Polanski's Rape-Rape: The Talent Pass and the Morality Paradox

Why does talent get a pass? And to what extent does the “morality paradox” color our view of great artists?

Roman Polanski’s best films, like all great films, are very moral–in particular Chinatown and The Pianist. They deal with socially repugnant behavior (incest, domestic abuse, prejudice, oppression, war) and the human spirit’s attempt to triumph over ethical transgression and evil-doing. But as a new allegation of sexual assault surfaced against the director last week, the famous filmmaker’s life has been anything but a model of morality.

So why do some in the entertainment industry have such a hard time separating the two? Why is it so hard for them to judge the art with the yardstick of criticism and the life with the yardstick of justice? Whence the urge to intermingle the two and excuse the opprobrium of the one because of the merit of the other?

Despite the fact that in 1977 Polanski pleaded guilty to unlawful intercourse with a minor (legally equivalent to statutory rape), his apologists typically downplay–or outright forgive–the director’s crime on one of five grounds: (1) the rape occurred over 30 years ago; (2) he’s paid his debt to society; (3) he’s a nice man being persecuted because of his religion and/or celebrity; (4) the victim was somehow complicit; and (5) he’s an accomplished valuable artist.

Last year 138 film industry workers, including such luminaries as Martin Scorsese and Pedro Almodovar, signed a petition put forth by the French artistic alliance SACD (Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques) protesting Polanski’s arrest and demanding his immediate release.

Here are a few examples of some of Polanski’s well-known apologists expressing their support for the Polish admitted pedophile following his arrest. Notice how, regardless of the defender, one (or a combination) of the above five rationalizations is always alleged in Polanski’s favor.

Woody Allen (May 15, to French radio station RTL): “It’s something that happened many years ago… he has suffered…. He has paid his dues, he has had a hard life…He’s an artist, he’s a nice person, he did something wrong and he paid for it.”

Gore Vidal (in an October 2009 interview with The Atlantic): “I really don’t give a f–k. Look am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she’s being taken advantage of?… The idea that this girl was in her communion dress, a little angel all in white, being raped by this awful Jew… well, the story is totally different now from what it was then … Anti-Semitism got poor Polanski.”

Whoopi Goldberg (September 2009 on The View): “It wasn’t ‘rape’ rape. I think it was something else, but I don’t believe it was ‘rape’ rape.” [Note: Even in her subsequent clarification Goldberg continued to minimize Polanski’s crime.]

No matter what line of defense the apologist takes, however, the real motive that seems to underlie this Instinct for clemency, whether explicitly stated or not, is the last–the fact that Polanski is a valued and valuable artist, a brilliant filmmaker with an Academy Award to prove it. This earns him a “talent pass.”

I come neither to bury Polanski nor to praise him, although I greatly admire his movies, especially the two aforementioned masterpieces.

I only pose the question: Why are some so willing to issue talent a pass? Why are they so unwilling to accept the fact that a great filmmaker can be a pedophile or a pedophile a great filmmaker? It’s as if the admission of the one will diminish or negate the truth of the other.

Is the notion even plausible, or at least worth entertaining, that without the vice there wouldn’t be the virtue? Is there some sort of “morality paradox” in play that could drive Polanski to explore the subject of sexual abuse in Chinatown and then enact it in real life only a few years later? Are they merely manifestations–one artistic, one realistic–of the same obsession? And is the affirmative art–the grand and noble humanity of The Pianist, for example–a kind of conscious or subconscious act of expiation and atonement on the artist’s part for past transgressions? If so, should that affect the way we view the art or mitigate our condemnation of the artist’s sins in his private life?

For some inexplicable reason we don’t issue the talent pass as readily to transgressors in other fields, especially politics. Politicians (Gary Hart, Eliot Spitzer, John Edwards, et alii) are held to a much higher standard. Their careers go down in flames instantly for minor, non-criminal sexual peccadilloes (although in the Edwards case campaign fund misappropriation charges may be forthcoming). Clinton would surely not have been reelected had the Lewinsky affair cropped up during his first term. But as someone had to pay the price, poor monogamous Al Gore got stuck with the Monica albatross around his neck and suffered significant undeserved backlash at the ballot box.

Apparently, when issuing talent passes, we value the makers of law far less than the makers of art. What that says about us as a society bodes well for Hollywood box office receipts and less so for Washington legislators. There’s probably a morality paradox there, too. But the abiding conclusion is that, for many in the entertainment world, a great artist gets leeway that other mere mortals–even Presidents–can never dream of getting.