stillsostrange: (Aeryn)
[personal profile] stillsostrange
I'm angry, and probably shouldn't post when I'm angry, but I'm going to do it anyway. This anger isn't going away. So I will leave my opinion here for posterity.

The advent of the internet makes it easier to "meet" artists of all varieties, and therefore to discover that they're people with opinions just like everyone else, and those opinions often run counter to our own. Getting bent out of shape because an artist doesn't agree with you on everything is certainly one's prerogative, but usually a very silly one.

But I draw the line at basic human rights. Including the right not to be fucking raped.

There is no moral grey area here. There is never a time when rape is maybe okay. Or not really that bad. And if anyone says there is, they have lost any respect I might ever have given them. I don't care what kind of art you make, or what your other political views are. If you think rape is okay, I think you're a waste of skin.

Date: 2009-10-07 06:02 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/
The thing which is really frustrating about this is that we keep having to say it, too. You would think that by now it would be accepted that there is no excuse for rape.

Date: 2009-10-07 06:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nathreee.livejournal.com
exactly. How thick are those people who still think he should get away with this?

Date: 2009-10-07 06:03 pm (UTC)

Date: 2009-10-07 06:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] michaeldthomas.livejournal.com
I couldn't agree with you more.

Artists and famous people shouldn't get a seperate standard of ethics and morality. I can't respect anybody who thinks otherwise.

Date: 2009-10-07 07:35 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] britmandelo.livejournal.com
This whole thing has made me depressed about the industries of etertainment be they film, TV, books, whatever.

I could almost stretch my brain to understand if it was one of those cases where a sixteen year old girl slept with an adult (or even an eighteen year old) of her own free will and her parents pressed charges. God knows when I was fourteen my parents could have cut a swath of statutory cases through the young male population in my area, but even as an adult, I don't regret any of those choices. I feel they were informed and safe.

But that isn't what happened here. It just plain isn't, and it makes me physically sick to think of all these people I respected and admired saying that it's not only okay to drug and anally rape women, but girls, too. That a celebrity status means it's okay to degrade and abuse another human being, as if your "talent" makes you somehow better than that young woman.

Anyone supporting Polanski should spend a minute imagining how they would like it if, at the age of thirteen, someone drugged and assaulted them.

Seriously. Makes me physically sick.

Date: 2009-10-07 07:36 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] britmandelo.livejournal.com
Also: if he had done this to a BOY, he would have been in prison or dead faster than you could shake a finger.

Double fucking standard much?

Date: 2009-10-07 07:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] stillsostrange.livejournal.com
That probably isn't the case. Victor Salva raped a 12-year-old boy (coercing any sex acts out of a minor is rape, as far as I'm concerned, whether or not there was any penetration), served 15 months of a 3-year sentence, and was later hired by Disney to direct Powder. Actors involved also spoke up in his defense.

I am especially enraged to learn that Salva identifies as gay. I think the term he wants is "predatory pedophile".

Date: 2009-10-07 11:32 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] britmandelo.livejournal.com
Wow, that's new to me, and also totally horrifying. A twelve year old is a child; that's not even "minor" yet.

What is wrong with the world?

(I'd say coercing sex acts out of anyone is rape, regardless of age, but it's especially awful when a child is involved. And for the record I don't actually think the age of consent should be 14, despite my own experience. 16 works just fine.)

Date: 2009-10-08 06:54 pm (UTC)
manifesta: (Default)
From: [personal profile] manifesta (from livejournal.com)
If she was 18 and consented of her own free will, there would be nothing to understand. There wouldn't even be an issue. It's true she was a minor, intoxicated, she didn't/couldn't grant consent. But in any ONE of these scenarios, it still would've been rape, and it still would've been wrong.

Date: 2009-10-09 02:36 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] britmandelo.livejournal.com
That was exactly my point.

(I live in a state where the age of consent is sixteen, and we're always hearing horror stories from states that are still using eighteen as their standard with no leeway for consent of the younger party. High school students sent to prison for statutory rape for making love with a consenting partner one year younger than themselves, and often in the same damned grade, etc. That was the sort of case I was talking about: if it was one of those, I could understand the support, but it isn't and that's what's so horrifying.)

Date: 2009-10-09 03:22 am (UTC)
manifesta: (Default)
From: [personal profile] manifesta (from livejournal.com)
Ahhh, okay. I thought you were referring to the case itself or cases like it, where the girl was intoxicated. That makes sense though.

Date: 2009-10-07 08:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mr-earbrass.livejournal.com
The Salva thing came to mind for me, too. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around how many seemingly intelligent people are backing Polanski--it seems like before you would publicly support someone accused of a crime you would do the tiniest bit of research into the case, and the tiniest bit of research into this case makes any normal person feel disgusted. In his version of events he still raped her, and yet people are lining up to tell him he's "suffered enough." Bleh.

Just made a kinda silly comment on an earlier post before getting caught up to here, apologies :/

Date: 2009-10-07 09:36 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] leahbobet.livejournal.com
I think it's that old essentialism trap: "I like this person, therefore they're a good person because I wouldn't like bad people, and therefore they wouldn't do that or what they did was okay, because they're a good person."

Which when you write it down isn't really the most rock-solid of logic there, but, well. People do it.

Date: 2009-10-07 10:38 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mr-earbrass.livejournal.com
Your explanation makes more sense than anything else I've come up with, other than people just being (willfully) ignorant to the basic facts of the case, in which case we're back at the question of why they wouldn't educate themselves before signing on--they like his work or his personality or something. It's also interesting/gross to see the dichotomy between new sources who refer to the crime as "sex", albeit "unlawful," versus those that acknowledge it as rape.

Date: 2009-10-08 01:33 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] leahbobet.livejournal.com
Maybe I am having a cynical day, but...it's my experience that people don't go out on their own time to educate themselves about things. They have opinions and stick to the facts that support said opinions, etc.

Okay, yeah, I'm having a cynical day. *g*

Date: 2009-10-08 12:14 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] libris-leonis.livejournal.com
"If you think rape is okay, I think you're a waste of skin"

I disagree - in the same way that I disagree with capital punishment. You may be scum, and hold some of the most repugnant beliefs out there (essentially, saying rape is ok is saying women are objects), but you're still a person, albeit a small and mean little one - and it's up to us, people who are, y'know, sane - to educate these mean, little people about what being human really means.

And hopefully, when we do that, they'll look back on earlier statements and baulk at their callous folly.

Date: 2009-10-08 06:55 pm (UTC)
manifesta: (Default)
From: [personal profile] manifesta (from livejournal.com)
Agreed. Very much so.

Date: 2009-10-24 01:40 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
You know, the thing that gets me is an article I read on this like, yesterday; there are people who -actually believe- that an artist's body of work should excuse them from criminal charges. Like if you've just made an award-worthy movie, you should have the right to go torch a church or beat a vagrant.

What really bothers me is the mentality, as others have mentioned, that because someone is famous they should get off. Okay, someone made a movie or wrote a book that won a bunch of awards, so these people think it's made a "significant contribution to the lives of millions of people" or whatever... But what about the millions that think it's garbage? Hm. So there's really no standard by which to measure the "greatness" of a thing, but they're trying to argue this anyway.

So Polanski's got a mob looking to free him. Surprises me to say that it's more infuriating than all those idiots that wanted to "Free Paris Hilton" when she got convicted for drunk driving. Fucking astounding, really.

But here's the real kick in the pants. Consider this...

Nobody is saying that great scientists or doctors of the world should be exempt from criminal charges. If a movie star (and I use that term loosely) drives drunk, it's "Free them!" If a sports hero kills somebody, it's "Free them!" If a director is a sickoid freak that ruins a child's life, it's "Free them!"

If a doctor nods off for a second driving home from a breakthrough on a cure for cancer and kills somebody with his car, though, it probably doesn't even make the papers.

I swear, this is not my planet, I just live here.

--Hawk
hawkdarkwolf006@aol.com

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