How complicated is the Polanski case really?

In the Guardian today, Victoria Coren Mitchell calls for a "nuanced" approach to Roman Polanski (and other controversial issues). This follows the publication of a book called The Girl by Samantha Geimer and VCM is largely on board with what seems to be Ms Geimer's attitude and wishes.

I don't propose to summarise VCM's article, nor to link with it. If you wish to read it, it's out there, but should come with a trigger warning. As should the remainder of this blog. But, for the uninitiated, here is why film director Roman Polanski is controversial. In 1977, when he was already very successful, he drugged and raped the 13 year old Samantha. He pleaded guilty in court, so we can all be quite confident when we say Roman Polanski is a rapist. No inverted commas or words like "allegedly" needed here. He did it and admitted it. Then he fled America to a country with no US extradition agreement. He remains out of the reach of justice.

Seems pretty cut and dried, doesn't it? We don't like child rapists. I'd expect Polanski to get the type of press meted out to Gary Glitter. This isn't the case. He has continued to make films and articles like today's surface from time to time.

VCM isn't actually acting as an apologist for Polanski, though her article will inevitably be read that way by many. The element that muddies the waters is Geimer herself, who has been vocal about letting bygones be bygones. Her attitude towards her abuser is extraordinary and, to some, I expect, inspiring. But people seem to find it impossible to respect her wishes without simultaneously allowing leeway to Roman the rapist.

In her article, VCM supports nuanced thinking over simplistic binary responses. Well, allow me to retort. Polanski broke the law, then fled from punishment. He should be brought to justice. End of.

Surely it's not as hard as she suggests to understand more than one thing about a person? I get that his family were killed by the Nazis. I get that his wife and unborn baby were killed by the Mandon gang. Poor bastard. Or, actually, poor Sharon Tate. Poor baby. The focus is always on Roman the Man, how these atrocities gain meaning through their effect on him. 

I also get that he's an accomplished artist. Not quite to my taste, but Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown are acknowledged classics, while he draws superb performances from actors in the likes of Death and the Maiden. Well done there.

Utterly separate from those things: he raped a girl. 

As far as we know, it's an isolated incident. He's not Saville. Nor is he Stuart Hall, a repellent sexual predator who also pleaded guilty but - crucial difference - did not flee and is now in jail. Saying that Polanski committed "only" one child rape is not letting him off the hook. It's not an aberration, it's a life-defining crime. And anyway, we could always point at a lifetime of dating (sometimes much) younger women. Including 15 year old Natassja Kinski. When he was 43.

Yes, Roman the Paedophile is a complicated person with a variety of aspects. But the rape itself is not so. Why can't people understand that? Why can't people - and here, I don't mean VCM - stop trying to find excuses for him?

Perhaps the most problematic paragraph in this problematic article claims that a "complicating factor is that Polanski's work is filled with beauty and humanity". As if his creation of art should be taken in mitigation for his crimes. It reminds me of 2003, when Polanski got an Oscar for The Pianist. He appeared by video link and got a standing ovation. I felt sick. Let's show overwhelming support for a man who can't appear in person for fear of arrest! Four years earlier, the giving of an honorary award to Elia Kazan led to protests and many actors refused to stand and clap. Kazan told tales in the 1950s and got several people blacklisted. Clearly snitching on Hollywood men is more offensive than raping children. (NB. Polanski was also nominated as Best Director for Tess, made only 2 years after his flight from America.)

Let's be clear: I liked Another Rock'n'Roll Christmas. I don't think it should excuse Gary Glitter's crimes. There's hypocrisy to be seen here - people tend to be more lenient towards accused celebrities who are seen as talented or likeable, while they aim far more bile at those who were naff to begin with.

Following the 2003 Oscars, I posted on a board that I frequented at the time the question: "Should a rapist win best director?" The majority of responses were of the opinion that the two things were separate and that Polanski's background should not be a factor. If he had made an outstanding film, then this fact should be recognised. I can't agree. Surely his status as a rapist-fugitive should trump his status as an artist? Are the Academy really saying that his ability to make a good movie is more important (to them, to anyone?) than his failure to avoid raping  a 13 year old? Because if so, can we expect another Glitter Band album soon?

How does he even get to make the film? Presumably every studio that's hired him since 1977 has decided they're OK with his history. Presumably all those actors who have worked with him since 1977 - Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver, Hugh Grant, Kate Winslet, Johnny Depp, Jodie Foster, Sir Ben Kingsley, Ewan McGregor - have thought about it and decided that they don't mind working with an admitted child fucker.

I'm not going to condemn Victoria Coren Mitchell for writing a muddled and contradictory piece about this hot potato, any more than I'm going to condemn Jodie Foster (Jodie Foster!) for working with Polanski, or - for example - Caitlin Moran for some of the stupid things she's written of late. All of these people are, I suspect, more intelligent than me. Certainly they're intelligent and have thought hard about their choices and about their writing (though possibly not all their tweets). They are, by and large, forces for good in a society that routinely marginalises and insults successful and talented women. VCM is quite right in her desire to allow Samantha Gaimer's voice to be heard and I wish to disassociate myself immediately from those whose reaction to today's article has been to try to silence the rape survivor. I can agree that she has every right to have and voice an opinion while also believing that her attacker deserves to be ignored at least, imprisoned at best. Is that nuanced? I'm not sure. I think it might be common sense.

Death Comes To Imagination

I have just finished reading "Death Comes to Pemberley" by P.D.James. For those who don't know, this is a recent novel by the nonagenarian mystery writer behind the Dalglish novels and is a sequel to Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice".

What a dull book. What a missed opportunity. The epilogue informs me that there are about seventy other sequels to this book and I can only hope that some of them picked up the gauntlet with a little bit more gumption than James manages. Here is what I've learned from reading it.

HOW TO WRITE A MURDER-MYSTERY SEQUEL TO PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

1) Have a sense of fun. What you're doing is clearly indefensible in terms of literature and about as artistically valid as "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies", so recognise how absurd it is through your writing. P.D.James takes the whole thing so seriously (well, most of the time) that it becomes a chore to read.

2) Be concise. No doubt many students have found Austen's prose style wearyingly ponderous at times, a product of literary styles changing over the years. James makes Austen seem as long-winded as a tweet. Endless descriptions of the day-to-day life at Pemberley take precedence over anything interesting happening.

3) Where Austen has created interesting characters, use them. Some of the best characters in P&P - Mrs Bennet, Mr Collins, Lady Catherine - remain resolutely off the page, appearing only through letters or other people's referencing them. Mr Bennet has a cameo, Mary is almost entirely absent and even Elizabeth is largely sidelined in favour of spending almost the entire book with Darcy.

4) Understand what made the book work in the first place. Arguably, the driving force behind P&P is the relationship between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy. Turns out, once they're married with children, they're a lot less interesting. Nothing is brought in to take the place of this dynamic.

5) Remember to write a sequel. There's very little in this book that relies on the existence of P&P - Wickham's notoriety is about the only relevant thing. Without wanting to spoiler this too much, the murder victim is an extremely minor character from Austen's novel; another key player is mentioned only briefly by Austen; and pretty much everyone else significant to the case is invented by James. The Bingleys, the Gardners and others hover about the story and Darcy is in it up to his neck, but otherwise James might as well have invented her own scenario. Except then it wouldn't have sold, because it doesn't work.

6) Remember how to write a murder mystery. This may be the most shocking thing, but the highly experienced purveyor of whodunnits fails to give this any sense of tension or thrills. The murder happens after a few chapters, then very little. The inquest, the court case are detailed with minute attention, but the stakes seem so low. Given a man is dead and another may be hanged, it often seems like nothing is more important than who Georgiana Darcy is going to marry. The murderer is revealed several chapters before the end, at which point a series of speeches and letters explain the plot to us. There is no detective, no Dalglish figure, to solve the mystery with us - wouldn't it be great if Lizzie fulfilled this role? Instead, we follow Darcy as everything happens around him.

I hope you have found this useful in deciding whether to read this novel. For the record, I don't think I'll bother with the TV adaptation which is to be screened later this year.

Same Sex Marriage: a priest speaks out

With a heavy heart, I have just "unfriended" an old schoolfriend. He is now an Anglican priest - all names in this blog will be changed to preserve the peace and because the purpose of writing this is not to shame my old friend but to highlight attitudes within the Church of England.

It all began in the immediate aftermath of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) bill passing successfully through the House of Lords in mid-July 2013 (about a fortnight ago). I noticed that my old friend - for the purposes of this blog, we shall call him Peter - has posted links on Facebook to quite a few religious writers who were adamantly against the bill. So, I decided to enter into debate by posting this as a comment on one of his links:


"Hi Peter,

You've not been backward about posting your responses to the recent legislation over the last couple of days, so I figured that opened the doors for me to query them.

Could you explain to me, an atheist, why you disagree with this law? Obviously simply stating, as [one of Peter's links] does, that we must follow God's law, isn't going to hold much sway with me. I assume there must be more to your reasoning than that.

This is the first opportunity I've found to discuss this with an ordained person, so would be interested in your response.

Cheers,

Chris."

Genuinely, I wanted to hear his point of view and try to understand his argument. A response soon came [use of links and bold print are my additions throughout]: 

 

Because marriage is something that can only happen between a man and a woman, it may be celebrated in a religious or a civil ceremony. What this law proposes is to break this understanding. I stand in a tradition which values the Bible as revealed truth, and when Jesus speaks of marriage in Mark 10:6-9 I believe that we have to follow him on this, it is ordained by God for human flourishing. While homosexual relationships can be loving they are expressed in acts which are sinful and wrong, and which cry to Heaven for vengeance.

The love of a man and woman in marriage expresses itself in the physical act of lovemaking which leads to procreation, and the birth and education of children within a loving Christian family. It is the building block of society. rather than see such things thrown away I seek to live out my faith and proclaim it so that people, yourself included, may come to believe and have life in all its fullness, through Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

You might expect me to respond to this, but in fact I was busy living my life. However, one of Peter's other Facebook friends, who I shall call Ian, chipped in. I have edited his response slightly but the meaning is unchanged:

 

Sorry to involve myself - I'm not clergy (yet) but I did study Family Law at post grad, so I have a couple of bits and bobs to add.

Peter and I disagree here (if I may put words in his mouth) in a sense he wants to narrow the understanding, to ensure the estate of "covenant promises" is not watered down. I on the other hand, would like to see it broadened to cover a wider understanding of non-biological procreation, having accepted the modern break between sex and birth.

Better even than Ian was the next (presumably) friend of Peter, who I can't help but like. We'll call him Al:

 

The difficulty that we have with a purely Biblical understanding of marriage, is that the Biblical pattern is clearly polygamous. (Monogamy seems to be reserved for reserved for bishops). Abraham, Jacob (Israel), David, Solomon...

There's no real Biblical support for religious marriage ceremonies at all and until the 18th Century there wasn't seen to be any need in England either.

 
Peter:
  

Ah but as Christians we are the New Israel, and under an New Covenant, Our Lord gives clear teaching on marriage in the Gospels. Churches were the only place where one could marry. The Civil Registration of Marriage is a novelty, and a dangerous one at that.

Alarm bells definitely sounding now. Not only is he against same sex marriage (which is not in itself a shock) but now civil marriage, which I'd thought to be thoroughly uncontroversial?

Over to Ian, who ignores Peter and responds to Al:

 

Al, may I offer a curt response? The Christian view is not a "Biblical View" per se. The majority of Christian thinkers happily base their theology on tradition as a (secondary) source of revelation.

In addition to this, read the whole of the texts, you quickly see that where non one-man-one-woman relationships appear, things go wrong.

NB I am, to an extent playing Devil's Advocate.

Al picks up on both their points:

 

Peter, perhaps you could point me at this clear instruction on marriage. All I can find is something in the context of divorce. St Paul pretty much says "don't marry at all" and there are quite clearly lots of early Christians with multiple wives. 

Ian, I would agree that one man, one woman is the ideal. However, no disease, no famine and no death are also ideals, but condemning people because they don't live in ideal circumstances seems rather harsh.

Interesting, I thought, that even the most liberal contributor to this debate thinks heterosexuality is "the ideal" - not "the norm". Peter's next comment confused me a bit, given he's an Anglican, but that may be my atheist ignorance:
  
The clearest teaching on marriage, its nature, use and good may be found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church 

Al, slightly edited to remove redundancy and repetition:
 

I would argue that heterosexual relationships might be what God intended, but we have to deal with reality. We have homosexual people. We can either tell them "tough luck, God intended you to be single", or we can do something to help them achieve loving, stable and faithful relationships given the way that God has actually made them. I believe that marriage is the way to do this, so I would be more than willing to marry two men, or two women, because I think that fidelity is more important than gender.

Encouraging. An understanding of homosexuality not being a choice. Peter now brings up the "adultery" argument:

Homosexuals - like anyone who is not a husband and wife - cannot engage in sexual intercourse, this is the teaching of the Church, it may be ignored or ridiculed, but it stands as a clear sign of how God intends human beings to flourish

Al responds at once, elaborating on his earlier tack:
  
Sadly, that argument is circular. You can't have sex outside marriage, but you can't have marriage if you're gay. Ergo, you have a choice between celibacy or sin.

Since the Devil needs advocates, I might ask "Why is God such a lousy creator as to make people gay in the first place? Surely you aren't ignoring all the biological evidence and suggesting that being gay is a choice?" (Note: I accept that for a very small minority of people it may be, but that's not true for most of the gay people I know).

Ian's back, trying to steer the argument onto safer ground and Al's perfectly reasonable response makes it clear that, like Peter, he is a clerk in holy orders:

 

Al, may I ask, in what actual way do civil partnerships (or at least, a modified form) not already offer this legal protection, and celebration?

 

Ian, the problem with civil partnerships is that the church fought tooth and nail not to call it marriage. Had we allowed the term, the fuss would have died down. Thus we made the rod for our own backs. Annoyingly, it is illegal for me to conduct a gay marriage, because I am ordained.

Al, I actually agree with you here.

 It's all quite civilised. Then Peter drops the big one:

 

Homosexuality is an act of human will in a fallen world. The problem really started when homosexuality was de-criminalised. It's time to turn the clock right back.

Holy crap. I remind you that I used to know this guy, I went to school with him. I had no idea, when I posted my original question, that the debate would end up here! It's over to Al:
  
That was perhaps a defensible stance in the Middle Ages when we knew nothing much about human biology. A little reading around the genetics and perinatal studies of homosexuality shows it to be woefully inadequate now. Are you aware of intersex people, for example? The Bible isn't and nor is the blessed catechism, but they exist and always have.

I think Al is being optimistic here. Trying to get someone who thinks homosexuality should be illegal to accept the validity of intersex people is like trying to get someone who dislikes reading to tackle James Joyce. Peter now gets rather snotty with his colleague:
  
You are entirely wrong, Al, and have espoused the classic liberal heresy of privileging reason over scripture and tradition, you have conformed yourself to the world, your views are worthless, sewage.

I admire Al for his restraint here:

I think that the same things were probably said about those who wanted to abolish slavery, which had rather a lot of warrant from scripture and tradition. I'll have to take my chances with being on the side of valuing all people as equal. I hope it's God's side, but thankfully I'm confident that he'll be merciful with me if I'm wrong.

All of the above occurred within two hours. Finally, I switched on my phone and read all this. My lengthy response spent some time recapping on everything that had been said, so I will edit it here to avoid repeating what's already in the blog:
  
Wow. So hi, I'm back.

First of all, I do enjoy seeing believers argue between themselves - no, not schadenfreude, simply because it shows up the breadth of views between people who are supposed to stand for the same thing. Ian and Al seem like people who are useful in a debate and I have enjoyed their points.

Peter, your initial response sent me scurrying to read Mark 10:6-9, which I note doesn't contain the word "marriage". I was going to give a response along those lines. Then [...] your friends/colleagues chipped in and did a better job than I could have done as I am not learned in theology.

But then your own messages became more and more alarmingly bigoted. [...] You're an intelligent man. I remember you as a very intelligent boy. You have qualifications coming out of your ears. And yet your arguments are infantile, insulting and patronising. Read this thread back and see who is trying to debate and who is just cutting everyone dead with an "I'm right, you must be wrong" attitude. I am so disappointed.

It's beyond me why the various churches are so uptight about this issue. Any reading of the New Testament must surely take away Jesus's antipathy to hypocrites, money-hoarders and those who oppress the needy, probably entirely overlooking the tiny handful of oblique references to homosexuality. And yet, anyone reading all the headlines about Christianity for the past 5 years or more would assume all you guys care about is what women and/or gay people should be allowed to do.

Oh, one final point. Al has "espoused the classic liberal heresy of privileging reason over scripture and tradition", has he? So...REASON is a heresy? Using our own reasoning intelligence to try to understand the world rather than blindly accepting what we're told? Seriously, this is frightening.

I didn't get into this for a fight. But then, I didn't know what you were going to say.

Do you think I was too harsh here? I can't make up my mind. But this was several days ago now and reading it back, I can't find anything I regret typing. Anyway, the thread ended at this point. The next thing that happened was that I received a series of private messages from Peter. I won't share most of them, because they were of a personal nature. Indeed, some of what he said fed my reluctance to unfriend him and write this blog. In the end, though...well, you'll see. Here is the portion of Peter's private communication that I feel comfortable sharing: 

The problem is that 'liberal' and conservative Christians do not agree on this, in the same way that atheists disagree. So playing the smug atheist card just makes you look a right pillock
 
If you want to talk about it, give me a ring, I'll give you my number
I would genuinely like to talk to you about it

and apologies for calling you a pillock, you weren't being one, it just sounded like it

·  

the problem is that conservative views on sex and gender are where Christians find themselves in disagreement, and the media, who are generally pro liberal and pro-atheist and anti-Christian stir everything up, and say 'ooh look at you - you lot are backward or bickering, unlike us enlightened types' which is deeply patronising. I have to admit that my ranting earlier did not exactly show my position in a good light, for which I apologise wholeheartedly and profoundly

I appreciate the apology offered here, although he hadn't really done anything to me for which he ought to apologise. I hope he apologised to Al, but I'm willing to bet he hasn't apologised to the entire non-heterosexual community.

What he did do at about this point is delete the thread. I had had the foresight to copy the entire thing onto a Word document once I saw where it was going (specifically for the purpose of writing something like this blog).

So, here's the key part of my response via private message:

·  

In fact - let's get to the heart of it - do you stand by what you said earlier? Namely, that homosexuality should be re-criminalised?

Apologies and excuses are all very well, but I wanted him to confirm his position. His apology had muddied the issue. What about his rant did he feel had shown him in a poor light - the argument or the way he conducted it?

I was not to find out. This was 10 days ago and he has not responded. He has continued to post links on Facebook, but my question went unanswered.

I think it's healthy to have Facebook friends and follow people on Twitter (and even, who knows, to know people in real life) who disagree with you politically. Outright bigotry, however, is another matter. I'm grateful to Ian and especially Al for showing that Peter doesn't speak for their whole faith. But, when it comes down to it, who represents the stance of the Bishops and Archbishops, the Anglican orthodoxy, most accurately - Al? Ian? Or Peter?