Gore Vidal Says Polanski 'Victim' Was a Hooker - U.S. Politics Online: A Political Discussion Forum

picaro · #1 (**permalink**) 3 Weeks Ago

... and, I think she was, too. In an interview for Atlantic Monthly, Vidal says:

Quote:

In September, director Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland for leaving the U.S. in 1978 before being sentenced to prison for raping a 13-year-old girl at Jack Nicholson’s house in Hollywood. During the time of the original incident, you were working in the industry, and you and Polanski had a common friend in theater critic and producer Kenneth Tynan. So what’s your take on Polanski, this many years later?

I really don’t give a fuck. Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she’s been taken advantage of?

I’ve certainly never heard that take on the story before.

First, I was in the middle of all that. Back then, we all were. Everybody knew everybody else. There was a totally different story at the time that doesn’t resemble anything that we’re now being told.

What do you mean?

The media can’t get anything straight. Plus, there’s usually an anti-Semitic and anti-fag thing going on with the press – lots of crazy things. The idea that this girl was in her communion dress, a little angel all in white, being raped by this awful Jew, Polacko – that’s what people were calling him – well, the story is totally different now from what it was then.

Hollywood once provided protection for some of its people. For example, Rock Hudson was heterosexual to the public until 1985, when he announced he had AIDS.

Studios protect big moneymakers. The movies with Rock Hudson and Doris Day were profitable. Each star was given the Sheriff’s telephone number to say, “Lay off.” The Sheriff wasn’t going to go fucking around with the talent. They were the income of Hollywood.

During the 1970s, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, and producer Robert Evans were celebrated for lifestyles of sexual extravagance.

Well, they’re all virgins, every last one of them. I can testify to that. And the last one you mentioned, he’s a super virgin.

They’ve certainly never been criticized and condemned for their sexual excesses. But Polanski was condemned even before he pled guilty to raping a girl.

Well, believe it or not, anti-Semitism is very strong out here, even though this is a Jewish business. L.B. Mayer was the worst anti-Semite of all.

But he was Jewish.

Well, Mayer’s view was, “The public will turn on all of us if they know that one of us has done anything.”

You think anti-Semitism is motivating the prosecution of Polanski?

Anti-Semitism got poor Polanski. He was also a foreigner. He did not subscribe to American values in the least. To [his persecutors], that seemed vicious and unnatural.

What are “American values”?

Lying and cheating. There’s nothing better.

So you’re saying that a non-Jewish director wouldn’t have to worry about getting caught up in a sex crime scandal? Such a thing wouldn’t be an issue for Martin Scorsese?

Well, he’s an absolutely sexless director. Can you think of a sex scene that he ever shot?

Errol Flynn stood trial for raping underage girls in 1943, and was acquitted. Was he treated differently than Roman Polanski?

Everybody liked Errol Flynn.

Women threw their underwear at him.

Well, he was clean-limbed. You couldn’t find a single hair on those legs of his. So he’s another golden virgin.

A Conversation With Gore Vidal - The Atlantic (October 28, 2009)

Vidal: Still annoying after all these years ...

Steve · #2 (**permalink**) 3 Weeks Ago

Gore Vidal is an asshole...

Marcus1124 · #3 (**permalink**) 3 Weeks Ago

Why does the left celebrate its morally repugnant members?

picaro · #4 (**permalink**) 3 Weeks Ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marcus1124

Why does the left celebrate its morally repugnant members?

Why do 'conservatives' celebrate their morally repugnant icons, like Reagan, Ron Paul, and Pat Buchanan? Not to mention their fervent support for legalized stealing and embezzlement while hiding behind various fatuously ludicrous, comic book 'ideological fantasies like 'Social Darwinism', 'libertarianism', 'Objectivism', etc., etc., none of which are based on any kind of morality.

Steve · #5 (**permalink**) 3 Weeks Ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by picaro

Why do 'conservatives' celebrate their morally repugnant icons, like Reagan, Ron Paul, and Pat Buchanan? Not to mention their fervent support for legalized stealing and embezzlement while hiding behind various fatuously ludicrous, comic book 'ideological fantasies like 'Social Darwinism', 'libertarianism', 'Objectivism', etc., etc., none of which are based on any kind of morality.

Of course, that's a complete failure to answer the question "Why does the left celebrate its morally repugnant members?".

But we understand why you want to divert attention from that...

Marcus1124 · #6 (**permalink**) 3 Weeks Ago

Quote:

picaro
Why do 'conservatives' celebrate their morally repugnant icons, like Reagan, Ron Paul, and Pat Buchanan? Not to mention their fervent support for legalized stealing and embezzlement while hiding behind various fatuously ludicrous, comic book 'ideological fantasies like 'Social Darwinism', 'libertarianism', 'Objectivism', etc., etc., none of which are based on any kind of morality.

Thank you fro once again proving what I have repeatedly said about liberals being prone to defining someones character not by their personal charachter, but by their policy differences with liberals.

picaro · #7 (**permalink**) 3 Weeks Ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve

Of course, that's a complete failure to answer the question "Why does the left celebrate its morally repugnant members?".

But we understand why you want to divert attention from that...

Of course, nobody asked a real question, but we understand why you want to divert attention from the fact that self-styled 'righties' have no moral grounds whatsoever to be criticizing anybody else for theirs.

picaro · #8 (**permalink**) 3 Weeks Ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marcus1124

Thank you fro once again proving what I have repeatedly said about liberals being prone to defining someones character not by their personal charachter, but by their policy differences with liberals.

Thank you for once again proving you repeatedly rely on strawmen to resond to instead of what is actually said; nobody posting in this thread so far is a 'liberal', not that anybody can actually discern that you actually know what one is. Since it bears repeating: 'Liberal' and 'Left' are not synonymous terms, despite what you read at Free Republic and hear on talk radio.

Knute · #9 (**permalink**) 3 Weeks Ago

I love Vidal and kinda like Polanski , but no one should have sex with a 13 year old even if the 13 year old are hookers. Not even Errol Flynn. Speaking of Flynn I was surprised to notice that one of his staunchest supporters was William F Buckley. I always knew you RWers were kinkier than us lefties.

Quote:

Lifestyle
Flynn had a reputation for his womanizing, consumption of alcohol and brawling. His freewheeling, hedonistic lifestyle caught up with him in November 1942 when two under-age girls, Betty Hansen and Peggy Satterlee, accused him of statutory rape.[18] A group was organized to support Flynn, named the American Boys' Club for the Defense of Errol Flynn (ABCDEF); its members included William F. Buckley, Jr.[19] The trial took place in January and February 1943, and Flynn was cleared of the charges. The incident served to increase his reputation as a ladies' man, which led to the popular phrase "in like Flynn", the phrase being later parodied in the James Coburn comedy spy film In Like Flint.[20]

Attention Nitpickers: This quote was taken from the MacOS 10 Dictionary- There is no URL
So don't look down your noses at Vidal when the only real intellectual on the right was also a rapist's defender.

Sunshine · #10 (**permalink**) 3 Weeks Ago

Hasn't this horse already been beaten to death?

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