I wrote before about "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired," a documentary that seeks to rehabilitate the image of fugitive child-rapist director Roman Polanski. Over at Salon, Bill Wyman now has an excellent piece utterly eviscerating director Marina Zenovich's rape-apologist propaganda piece. The occasion is the recent rejection of Polanski's attempt to have the charges against him dismissed in abstentia. Wyman carefully illustrtates how the filmmaker's art can distort, minimize, and airbrush a monstrous crime and promote the notion that Polanski must be the victim of the story because Polanski's friends and supporters think he is a swell fellow. But swell fellows do not drug and violate 13-year-old girls. The fact that the actual victim has forgiven Polanski does not alter or minimize what he did.

It's entirely possible that the judge in Polanski's case committed misconduct. It may even be possible that Polanski should have a remedy for such misconduct, perhaps even including dismissal. Dismissal for outrageous prosecutorial or judicial misconduct is a legitimate doctrine that is probably applied too sparingly in both state and federal courts. But even if the facts and the law support some mitigation of the legal charges against Polanski, decent people should resist crass attempts to rehabilitate Polanski's reputation by distorting what he did. Polanski drugged and raped a thirteen-year-old. I don't care how many good movies he directed before or since; that makes him someone unworthy of adulation.

Last 5 posts by Ken

• Marc Stephens Threatens Me Some More - February 3rd, 2012
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