In other news, Roman Polanski is still one creepy dude ...

... but I don't place a lot of stock in Charlotte Lewis's allegations.

First, contra some of the headlines, there's no question of "child molestation" here. Lewis was 16 at the time she alleges the incident occurred. The "age of consent" in France is 15.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Secondly, even Lewis and her lawyer (the omnipresent-in-this-sort-of-case Gloria Allred) stop short of using the term "rape," which to me suggests that there was probably at least formal consent. Per AFP:

Although Polanski, 76, was accused of "forcing himself" upon Lewis, the actress pointedly did not use the word "rape." "The words we used are the words we used," Allred said when asked about the actress's allegations.

Thirdly, Lewis was so traumatized by the incident that she pressed charges, attempted suicide several times and eventually entered a convent accepted the lead female role in a Polanski movie (Pirates) released four years later, then waited 24 more years after that to come out all "J'Accuse!"

This pretty much screams "casting couch sex" rather than "rape" (a word which Lewis declined to use) or "child molestation" (for purposes of sexual consent, she was legally an adult at the time).

For the record, I am not, repeat not, saying that's not a bad thing. A powerful older film director abusing his possible ability to make or break careers to intimidate his way into a 16-year-old actor's panties is indeed a bad thing. But it's not the same kind of bad thing as drugging and raping a 13-year-old.

So, why come out with it now instead of 28 years ago?

It isn't for the purpose of pressing charges. The statute of limitations in France is 10 years for child sexual assault; I doubt that it's as long, or at least any longer, for rape of a putative adult.

It's obviously not because she wants to protect prospective future victims of the Evil Polanski. Everybody already knows about him and has for a long time, and if you're trying to stop a victimizer from victimizing you don't give him a 28-year head start.

The idea that she wants Polanski's "additional history" taken into consideration at sentencing rings hollow. If she'd come out with her story earlier, it would have had the same effect -- and it might well have deprived him of his 32 years of refuge in France.

That leaves the two obvious things:

1) Money. If Polanski goes down and is incarcerated, he can be served, compelled to appear, and will be in no position to move his wealth around to protect it. Expect a number of actual or alleged victims to pop up with civil suits aimed at getting a piece of his fortune. Who wouldn't expect to see Allred jockeying for pole position in that litigation queue?

2) Buzz. Lewis hasn't racked an IMDB-worthy acting credit since 2003. Now she's in the headlines and possibly on tap to come to California to give high-profile testimony.

Vidal on Polanski

From a new interview in The Atlantic:

I really don’t give a fuck. Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she’s been taken advantage of?

Wow. Harsh. And unless you actually read the whole interview yourself, that's the only part of it you'll ever hear about. Which is a shame.

Gore Vidal, outrageous? Do tell. That's only been the key to his fame for what, 50 years now? The likelihood that he'll pop off with something waaaayyy beyond the pale is precisely what keeps him in constant demand to sit for interviews with, e.g., The Atlantic. Without those interviews, we might well forget him ... which would also be a shame.

Read the whole interview. Then read Burr and Lincoln, for starters.

Gratuitous add-on, 10/31:

Contra Ostroy

Just to make a couple of things clear right up front:

- I'm not a fan of Roman Polanski's work. I've seen all or part of a few of his films, and the only one I didn't come out of wishing I had my two hours back on was Chinatown.

- From what I know about Roman Polanski, I don't like him much as a person, either. My understanding (and if anyone believes that the facts are in dispute, I'm sure they'll say so in comments) is that at the age of 44 or so, he plied a 13-year-old girl with drugs and alcohol, then raped her. No minimization of the act here, either -- even if that 13-year-old had been competent to consent despite being 13, despite having been fed intoxicants, and despite being substantially under both the physical control (alone with him in an environment he knew and she didn't) and mental "authority figure" dominance (big Hollywood director, promising an adolescent a career if she complied with his wishes) of Polanski, my understanding is that there wasn't even formal, let alone competent or informed, consent. She said "no" and he forcibly had sex with her anyway. There doesn't seem to be any ambiguity about the nature of the crime. It was savage, barbaric and evil.

- Had I been an adult and following the case, at the time he was arrested, charged and tried for the crime, I'd probably have hoped for a harsh sentence. Maybe even an inventive one. How about life in prison, castration on the first morning, the removed organs as his first meal, and no second meal until he cleaned his plate?

In summary, if Polanski looked to me for sympathy he'd receive none whatsoever. He disgusts me. Even if I appreciated his artistic endeavors I wouldn't consider them in any way a mitigating factor. Actually, quite the opposite -- he used his art-derived celebrity as a tool in the commission of his crime. His art doesn't redeem him. Rather, he besmirched his art with his crime.

All of that said, I posted the following comment on a Huffington Post op-ed by Andy Ostroy overnight. The comment hasn't been approved for publication at HuffPo, and may have been deep-sixed, but it's also posted at Facebook via the automatic linkage between the two sites:

[Quoting Ostroy] "In America, we don't let victims decide when our laws are enforced."

[Me] Maybe -- actually, more than maybe -- we should (that would put the kibosh on a lot of our more ridiculous laws, the ones banning activities that don't HAVE victims).

But if not, the least that anyone should be willing to do is refrain from abusing the victim by making her an unwilling participant in a crusade. She's moved for dismissal of the charges, and she's accepted a financial settlement with Polanski. He's no longer victimizing her. YOU are.

Back to clarifying things:

- In 1993, Polanski's victim, by then an adult, reached a civil settlement with him under which he was to pay her $500,000. It's not yet clear whether he ever did pay it -- the last court filing on the matter was in 1996, at which time he hadn't -- but at any rate the victim doesn't seem to be actively pursuing the matter at this time.

- Earlier this year, Polanski's victim went to court to seek dismissal of the charges against Polanski.

In short, the victim, at some point, stopped being a victim. Or at least she stopped being Roman Polanski's victim. Neither the criminal justice system nor the "get Polanski" commentariat have any legitimate claim to be acting or speaking on her behalf or in her interests -- and to the extent that either prosecutors or pundits make such a claim, it is they who are now victimizing her, by conscripting her as an unwilling actor in the drama they're putting on.

At some level, those so victimizing her understand what they're doing. Nearly every "get Polanski" piece I've read includes something like the following, also from the Ostroy column:

Another misguided element in Harris's defense of Polanski is that his victim, the now-45-year-old [name elided by KN@PPSTER*], wants the case dropped and forgotten. As psychologists will tell us, there is a very twisted dynamic that often occurs between victim and victimizer. [name elided by KN@PPSTER], at 13, was in no position to reconcile this horrific act. And it's likely had a profoundly negative affect on her throughout her adult life, which may be exactly why she needs to sweep this painful memory under the rug instead of having the self-confidence to demand justice for the man who stole her innocence.

What Ostroy is arguing here is that so long as having her remain a victim is useful to his argument, she should be considered incompetent to decline the honor. I don't know if that attitude is as evil as what Polanski did, but it's certainly evil in its own right.

Over at Facebook, one commenter has drawn some pretty broad conclusions from what I consider a very narrow argument. Those conclusions are his, not mine. I have very carefully not argued that Polanski shouldn't have been arrested, shouldn't be extradited, or shouldn't be punished. Maybe he should be -- but if he should be, the justification for it would have to be something other than the particular things he did to the particular victim in question. She claims, in essence, that she's been made whole for damages and has no further interest in pursuing the matter. That's her call, not Andy Ostroy's or anyone else's, to make.


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* The closest I can come to honoring the former victim's wishes in this matter, while still discussing the matter, is to refrain from plastering her name all over my blog. So I have.