Brother Al on Polanski and "Hollywood" - and just what *does* "Hollywood" mean to our "cultural warriors"?

Brother Al Mohler, Jr., who as President Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville KY has a large influence on Southern Baptist theology, uses the Polanski case to bash liberals and "Hollywood" in Morality, Hollywood Style Christian Post 10/04/09.

Mohler is too slick to slip into crass anti-Semitism. But, as the late blog pioneer Steve Gilliard used to remind us, to many conservative Republican Christians, "Hollywood" and "cultural elite" are among other things, synonyms for "Jews". So when I see big-name rightwingers start bashing groups they identify that way, I try to pay attention to what subtexts may be at work.

And its worth it for Democrats and liberals to actually use their heads on this one.

As I mentioned in my post on the Polanski case last week, I was uncomfortable with how Katha Pollitt formulated her criticism of what she called "the liberal cultural elite" in Roman Polanski Has a Lot of Friends The Nation Online 10/01/09: "The widespread support for Polanski shows the liberal cultural elite at its preening, fatuous worst. ... No wonder Middle America hates them." As I said in the earlier post, seeing as how even TV news has morphed into infotainment, I'm not convinced that "Middle America" hates Hollywood stars and directors.

Brother Al quoted those same words (without the ellipsis.) Hey, Brother Al, if you picked that up from my post you could have at least given me an "h/t"! Maybe Brother Al will pick me as the Unknown Liberal to pray for me to see the error of my Democratic ways. But he couldn't even cite her approvingly without identifying her as, "the feminist left-winger supreme". Which in Christian Right circles is pretty much the same as calling her a Satan-worshipping witch.

But Patrick Goldstein in the industry's hometown paper the Los Angeles Times writes in Is Hollywood really a hotbed of support for Roman Polanski? 10/06/09, responding to a claim by Terry Teachout in the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal:

Teachout rattles off the names of a host of filmmakers -- including Woody Allen, Jonathan Demme, Sam Mendes, Mike Nichols and Martin Scorsese -- who signed an international petition that "demands the immediate release of Roman Polanski."

There's only one problem: All of those filmmakers, along with Harvey Weinstein, live far, far away from Hollywood and, with occasional exceptions, make their movies outside of Hollywood as well. If you look up the rest of the names on the best-known petition in circulation, it is filled with the names of foreign filmmakers, writers and actors -- including the likes of Pedro Almodovar, Wong Kar Wai, Alfonso Cuaron, Isabelle Adjani and Salman Rushdie -- who also rarely set foot in Hollywood. If critics like Teachout want to claim that high-brow artists and writers have rushed to Polanski's defense, fair enough. But to say that Hollywood is in his corner, as part of a political argument that Hollywood is a liberal elite woefully ignorant of mainstream values, is just hogwash.

There's no petition going around with the names of the real Hollywood elite -- A-list filmmakers and studio chiefs like Steven Spielberg, Alan Horn, James Cameron, Amy Pascal, Jerry Bruckheimer, Brian Grazer, Tom Rothman, J.J. Abrams, John Lasseter or Michael Bay -- because the real Hollywood elite isn't supporting Polanski. In fact, they haven't offered the slightest hint of backing for Polanski. It's only European and New York-based artists, who clearly see the world in a very different light than the real Hollywood elite.

His observations apply to what Brother Al and to Katha Pollitt wrote, as well.

It's perfectly possible for people to have a more complex position on a complicated issue than for-or-against. It's also possible to take a straight-up for-or-against position on Polaski's extradition and still pay attention to reality. I would like to think that a leading writer for a liberal flagship publication like The Nation would take the time to do a little of the research Goldstein did for his article before holding forth with rightwing "culture war" buzzwords like "the liberal cultural elite" and applaud the (dubious) notion that "Middle America" (whoever she thinks that might be) "hates them" and with good reason.

Goldstein incorporates and essay by screenwriter Josh Olson into his article which is worth reading. Olsen reports that he counted 650 signatures on the two pro-Polanski petitions that he knew of that were circulating in Hollywood, and in using an expansive definition of which ones really belong to Hollywood, he finds only 35 names. Citing two writers who had said in the LA Times that “Hollywood is rallying behind the fugitive filmmaker,” he responds:

Well, speaking as someone who actually lives and works right in the heart of the city and the business, I can assure you that this isn’t even remotely true.

Their entire argument rests on just three things -- an incredibly poorly conceived off-the-cuff comment by Whoopi Goldberg, a petition that Harvey Weinstein is circulating, and that there isn’t a great hue and cry from Hollywood demanding that Polanski be brought to justice. I cannot speak to Ms. Goldberg’s painfully unfortunate comment, except to say that I have no doubt she didn’t mean it to come out quite the way it did. As for the lack of a hue and cry, I’m not entirely sure what we’re supposed to do.

I cannot pretend, as some have, to have spent the last thirty years gnashing my teeth at the fiend Polanski’s escape from justice, but neither can I pretend to be outraged that a convicted criminal who fled prosecution has been caught. Perhaps I missed the meeting where these things were explained, but it just never occurred to me that I was supposed to stage a rally when something happened that doesn’t bother, interest or affect me in the least. ...

What we are NOT, however, is sitting around fretting about whether or not Roman Polanski will be displeased with us if we publicly state that we think raping children is a bad thing. ...

Then there’s Jonathan Kuntz, who’s quoted as believing “the local reaction may be a version of the ‘there, but for the grace of God, go I.’" Well, again, no, but thank you for the extremely ugly insinuation, and when DID you stop beating your wife, Mr. Kuntz? Does it occur to ANY of these people that we’re not all sitting around in a clubhouse smoking crack, patting each other on the back and hoping not to get caught molesting children? [my emphasis]

Melissa Silverstein has a blog called Women and Hollywood from a feminist perspective. She did a post just today called Women in the Entertainment Business Speak Out About Polanski. Among those she finds not siding with Polanski are Rosie O’Donnell, Eve Ensler, Rosanne Barr (who Republican rightwingers particularly hate), and Jamie Lee Curtis.

It's also very possible for someone to use the Polanski case to talk about the problem of this kind of rape without giving easy ammunition to rightwing culture warriors to bash all them thar' Hollywood Jew elitists. Silverstein provides a couple of good examples in these posts, Rape is a Feminist Issue 10/01/09 and Does Being an “Artist” Trump Being a Rapist 09/29/09. In the earlier post, she notes that the actual "Hollywood" that she saw had signed on to the pro-Polanski petition didn't include any women from Hollywood. She's also critical of what she sees as the silence of feminist leaders and Hollywood notables on the issue. But what she says on the latter is quite interesting and does not pander to rightwing stereotypes, e.g., "In my gut, I believe that the women of Hollywood are appalled by what is happening. The fact that they are silent is a reminder of how little clout they have."

This is already long. But I want to get back to Brother Al. As a very influential leader in the country's largest Protestant denomination, is it too much to expect that he would also have done some basic fact-checking (beyond quoting Katha Pollitt's careless generalizations) on just how many prominent figures in the movie business in Hollywood were actually supporting Polanski in fighting extradition before he used the case to bash "Hollywood"? Here's what Brother Al has to say:

The response of so many Hollywood leading lights to the arrest of filmmaker Roman Polanski now suggests that, at least when it comes to one of their own, sex with children is within the pale. This deserves and demands a closer look.

The cultural left has responded to the arrest a week ago of Polanksi with outrage -- directed not at Polanski but at the arrest. [my emphasis]

He goes on to claim, apparently with no basis in fact, that "over 100 Hollywood luminaries had signed a petition demanding Polaski's release." And he effectively adds this to the Christian Right's bill of complaints against all them Jew liberal Democrat elitists:

The moral gap between Hollywood and "Middle America" is vast, though for some reason many Americans blind themselves to this fact. The Hollywood embrace of Roman Polanski and their outrage at his arrest in Switzerland shines a floodlight on this gap.

Are art and artists above moral accountability? The Hollywood elite seem to believe so -- and even to be willing to lend their names to the defense of the morally indefensible. Is the celebrity above the law? Watch this case closely. [my emphasis]

On the latter point, as I explained in my earlier post, the careless reporting that has become chronic with our Establishment press will make it too easy to claim that Polanski got off light because of his alleged "Hollywood" support. As I understand it, even the most stringent sentence is likely to be no more than a year in prison. And given what seem to be real misconduct problems in the first trial - and, yes, even confessed scumbags have the right to a fair and legal trial - it's more likely that Polanski won't do any jail time.

I'm guessing that one of the Law and Order franchise shows will do an episode this season based on this case. Maybe their version will have a more satisfying outcome than the real-life one is likely to bring.

Tags: albert mohler, christian right, culture war, fourth roman polanski

That extradition case, the ick factor and the "culture war"

I've pretty much tried to ignore the Roman Polanski extradition case. But it seems to be well on the way to becoming an international "culture war" issue. I hate these kinds of issues for two main reasons. One is that the "ick" factor of an fortysomething adult accused of having sex with a 13-year-old is high no matter what, whether it's in Hollywood or Afghanistan. The other is that probably no one but a legal specialist in this particular area of law actually has a good and reasonably objective opinion on what should actually be done or is customarily done in these kinds of cases.

But it's already become a symbolic issue, I'll state my own position, such as it is, up front. Really more of an understanding of the facts than a "position". It makes good sense to me that the Los Angeles District Attorney would seek extradition. The State of California has a real interest in seeing its judicial processes upheld. But it appears likely that no additional penalties will be because of some combination of the victim's wishes, the time since the crime, and serious concerns about improper conduct by the judge in the original case.

And, this being the real world, French and Polish concerns about their citizen Polanski's expedition shouldn't be dismissed out of hand out of anti-European sentiment or even genuine concern over the nature of the crime. An apparently unintentional AP leak has suggested that the Switzerland is cooperating in the extradition request due to political efforts related to defusing conflicts over criminal misconduct by the Swiss bank UBS rather than to the merits of the case. And Americans need to remember that it's not 2000 any more. The US is a country that tortures people and refuses to prosecute known torturers. Even if there is no particular concern that Polanski would be tortured, it is a serious concern that casts a shadow over all extradition cases involving the US. (This report, French government drops support for director Roman Polanski as he faces extradition to the U.S. over child sex charge by Peter Allen Daily Telegraph 10/01/09, says that the French government is now taking the position that Polanski should be freed from Swiss jail while extradition is pending but that it is not opposing the extradition.)

The "culture war" aspect comes out in this piece by Doreen Carvajal and Michael Cieply, France Divided Over Polanski Case International Herald Tribune/New York Times 09/30/09. In fact, it was skimming the first few paragraphs of this article that made me think it might be worth knowing a bit more about the case, because it's become an issue because the French government has publicly defended Sarkozy's case against extradition to California.

Apparently in France as in the US, politicians not surprisingly think that the safer position is not to side with people in Polanski's current situation. I can't say the Carvajal/Cieply article was necessarily enlightening on the case. But they note in the third paragraph opposition to the conservative-led government's defense of Polanski from both the Greens and the "extreme right" party of Jean-Marie Le Pen. Given it's the New York Times, the writers and/or editors probably think that the xenophobia Le Pen party is their "this-side-says, the-other-side-says" style of reporting on what the Green leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit says. In the fifth paragraph, they at least get around to telling us that Polanski is a citizen of France and Poland, so the French government would have some reason to take some public position on the case.

Dany Cohn-Bendit was the most famous leader and symbol of the famous/(infamous) May-June 1968 uprising by students and workers in France. Carvajal and Cieply say he "criticized Sarkozy administration officials for leaping too quickly to Mr. Polanski’s side despite the serious nature of his crime". It's probably a good thing that the Times article didn't go into it. And maybe not a good thing that I'm mentioning it. But Cohn-Bendit does have a special reason to look like his siding against Polanski in this situation.

Several years ago, the German journalist Bettina Röhl dug up an embarrassing quote from Cohn-Bendit. As I explained at some length in an earlier post, Bettina Röhl harshes on former "68er" activists with a zeal that outruns the case she tries to make against them. She has her own family demons to deal with: her mother was Ulrike Meinhof of the "Baader-Meinhof Gang", her father Klause Rainer Röhl is a former flaming leftwinger turned flaming rightwinger and both parents were secret members of the East-German-directed underground Communist Party in West Germany. But she's a good researcher. And she turned up an interview with Cohn-Bendit that he had given years ago when he worked as a teacher in school with young children which seemed to suggest that he had engaged in inappropriate play with young children in that capacity.

Cohn-Bendit denied ever having done such a thing. And he said the quote was a poor attempt at humor, and a very inappropriate one. But from what I've seen of the case, there was never any reason to question his version. There were no such complaints at the time and no collaboration of such a thing from parents or students. I would say it was questionable ethics on Röhl's part to publish that information without any substantial collaboration. But, according to what Digby calls the Cokie Roberts Rule, the information was "out there" - it had been published in a small-circulation but public magazine before - and therefore it was fair game to report.

Still, it's a reminder of how sloppy reporting can damage people unfairly. The one time I saw the late great Molly Ivins speak live, back in the mid-1990s as the current plunge of press quality into the bottomless abyss was still in its early years, she was talking about factors in how reporting had deteriorated and become more irresponsible. And one example she gave was that it had for a long time been the practice of most papers not to publish the name of someone who had been accused but not convicted of molesting children. Because even if the charge was totally false and the accused unquestionably exonerated, the stigma was such that it could damage the accused permanently.

So I decided I would see what I could find that had been factually reported on the Polanski case before I tried to wade through the "cultural war" accusations.

Dismissal denied in Polanski child-sex case by Harriet Ryan 02/18/09. This is an interesting piece because it is recent but still months before the high-profile controversy of the past couple of weeks. This was an piece about a legal effort by Polanski to have the original case thrown out:

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza told a packed courtroom that he found the core argument in Polanski's request for a dismissal of charges -- allegations of unethical and, in some instances, illegal conduct by a prosecutor and a judge three decades ago -- to be credible.

"There was substantial, it seems to me, misconduct that occurred during the pendency of this case," Espinoza said.

But, the judge said, Polanski's fugitive status left him no choice but to deny the request. ...

In 1997, a prosecutor and a defense attorney worked out a plan for the director to surrender, be arrested at the airport, brought to court, sentenced and immediately released. The agreement fell apart with Polanski's side saying he objected to television coverage in court. ...

The victim, Samantha Geimer, settled a civil suit against Polanski and publicly forgave him. She has asked that the case be dismissed. Her attorney on Tuesday argued to Espinoza that she could make the motion to dismiss the charges if Polanski's fugitive status prevented the judge from doing so, but Espinoza said in a written ruling that there was no "legal justification" to support that argument. [my emphasis]

Samantha Geimer, Polanski's victim, doesn't back prison time for the director Los Angeles Times Online by Shelby Grad 09/27/09

Judge the Movie, Not the Man by Samantha Geimer Los Angeles Times 02/2303. In this op-ed, the victim describes clearly what occurred as non-consensual sex, i.e., rape. She also says, "He should have received a sentence of time served 25 years ago, just as we all agreed."

Roman Polanski arrest: Hollywood unties in his defence The Guardian Online 09/28/09. This article refers to the victim as "the girl whom Polanski raped at the age of 13", but includes what appears to be an editorial note appended at the end saying, "Some commentators have simply used the term 'rape' in relation to Roman Polanski's 1977 conviction. The offence he pleaded guilty to is often described as 'statutory rape' but more precisely as 'unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor'." This article also discusses the AP leak connected the Swiss action to concerns over banking controversies.

Prosecuting Polanski Los Angeles Times editorial 09/29/09:

Finally, in a caricature of European cosmopolitanism, France's culture minister fumed that the harrying of such a cultural icon revealed the face of "a scary America."

Some of these arguments are more persuasive than others. For example, Polanski may have a due-process claim based on improper behavior by the judge in his case. By contrast, he shouldn't be left alone because of tragedies in his life or his status as a legendary director. Nor is it relevant that his victim seeks no further punishment for him. Prosecutions are brought in the name of the state, not the victim.

Plausible or preposterous, these arguments are eclipsed by a simple fact: Polanski fled the country.

The one part of that quote with which I would disagree is the sneer at the French culture minister, an implicitly at the French Foreign Minister who made an even stronger statement about his concerns over the extradition, as "a caricature of European cosmopolitanism." And while it's true that the state prosecutes on its own behalf and not in the name of the victim - an important legal reality that some of the rhetoric around "victim's rights" over the years has tended to obscure - it's unlikely in practice that in the event the original charges were thrown out that the DA would attempt to reprosecute the case with a victim unwilling to proceed on a now decades-old charge.

So, we have a case in which the accused accepted a plea bargain and served the agreed sentence, where there is substantial reason to believe there was prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, in which the Los Angeles prosecutor had agree in 1997 to another deal in which the accused would have appeared in court and then gone free, and in which the victim actually agrees that the original charges should be dropped.

The "ick factor" notwithstanding, this doesn't seem like a very good case to make another totem in the "culture war". And while it may be a reminder that the criminal justice system in the US generally thirty years ago tended to treat perpetrators in such cases too leniently, it seems unlikely that this 32-year-old case is likely to produce a very satisfactory outcome for anyone if it's retried. And the prospects seem good that the the original charges will be dropped, for better or for worse.

A number of prominent Hollywood movie-industry figures have publicly come to Polanski's defense over the extradition. So far as I've seen from the news reports, they haven't made a terribly strong case. At the least, they would have presented a more sympathetic case if they had focused more narrowly on due process and official misconduct in the original trial.

At least some of those who are treating it as a straight-forward outrage that anyone would express reservations about official conduct of the case also seem to be more concerned about immunizing themselves from conservative culture-war attacks than sorting out the issues raised by the case. But so long as they are doing it, it's worth flagging that a number of liberals have take a hardline anti-Polanski position in the case:

Katha Pollitt, Roman Polanski Has a Lot of Friends The Nation Online 10/01/09: "The widespread support for Polanski shows the liberal cultural elite at its preening, fatuous worst. ... No wonder Middle America hates them." Seeing as how even TV news has morphed into infotainment, I'm not convinced that "Middle America" hates Hollywood stars and directors.

Glenn Greenwald gets into the act with Post editors should read their own columnists Salon 10/01/09. He seems to be genuinely disgusted at Polanski's defenders. But his main point is that the Washington Post's editorial position attacking Polanski's defenders is in pathetic contrast to its staunch opposition to prosecution of Bush officials for official crimes that include offenses regarded by the law as even more serious than the crime to which Polanski pleaded guilty.

Glenn criticizes three particularly fatuous defenses of Polanski:

The Outrageous Arrest of Roman Polanski by Anne Applebaum Washington Post Online 09/27/09. Applebaum is married to the Polish Foreign Minister, who in his official capacity has expressed concern about Polanski's extradition, a fact she didn't bother to disclose in this piece.

Let Polanski Go -- But First Let Me At Him by Richard Cohen Washington Post Online 09/28/09

Artist Rally Behind Polanski by Bernard-Henri Lévy Huffington Post 09/28/09. Whatever side of the "culture war" Levy is on, I'm pretty sure it's not the same as mine.

For other developments:

The Smoking Gun site has the transcript of the victim's grand jury testimony from 1977 (if you're thinking about reading it at work, remember that it involves descriptions that screening software could flag as pornographic).

Polanski's Lost Alibi by Marcia Clark The Daily Beast 09/30/09

Reminder: Roman Polanski raped a child by Kate Harding 09/28/09.

In Roman Polanski case, is it Hollywood vs. Middle America? by John Horn and Tina Daunt Los Angeles Times 10/01/09

There are lots of polemics about this at the Huffington Post, including:

Why Arrest Roman Polanski Now? by Robert Harris New York Times 09/29/09

Why Robert Harris' NY Times Pro-Polanski Op-Ed Is an Offensive, Self-Serving Disgrace by Andy Ostroy 09/30/09

Wonder Why Middle America Doesn't Trust Hollywood Liberals? Three Words: Weinstein and Polanski by Keli Goff 09/30/09

Tags: bernard-henri lévy, culture war, roman polanski