirs, yet people want to use her trauma for their own ends without consulting her.
I get the impression a lot of people don't care about the actual detailed facts of this case, they just want to cling to the principle, and if Geimer's welfare and agency have to be sacrificed for their principle, so be it.
She even has gone further, and denounced the people who wish to use her trauma to score political points. Nobody cares -- her trauma is important only insofar as it is useful to them. They think it belongs to them, not her.
Look at all these vile people applauding this villain, who couldn't accept his Oscar because he fled the country. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXnNOBj26lk
In some ways I think we may have over responded (Aziz Ansari is not Harvey Weinstein), but it was shocking what behavior people were excusing from the powerful even in recent decades.