I Changed My Mind

[charlotte_webb]

After giving it a fairly preposterous amount of thought, I've changed my mind on Polanski. I owe this in part to Kate Harding's pieces in Salon and Jezebel, but also to Luc Besson, who, although he considers himself a friend of Polanski, thought of his own 13 year old daughter and said that the process should be completed

Comments

[vintagehandbag]

I've thought on it a lot, too. At this point, I say the process should be completed with one caveat, and that caveat is that they can do so without further bothering the victim, who has repeatedly asked to not be bothered. I respect her wishes more than any other aspect of this case. If she'd been an adult at the time of the crime, she would have had the option of not pressing charges. She wasn't, so she didn't, but now that she's a grownup, I think if she wants to be left alone about this, she should be.

[charlotte_webb]

Yeah, that was a major consideration on my part as well, and I found the tendency to focus on her rape more than her opinion somewhat disturbing.

[vintagehandbag]

Yeah, major interpellation of her as victim.

[missmimesis]

I think that I have changed my mind as well -- the major factor being actually reading through the victim's testimony from 1977. It's pretty fucking brutal: if there ever are cases where the question of consent is a nebulous one -- and as I see it, there almost surely are -- this is NOT one of them.

I agree that while her current statements that the charges should be dropped are powerful and deserve consideration, on the other hand it is equally, and arguably more, disturbing not to consider her statements at the time about what in fact happened to her -- even if, looking back, she would prefer that they had not been made.

[bart_calendar]

If he does come back I think he should be able to withdraw the plea and enter a new plea with a psychiatric defense - which was what he was considering doing at the time before he was given the tainted plea bargain.