[ SECRET POST #4053 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4053 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 16 secrets from Secret Submission Post #580.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: When Creators Do Bad Things

[(Anonymous)]

Depends on how bad, if it's excusable and if so, if they apologised.

Like calling someone names, using slurs, behaving badly etc. really isn't that bad in my eyes, especially if they apologised for it. Abuse, violence or rape (if actually proven, not just rumoured) is much worse.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

To be specific, I'm feeling let down because I found the name of somebody I kind of admired and whose work I enjoyed on the Polanski petition, and I just hope they regret signing it now.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Tarantino?

OP

[(Anonymous)]

No - I don't have any mixed feelings about Tarantino, because his actions (the Uma Thurman thing, minimizing what Polanski did in an interview) are more extensive, and honestly him I wasn't too surprised by.

As far as I *know*, the biggest thing this person did was sign the petition, so I guess part of me is hoping they regret it and they realize that it was a mistake.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT

the thing with that is that practically everyone in Hollywood supported Polanski. And I'm not saying that justifies it. But I think, with people who are supporting Polanski, you're talking about people condoning and participating in unjust systems and industries and cultures. And I think that's a lot harder to judge and condemn and a lot more complicated and muddy.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

I guess the larger question is, *why* did they support him? I assume a lot of them aren't violent or even "bad" people, and I like to think most of them have enough of a moral compass to know that what he did was wrong, so why?

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

That's a good question, and I don't have an answer, but I do think that it's pretty much a universal human characteristic. It's not something that's unique to this instance. People are just really, really good at ignoring the harmful effects of systems, and at ignoring when people who they relate to or like or admire or know personally do things that are awful. People are, in fact, extraordinarily bad at doing anything else. And pretty much always have been.

Re: OP

[cbrachyrhynchos]

Yeah, signing the petition is worth a side-eye but so many people were jumping on that bandwagon at the time. I suspect a lot of them were baboozled by spin, and as we've seen, Hollywood has its own good-old-boy network which likely added its own pressure.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Has anyone on the petition ever renegged or expressed regret for doing so? I'm just curious - because it just seems odd to me that so many people signed it, and I would imagine some signed it to fit in or not make waves or whatever... idk I'm just curious what people have said about it recent years? Has anyone addressed it?

OP

[(Anonymous)]

All I know is that if I meet this person at a con or a film showing or something, I'll ask him why he did it and whether or not he regrets it, because an act of siding with the oppressor and a system that hurts and overlooks the vulnerable goes against everything I loved about and learned from his work.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Is it Guillermo Del Toro? Cause I gotta admit that's a tough one for me to swallow

OP

[(Anonymous)]

Yes.

I honestly don't know what to feel as a fan of his work, because I want to believe it was a genuine mistake (it *feels* out of character from everything else I've seen from him, because he seemed sensitive to those issues, and he never rubbed me as a bad guy in interviews) and he wouldn't do it now, or he regrets it. But at the same time I know that's rationalizing so I can remain a fan, and I haven't dug any deeper.

But as far as I *know*, he hasn't done anything else bad, so I'm leery but want to think that there's more to the story than "GDT is actually a horrible person who condones child rape".

But at the same time I know it's bad for me to think that, so.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

I think Natalie Portman had her name taken off it.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Why did GDT and Streep in particular sign it?

The're the most jarring names, because otherwise IIRC they've been pretty good on social issues.

Re: OP

[morieris]

I feel that way with some people; So I steal their work.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Not excusing it, but at the time of the petition, I'm not sure the ins and outs of the situation were understood. I'm not sure most people realized exactly what happened because he pled guilty to unlawful intercourse which doesn't sound nearly as bad as rape, sodomy, committing a lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and giving drugs to a minor, all of which he was originally indicted on. Unlawful intercourse is statutory rape, which a lot of people don't really see as that bad. And there were issues with the judge and the plea deal. _ If I remember correctly, he was supposed to be let go with time served or a minimal time, but the case was getting a lot of scrutiny, so they were going to up the time, which is actually within the purview - just because a plea deal is worked out, that doesn't mean it has to be accepted by the judge, though they generally are. So, I think some people believed that the reason that he fled was because of a unfair process and maybe didn't know that much about it. Also, weirdly, I think some people gave him a pass because of what happened to his wife and/or his experiences as a Jewish child in Poland during WWII.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

I figure a lot of people must have assumed he'd had consensual sex with a 17 year-old or something, like how people had heard that Harvey Weinstein was a philanderer but didn't realize he'd been accused of rape, and just figured Polanski was being pursued for something not that bad.

There was also a lot of noise being thrown up about how old did she look, did her mother push her at Polanski, and so on. I had found a transcript of her testimony online and it was pretty clear from the part I read, before I just had to stop, was that what happened wasn't consensual and she was drugged. Even if she had been an adult, it would have been wrong, so it really does come down to Polanski's actions and not quibbling about her age.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

After I had looked into it, I was amazed and appalled, because that story just wasn't really talked about. I thought, at some point, a few years ago, that more people knew about it, but then Whoopi Goldberg said the most ridiculous thing - that it wasn't rape rape - and I realized that no, a lot of people don't know. It was rape in so many different ways - she was unable to consent because of her age, she was unable to consent because he'd plied her with drugs, and she said no. And it's not like he could point to laws in Poland or France, because an adult having sex with a 13-year-old is and was illegal in both (even if there was that gross French petition against the age of consent laws).

He was a 43-year-old man who drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl and I have to believe that some people didn't realize.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

But what I fundamentally don't understand is *why* people - men, women, people who frankly should have known better, and people who've spoken against rape in other situations (i.e, Streep) - stood with Polanski and signed the goddamn thing.

I just can't believe all those people who sighed the petition - including women who've confronted Weinstein and people with kids of their own - just thought child rape was okay. I don't understand why they did it for any other reason.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT

It's not that they thought that child rape was OK. It's that they didn't think about it. They didn't allow themselves to think about it at all, or they refused to really think about it and consider the details and convinced themselves that they could just assume what happened must not have been that bad. Because they didn't want to think about it, because they just wanted to convince themselves that it was probably fine, and if it wasn't going to be fine someone would have done something, and he was their friend or peer or coworker, so therefore it must be fine.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

I get the feeling that kind of sheep-thinking, closing ranks, and blindly supporting a group member or a revered/respected figure who did something terrible isn't unique to Hollywood, either.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

I don't know. There are people who don't want to believe that someone that they respect could have done anything quite so bad, so they listen when he says something like the charges were trumped up, or he was railroaded, or the facts were distorted, or whatever.

Why does anyone work with Mark Wahlberg (racially motivated physical assaults)? Do they believe that he's changed or reformed or paid for his crimes? I don't know. Why are people okay with Dr. Dre (assaults and battery)? With Christian Slater (assault and sexual assault)? With Jay-Z (stabbed a guy)?

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

That "rape rape" comment was one of the things that made me suspect a lot of people were forming assumptions based on partial information. They vaguely knew he was in trouble for something involving sex and an underage girl, but they weren't going to jump to the worst case scenario because people generally don't with someone they have no reason to dislike. Instead, they assumed best case scenarios.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Yeah. And regarding the petition specifically, the wording in it presents his arrest as 'a case of morals'.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I'm not proud to admit that back a few years ago when the whole case blew up a bit, I heard about it from someone who I trusted, but who was misinformed, and who then misinformed me in turn.

The way I heard it, the girl was fourteen but was an active, working prostitute who looked much older and went to the party specifically for the purpose of having sex with Polanski. Polanski had sex with her, which was very wrong because her age made he unable to consent, but she was, by all appearances, a willing and active participant the whole time. It was only the law, years later, which decided to charge Polanski for statutory rape. Also, Polanski was super fucked up at the time because his wife and child had been killed, which didn't make what he did okay, but the fact that he may have been out of his mind with grief did factor into the situation in a general way.

Because this was the account of things that I'd heard, there was a while there where if someone had asked me to sign a petition I might have, depending on what exactly the petition was trying to accomplish. If it was a petition to absolve him of all guilt, I wouldn't have. But if it was a petition to place him on long-term probation, sentence him to ongoing psychiatric sessions, and award his victim some kind of settlement - but dismiss the possibility of incarceration - I probably would've.