MERONEY: 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?
VIDAL: 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?
MERONEY: I’ve certainly never heard that take on the story before.
VIDAL: 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.
MERONEY: What do you mean?
VIDAL: 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.
So I was a slut and an impediment to greatness to Polanski’s supporters. How about his detractors? Well, if Polanski supporters thought I was a slut, Polanski detractors thought I was pitiable. As a makeup artist said to me before I appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America to explain why I thought Polanski shouldn’t be extradited, “Oh, you poor, poor thing.” I know she was only trying to be kind, but was I a “poor, poor thing” because I’d been raped as a child? Was I still and forever to be a “poor thing”?
I told her I was okay, really. But I could feel her pity and didn’t like it.
Here too Nancy Grace was particularly memorable. The blond vampire who eats misery for breakfast was positively gleeful at the time of Polanski’s arrest. Polanski, she said, would “never see the light of day” again once he was extradited and sent away forever. Grace vilified his supporters and scoffed at the thought that there was any judicial misconduct in 1977, when she cross-examined Carmen St. George, a defense attorney, on her show in September 2009.
GRACE: There was nothing proven about an irregularity. In fact . . . the only thing that we know for sure, is that Roman Polanski, a famous Hollywood director, admitted under oath he raped a 13-year-old. We know that much. . . . So you`re saying because the case is old, because he`s been living it up in a mansion in Europe, that we should just forget about it, that that’s a problem, that Lady Justice should just pack her bag and go home?
That’s not what St. George was saying, but that didn’t matter to Grace. Later in the show she spoke with Dr. Evelyn Minaya, a women’s health expert.
GRACE: Young ladies and women through all points in their life that have been raped as children. This is a child, a thirteen-year-old girl. It affects them forever.
MINAYA: Forever. And not only that, the physical aspects of it also. Remember, she had anal sodomy. Do you know that that puts her at an increased risk for anal cancer in her future, let alone all the other psychological ramifications that there are with that, you can just imagine.
The show goes on in this vein. I was used to having my character maligned because of the rape. But now I was being told that because of the rape I was more likely to get cancer. Great. What’s next?
I wanted to scream at the television, I am standing right here, I can hear you!
On another show, Grace referred to me as a “weak victim” who couldn’t stand up for myself. She called herself a “victim’s advocate.” In other words, she needs a supply of victims to advocate for. No victims, no victims advocacy business. I can’t help you here, Nancy Grace. I was the victim of a crime—I am, and always will be, a rape victim. But I’m not a victim as a person. I’m a strong woman who chooses to identify herself by her strengths, her interests, her family, and her loathing of gadflies who want to appropriate her life for their own purposes. I’m not available to you, Nancy Grace; go victimize someone else.
And then there was that other drama vulture, Dr. Phil McGraw. I read that he said I had a classic case of victim’s guilt, and he’d like to help me. It’s that kind of patronizing attitude that perpetuates rape victims thinking they should have something to feel guilty about. Dr. Phil, you’re mistaking survivor’s pride for victim’s guilt. But there’s no money in survivor’s pride, is there? Thanks for the offer. I’ll pass for now, but if I ever feel the need to get help from a TV host, I’ll have my people contact your people.
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On July 12, 2010, after nine months of house arrest, the Swiss Justice Ministry issued a statement guaranteed to make Nancy Grace’s head explode: “The 76-year-old French-Polish film director Roman Polanski will not be extradited to the USA,” the ministry said in a statement on Monday. “The freedom-restricting measures against him have been revoked.”
I was so glad, because the last few months had worn me out. Now, I hoped, the press would stop hounding me. I could put my Rape Girl costume away, and go back to my wonderfully ordinary life—my family, my animals, my horror films. (Some people enjoyed Civil War reenactments; my family and I were more into Zombie Apocalypse reenactments on Halloween.) I was even happy that Polanski was being released, though staying in that nice house in Gstaad wasn’t exactly Guantánamo Bay. It wasn’t over though. The Los Angeles County DA’s office continued bungling the case.
Before Cooley’s epic failure, this scenario must have seemed a slam dunk. Switzerland had turned over other fugitives from American justice in the past, and this case was open-and-shut. Well, not exactly. For one thing, Switzerland has very specific criteria for extradition. People can only be extradited if they have six months or more to serve on their sentence back in their native country, and the court was not convinced that Polanski had six months to serve once he returned. Of course, no one knows—it was the ambiguity of the sentencing that sent Polanski skedaddling in the first place—but the Swiss authorities noted that Polanski likely wouldn’t have more than six months because in the year Polanski was sentenced, not a single person in California serving time for unlawful intercourse served six months. In fact, few served more than two. Polanski was also in jeopardy because of his unlawful flight, but no one could predict what those sanctions might be. And even under California law, you can’t be sentenced until you’ve been found guilty.
The main reason for Switzerland’s refusal to turn over Polanski, however, was the DA’s refusal to turn over key testimony. In January 2010, Roger Gunson—who had been having serious health problems—gave testimony under seal to be used in case he was too sick to appear in court. Polanski’s team, as well as Larry and myself, wanted Gunson’s testimony handed over, as we believed it would reveal key information about Judge Rittenband and judicial misconduct back in the 1970s. It wasn’t clear how this might have affected the case, but I’m guessing it must have been pretty embarrassing to the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Polanski’s legal team complained that the DA’s office was providing the Swiss authorities with “false and materially incomplete” information. Nevertheless, Los Angeles Superior Court judge Peter Espinoza rejected the defense lawyers’ request to unseal the testimony—and that pretty much ensured Polanski’s freedom.
Cooley was infuriated. “To justify their finding to deny extradition on an issue that is unique to California law regarding conditional examination of a potentially unavailable witness is a rejection of the competency of the California courts,” he said in a press conference. “The Swiss could not have found a smaller hook on which to hang their hat.”
Switzerland saw it differently. It looked like the United States had something to hide. It did. And it still does.
There were just two people involved in my rape in March 1977—the perpetrator Roman Polanski and me. I played my part—I was the kid who was raped. Polanski played his—he assaulted me, and was arrested and charged. And that should have been that. Still, even though I was only thirteen years old, I just knew this was turning into something far bigger than what happened that
night. And somehow, what had happened, as bad as it was, was not going to be as bad as what was coming.
I hoped I was wrong. I must have been wrong, right?
Then I ran into the two-headed monster of the California criminal justice system, and its corrupt players whose lust for publicity overwhelmed their concerns with justice. To be fair, there are those who sincerely believe that laws must be enforced regardless of the consequences to the victims. For me, the consequences of the rape laws being vigorously pursued against Polanski would have meant I would be exposed to aggressive, damaging, and adversarial examination by Polanski’s lawyers, who would make the case that either it never happened, or that I was some trampy thirteen-year-old temptress and so it wasn’t that big a deal. My case would be tried not only in the court, but also in the media. All the stories about me would be salivated over again. My crime? Being the rape victim of a Hollywood celebrity. I realize that there are people who, in the pursuit of attention and notoriety, feel no shame. After all, the fame of both Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton rests not on singing or dancing or acting, but on their ability to make a hot sex tape. I admire them for making the best of an uncomfortable situation, and if they can take the heat, then good for them. But it’s not as easy as it looks.
· · ·
Larry and my family agreed that protecting the victim—me—was more important than Polanski being prosecuted to the full extent of the law. We were forced to fight to allow him to plead to the least serious of the charges to avoid my being splashed across every tabloid in the nation. And then we had to fight again, recently, when without any consultation with me whatsoever, efforts were renewed to have Polanski extradited to the United States. And by the way, even in 1977 it wasn’t a difficult decision. My family never asked that Polanski be punished. We just wanted the legal machinery to stop.
I was a young girl during the circus surrounding the rape in the late 1970s, and depended on the care of my parents and attorney. Now, thirty-five years later, I have my own judgment, developed over a long period of reflection, to guide me. Polanski made a horrible mistake and compounded it by fleeing the country. On the other hand, he has been publicly exposed as a rapist, his career has been damaged, and he has lived as an exile from the United States, the center of the movie universe. Enough punishment? There’s disagreement on the answer to that. But to me it’s the wrong question. I’m not interested in punishment; I’m interested in justice. And justice, I believe, starts with the interests of the victims—particularly when it is clear that the perpetrator is not a threat to the rest of society.
The brouhaha around Polanski’s extradition has become ever more curious. There’s simply no doubt that Judge Rittenband, the original presiding judge, was a shameless publicity seeker. DA David Wells has admitted to lying. Yet it appears that none of this will be investigated until Polanski surrenders.
I don’t think that is the way our system is intended to work. We have a Department of Justice, not a Department of Punishment. We have Lady Justice, not Lady Punishment. She is holding scales; I believe these indicate balance. Not a balance between the rights of the victim and publicity for the judge. Not a balance between the rights of the victim and a license to lie by the DA. Not a balance between the rights of the victim and the ambition of a public servant. If there’s to be any balance at all, it has to be between the rights of the victim (to end their suffering) and the interests of the state (to punish the crime), with the emphasis on protecting the innocent.
How can the state of California refuse to investigate the misconduct of a judge and a prosecutor, because a celebrity has broken the law? Shouldn’t officials of the court be held to a higher standard? I call for the investigation of what happened behind closed courthouse doors in 1977 and 1978. As a victim, the California Victims’ Bill of Rights provides me some consideration. But the district attorney’s office refuses to extend any. Instead they unconscionably withhold those rights. They treat my rights as privileges that must be earned. And I earn them only by submitting. I must follow their unwritten rules, while they don’t even follow their own laws. The offense they suffered at Polanski’s flight supersedes all else. My rights as a citizen and a victim, the misconduct of court officials, those are set aside, because the rule of law must apply to Polanski first. Why? Justice applied selectively, applied at the whim of the district attorney’s office. Why?
Punishing Polanski for what he did to me was only one motivation in many, and a relatively minor one at that. There were much more pressing concerns: politics, business, spectacle.
The analogy that always comes to mind when I think of the way I was treated is this: What if, instead of being raped, I were injured in a different way? Say I have a really bad cut on my arm that is covered by a bandage and that is just barely starting to heal. Would it be appropriate for anyone to say to me: Wow, will you tell me all about how that happened? Can you take the bandage off so I can look at it? It’s stopped bleeding, can you squeeze it a little so it starts to bleed again? Does it hurt worse now? That’s what it feels like to me, anyway.
The Polanski case was not a good, or even bad, example of justice. It was in some ways the opposite of justice. Justice is not intended for entertainment or the enrichment of public officials, pundits, and media corporations. I do not believe that punishment and spectacle can be substituted for justice. I do not believe that rules and laws for the sake of themselves are more important than justice. I do not believe that rules and laws applied in a vacuum for the sake of supporting a narrow point of view represent justice.
Because I am demanding justice for the victim, it would be hypocritical if I didn’t also demand justice for the defendant. Justice equals fairness for all concerned. Polanski and I are human beings, not political footballs, and neither of us should be misused by the system. It may seem odd that I’m campaigning for justice for Roman Polanski, the man who was, for that sliver of time, so selfish and self-serving. But it’s more bizarre to me that the system is such that, in this case anyway, the only way to get justice for the victim is to ask for relief from punishment for the criminal. It’s not perfect. But it’s right.
· · ·
In April 2013, the London Feminist Collective staged a protest of a retrospective of Polanski’s films at the British Film Institute (BFI). Women marched with placards that said things like “Polanski’s Still on the Run/But That Don’t Bother the BFI None” and ran side-by-side photos of Polanski with Jimmy Savile, the knighted British entertainer, now deceased, who was recently found to have sexually molested hundreds of children. (Placard: “Would you run a Savile season?”) The Collective released a press statement that said, in part: “The British Film Institute has joined in with the minimization of Polanski’s crime by running a retrospective of his work without ever mentioning the fact that he is also a convicted child rapist [sic]. . . . The ‘he’s an artiste’ defense arises every time these issues are raised and it remains utter garbage. Being an ‘artiste’ has never been an acceptable excuse for an adult male to abuse a child and it never should be.”
This is a valid point, and of course I totally support it—who doesn’t? I just don’t want to be the anti-Polanski poster child, trotted out at anyone’s convenience. For one thing, I still crave some measure of privacy, and would fight for any victim to maintain his or her own. For another, my case is too complicated and nuanced to make it a good example. I resent being appropriated for other people’s campaigns and causes. If you’re serious about accomplishing something good, start from a good place: secure the cooperation of those you want to help; don’t exploit them.
A few days ago, I was on the YouTube website and stumbled upon a funny television commercial that happened to be directed by Polanski. It was a parody of a fragrance commercial, in which Natalie Portman and Michelle Williams, dressed as French courtesans, look like they’re going to get romantic, and then get into a catfight over a perfume called “Greed.” It was kind of like a dopey Saturday Night Live skit, and
so I was about to just go on to something else, when sandwiched between the random commentary about the commercial was this: “The girl who claimed Polanski sodomized her is a liar and a fraud. So are those other two people who claimed the same thing in 2010.” Nothing to do with the commercial. Nothing to do with anything. But it’s like a Pavlovian response to the words “Roman Polanski.” That response is either “He’s a pedophile” or “She’s a whore.”
It is 2013, and I still find I have to steel myself whenever I see his name.
There is no end in sight to the controversy surrounding Roman Polanski. Partly it’s because the tincture of time does not magically wash away the stain of rape. But also because there is no end to controversy about the act itself—what it is, when it happens, who gets to define it. The most intimate of human exchanges—sex, and its grotesque deviations, like rape—will be parsed and argued about forever. And political affiliations do not necessarily predict opinions about the subject. On The View, the very liberal Whoopi Goldberg famously argued that what happened to me might not be “rape-rape.” I took no offense, but I had to laugh out loud. Oh my God, Whoopi, your audience is not going to be thrilled you said that! And they weren’t. But even conservatives were offended when Republican stalwarts starting throwing around terms like “legitimate rape” and “honest rape” during the 2012 election season. As it turns out, rape is not an issue that lends itself to easy and predictable ideological analysis.
I cannot stop thinking, too, about the sexual norms of the 1960s and 1970s versus today. A New Yorker piece about the Horace Mann School abuse scandal I discussed earlier quotes Gary Alan Fine, a 1968 graduate and sociologist at Northwestern University. “This was the late sixties, and what we now think of as rape or sexual assault didn’t quite mean the same thing in that age of sexual awakening,” Fine said. “If you’re a powerful person and you do things that others respond to because of your power, you may convince yourself that they really love you and this is between two equals.” Love was not the issue in my case, but his point is well taken. The powerful are used to being wanted. They take it as their due.
The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski Page 18