Samantha Geimer, the woman Roman Polanski drugged, raped, and sodomized at age 13, wants to see the case against Polanski dismissed and finds the #MeToo movement anti-feminist.
In an interview conducted with Polanski’s current wife, Emmanuelle Seigner, for a French magazine, Geimer, as usual, makes a lot of sense on the issue of victimhood but is plain wrong on the issue of dismissing the charges against the now 89-year-old director:
The candid Le Point interview features a wide-ranging discussion on what Geimer and Seigner mutually feel is the futility of the #MeToo movement. (“The attorney Gloria Allred, for example, just diminishes women to exploit their pain. I’m sorry but that is no defense,” Geimer said.)
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Geimer added, “It’s sad for women but especially for young women. Imagine reaching adulthood in this era, it seems appalling to me. I don’t see what’s so feminist about claiming victimhood. Today, women’s pain is valued, and there’s a whole industry that exploits suffering. Those who participate in it don’t know what they’re stepping into. Me, I know because I’ve been around, I’ve seen loads of people approach me saying they have the best intentions in the world and going: ‘Come, speak, the world wants to know, they want to know the truth.’ Except the truth is that they only have their careers and their TV shows in mind.”
That’s all true, sadly true. This latest wave of feminism is basically returning women to the Victorian Era, where women are so weak and helpless they cannot handle a pass, a joke, or a crude remark. And then there’s the “victim” phase actresses now go through, which is pathetic.
- Phrase One: You’re the new, hot, sexy vixen playing the girlfriend in blockbusters.
- Phase Two: The sexy vixen will now become a serious ahktress in dark indie films.
- Phase Three: The serious actress is now a middle-aged cougar out to prove she’s still hot enough to go topless (in dark indie films).
- Phase Four: Mom and ex-wife parts in studio films.
- Phase Five: No longer able to get work, you reinvent yourself as a victim through a memoir and talk shows.
Currently, Brooke Shields is in phase five, and it’s a sorry sight. Phase five makes women look the opposite of strong and independent. Instead, they look helpless, petty, humorless, and neurotic.
Geimer is none of that. She’s a remarkable woman who says, “What happened with Polanski was never a big problem for me.”
And I say, good for her. We need more women (and men) who don’t wallow in and dine out on “muh trauma.”
I greatly respect Geimer, as I do anyone willing to move on.
This, however, is where Geimer is 100 percent wrong:
People pretend to act in the name of justice, or because they support me, but it’s the antithesis of what I want and of all I say that I want. They think of themselves as morally superior, when they’re just taking the easy way out. The extradition attempt, the fact that Roman was arrested like that, it was so unfair and so in opposition to justice. Everyone should know by now that Roman has served his sentence. Which was… long, if you want my opinion. From my side, nobody wanted him to go to jail, but he did and it was enough. He paid his debt to society. There, end of story. He did everything that was asked of him until the situation went berserk he had no other choice but to flee. Anyone who thinks that he deserves to be in prison is wrong. It isn’t the case today and it wasn’t the case yesterday.
No, no, no, no, no…
Samantha Geimer has every right to express her opinion on the matter, but her opinion does not and should not matter regarding legal issues. If she were saying, I want Polanski castrated and his private parts stuffed in his mouth on pay-per-view, should we accede to her wishes? No, of course not.
Polanski’s obscene crime was a crime against society. Geimer is the victim, but it’s The State v. Roman Polanski, not Samantha Geimer v. Roman Polanski.
When you drug, rape, and sodomize a 13-year-old girl, you have committed a crime against all of us. Allowing the victim to decide the outcome of any crime would be disastrous for reasons that should be self-evident.
Roman Polanski is a child-raping fugitive. Period. Geimer is wrong: Polanski has not paid his debt to society. Instead, he chose to become a fugitive rather than pay his debt. And no, it doesn’t matter if he felt the judge was going to screw him.
What’s more, it doesn’t even matter if the judge was going to screw him. The system screws all kinds of people. The only proper remedy is to work within the system through the appeals process. Our system is set up to self-correct.
I am a firm believer in second chances. Once a criminal pays his debt, the debt is paid. The slate is clean. You are free to move about the cabin. I believe that. In fact, I believe that our society’s unwillingness to forgive creates resentment and recidivism. But Roman Polanski has not paid his debt, which means he is a child-raping fugitive. Had he paid his debt, I wouldn’t have another word to say about the matter.
Yes, there are a lot of male #MeToo victims out there… Men like Woody Allen and Frank Langella, Bill Murray, and Timothy Hutton… victims of this reprehensible #MeToo McCarthyism…
Roman Polanski is not a #MeToo victim.
Until he pays his debt, Roman Polanski is a child-raping fugitive.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.