[The following was originally posted at my livejournal last October. It is the Definition of "Overtaken by Events". Polanski has skated away scot free again, and while Vick has once more, albiet briefly, become a "person of interest". Nevertheless, in the light of Whoopi Goldberg once more rising to the defense of her fellow entertainers, it needs to be said again.]
An alien or archaelogist from the future, seeking to re-create what early-21stcentury humans meant by “controversy” could do worse that to make the Polanski case his study. All the elements abound: famous men, young girls, taboo sex and quaint drugs, rumours of judicial malfeasance, the drama of exile, competition for the status of victim, etc. If I cared, I would be enthralled.
But I do not care, and indeed plan to explain my not-caring in some detail. This being the case, one may fairly ask why I bother to put fingers to keyboard to pontificate on the subject. And I will fairly answer that my lack of caring is a feature, not a bug. It grants that most precious of journalistic bona fides, objectivity. So before I make comparison between Michael Vick and Roman Polanski, bear with me through the following Declaration of Disinterest:
Article One: I don’t give a damn about Michael Vick. I’m neither a fan nor a detractor. I could not say anything about his career other than the unsupported prejudice that he seems to be a fine athlete and a non-champion.
Article Two: I don’t give a damn about Roman Polanski. I have neither encomia nor snark to direct at his body of work, except to say that I rather liked Chinatown and have been more or less disappointed in everything else I’ve seen of his (from Rosemary’s Baby, which was scary but not remarkably so, to The Ninth Gate, which was a bigger cartoon than The Incredibles and half as enjoyable).
Article Three: As a general rule, I do not deign to get myself emotionally involved with the trials of the rich and famous. I grant, and will argue, that celebrity trials serve a purpose, but I don’t care enough to be bothered into following them. If an egregious error is made, as in the O.J. case, I might take notice; otherwise, Fiat justicia ruat astra* is my motto. Arrest the husband, find the bloody glove, and let’s move on.
That the hysteria around Vick ran utterly out of proportion to his crime is indicative of underlying tensions about race, class, and the congenital incapacity of the sports commentariat to say anything approaching intelligence about one of their own. For me, this case was open-and-shut, and once shut, not worth re-opening, for any reason.
Earth to Black People: Michael Vick did something that was illegal. Hence he was arrested and went to jail. This is not an injustice. This is not a conspiracy. This is not the Man Keeping You Down, or White Folk Not Be Havin’ a Rich Brutha, or anything else. It is crime, followed by jail. Get over it.
Earth to White People: Michael Vick did something that was illegal. Hence he was arrested and went to jail. He has now served his time, and is consequently free to earn a living in his chosen profession, for which he possesses a valuable degree of talent. This is all that need be said. He is not going to taint the image of the Philadelphia Eagles, were such a thing conceivable. If there breathes a Fan of Green, routinely attending the beer-soaked bacchanals of Sixty Minutes Hate known as Philadelphia Eagles games, now so ashamed that a man jailed for harming an animal wears their uniform that he is considering turning in his tickets, let this person stand forward so that I can laugh at him and read him the Webster’s definition of hypocrisyin a sarcastic tone of voice.
He did the crime. He did the time. He does not need to be punished further. He does not need to be crucified by the American Kennel Club in full view of the cast of Cats. He does not need to say “Ah have sinned agaynst yooooooooouuuuu….” to the dog from Marley & Me on the Larry King Show. He can go back to playing football. Get over it.
Being a Disciple of Disinterest, I would dearly like to say the same of Roman Polanski. The fact that I cannot has not prevented the celebritocracy and their literary enablers from attempting it anyway. Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post, beginning with the contention that living in Europe for 30 years making films and winning Oscars is equivalent to a turn in the big house, has since moved on to the nuanced position that the social-climbing little tramp was asking for it. Whoopi Goldberg descended into the post-modern by declaring that the Polanski’s crime failed the requirements of “rape-rape”. Harvey Weinstein has made us wonder if anyone ever read the Webster’s definition of “compassion” to him in any tone of voice. A-List through D-List are as one in protesting Polanski’s arrest for the crime of which he stands convicted.
The tissue-thin quality of these arguments have already been well-pierced by a great many of us for whom the statement “Roman Polanski raped a child” is definitive. To little avail, of course; for the compassioneers of Hollywood, neither a person nor an argument can be too thin. Polanski’s crime was 30 years ago, they protest. Who could now care?
I sympathize, as I have long asked the same about Michael Vick. As I recall, his exculpation for dog-fighting was supposed to be some manner of prosecutorial hypocrisy garnished with liberal dollops of “It’s a Black Thing.” Cruel were these DA’s targeting a celebrity for doing what thousands do, a dangerous but valid activity that the culture Vick steeped in seared into his soul. Naturally, they were taking him down because he was a wealthy football player, not because they actually cared about dogfighting.
As I don’t know how many dogfighting cases are made nationwide each year, I cannot present evidence to the contrary. But why shouldn’t prosecutors target the celebrity criminal over his poorer partner? Surely, the former gathers more attention for the actual illegality of the illegal thing in question. As Chuck Barris, another Dangerous Celebrity, might have put it, “The bigger the gong, the louder the noise.”
And if we speak of monotone sounds, let’s not forget the Left’s favored tocsin with regard to the judicial system: that the grandees of the realm have sole access to the key resource: top-shelf legal talent. One need not be a communist to point out that punishments differ depending on one’s capacity to pay legal fees, nor a Leveller to argue that the ease with which the rich and famous elude or diminish prosecution makes it almost a moral imperative to go after them.
Let us therefore treat Roman Polanski as we treated Michael Vick. Let us punish him for the crimes he has committed, and then release him when he has served time commensurate with his offense. Let us treat the celebrated director and holocaust-surviving Polish Jew with the same justice as the Black Football Player.
And bore me not with special pleading to Poor Polanski’s advanced age. He pled guilty in 1978 to rape of a 13-year-old girl. He subsequently fled the country to avoid jail, and has spent 32 years abroad. According to the California Penal Code, rape of someone under 14 years of age carries a mandatory 15-years-to-life sentence. If Polanski had done his time, he would now be a free man. If he had even done the 15 years before being paroled, he would have been out by 1993, which would have left him plenty of time to make the lascivious tedium of The Ninth Gate as well as the morally obvious tedium of The Pianist (can we finally admit that Holocaust movies write themselves?). He could have had a book deal to sign as soon as he stepped out of the prison gates. He could have fled to Paris on the first plane that carried him, to bask in the approval of French sophistication. He need have feared neither agents of the law nor the prospect of returning to America. He would be a grand seigneur, the man who walked on the edge of the artistic abyss, outlaw and martyr.
As it stands, he could likely die in prison. I shed not a tear, because he cheated his victim and the justice system for 31 years. He’s been living on borrowed time, and the debt is due.
If we as a society place any value in the idea that a 13-year-old girl, regardless of her good sense or her parents’ ambitions, is not a sex-toy to be used and discarded by whatever middle-aged buck takes a fancy to her ephebic curves, then it is incumbent upon us to make sure that this rule applies to the great among us as well as the little, to the complex auteurs with heartbreaking backgrounds as well as the unwashed masses. For it is the former who cue the latter as to the true rules of society, the standards and values that are truly made to apply. If they escape justice, they encourage thousands, who but for the fear of swift punishment could find no reason not to indulge their every whim.
If Michael Vick did not quite see his case this way, he had at least the sagacity to perceive that his position in society afforded him the chance to interrupt his career without undoing every aspect of his life. For a professional football player, whose capacity is subject to swift entropy, time is precious, yet Vick weathered the storm and has come in to port. For a filmmaker of a certain stature, on the other hand, there is always another project, and no spur to retirement save the collapse of the creative imagination and the weariness of the soul.
Michael Vick walked into jail a dishonored man, and walked out a free man, reasonably asking mercy for his sins. Roman Polanski had the chance to do this and chose instead to flee as though the Gestapo were at his door. Of the two, the athlete was the smarter when the decision came, and is now the wiser for his experience. Can the globetrotter have at least as much brains?
* Let Justice be done, though the stars fall.
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