Categotry Archives: rape is hy-larious

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You Win Some, But You Lose Many, Many Others…

Categories: bitterness, i heart oppression, media tool kit, rape is hy-larious, your rda of misogyny

Double header of media mayhem!

First, the good news:

Roman Polanski lost the first round yesterday in his battle to avoid extradition to the US for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.

Already locked in a Zurich cell for the last dozen days, Polanski learned that he will remain incarcerated for an extended period after the Swiss Justice Ministry rejected his plea to be released from custody.

Swiss authorities said they feared he might leave the country if released. The director of film classics such as Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown has been wanted by US authorities since fleeing sentencing 31 years ago.

“We continue to be of the opinion that there is a high risk of flight,” said the ministry spokesman Folco Galli.

He said the threat was too great for the government to accept bail or other security measures in exchange for the release.

Oh, and by the way? If you had any doubt remaining that this guy wasn’t a megadouche? Or that he had somehow made some recompense? Feast your eyes on this:

Roman Polanskiwas to pay at least $500,000 to Samantha Geimer, the victim in his 1977 child-sex case, under a settlement in a civil suit Ms. Geimer later filed against him, The Los Angeles Times reported over the weekend. Mr. Polanski, right, agreed to the settlement in 1993, but as of 1996 had not made the payment, according to court records provided to the news media in response to requests for access to the old case. It remained unclear whether the settlement was ever paid, though Ms. Geimer was still trying to collect as of 1996, by which time accrued interest had pushed the amount to more than $600,000, according to the court records.

Sheesh.

But don’t worry, the news can always get worse…especially when it’s the NY Daily News:

A shocked judge demanded prosecutors explain why they asked him to allow a prominent Manhattan therapist to return to the home where she’s accused of
slashing her husband Tuesday.

“I’m going to send her home to a 79-year-old husband when it’s alleged she stabbed him with knives?” Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Anthony Ferrara asked prosecutors.

“You’re assuring me he’s going to be safe, that this piece of paper is going to protect him from knives?” he said, after granting a “limited” order of protection allowing Joyce Poster-Lederman, 64, to return home.

Funny how people never seem to worry that it’s “just a piece of paper” when it’s a woman who’s being covered by it. Don’t believe me? Check out this site about orders of protection in New York:

You have been arrested because you got into a fight with your girlfriend or wife. Maybe there is a reasonable explanation or your girlfriend does not want to “press charges.” Unfortunately, at this stage it doesn’t matter. You are now before a judge and whether or not you are released, you must completely stay away from the complainant.
[…]
A “full” order of protection or “restraining order” is a an order by the court preventing you from having any contact at all with the complainant or alleged victim of a crime. This could mean that if you live together you may not enter the home. Alternatively, the police will arrange a time for you to enter and get some of your things. You will not be able to call the complainant or talk to the complainant even if she calls you. The burden placed upon you is quite severe.

Yeah. Imagine, not being able to see the woman–please note, it was assumed to be a woman who was the victim–because you beat her up! Oh, the humanity!

Which is kind what the order is trying to protect, ya know?

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L’Affaire Polansky: autres voix

Categories: privilege stories, rape is hy-larious

The perception here is that the Polanski arrest has generated outrage in France–that the opinion of Frédéric Mitterand, the Culture Minister, reflects that of the entire country:

Both French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner stressed Polanski’s artistic gifts in their defense of him, though in theory all men — regardless of talent — are equal before the law.

Kouchner called the arrest “sinister,” adding: “A man of such talent, recognized in the entire world, recognized especially in the country that arrested him — all this just isn’t nice.”

To many here, the slap of American justice seemed particularly sharp as the arrest came as Polanski was entering Switzerland to receive a lifetime achievement award from the Zurich Film Festival.

Mitterrand said, “To see him like that, thrown to the lions because of ancient history, really doesn’t make any sense.”

Mitterrand continued with a jab against the United States: “In the same way that there is a generous America that we like, there is also a scary America that has just shown its face.”

As my Francophilia knows no bounds, I thought I’d investigate: so today I spent some time reading Le Monde, the Parisian paper of record for the Francophone world. I am happy to report that French “outrage” is exaggerated, at least based on the comments I read on this story (warning: if you can read French, it is quite douchey.) Quite the opposite: most of the commentors railed about how there seems to be two laws, one for famous people and one for everyone else, about how Polanski is an admitted rapist and should be punished, and basically how the “but he made cool movies” film is an utter failure. (One poster had an arresting image of an “evil cocktail” that the article’s author had mixed up, and ironically said she was glad she only had sons, so that no daughter of hers would have to drink it. I thought I was at a French Shakesville.)

And then there’s this article, whose title is pretty obvious even if you don’t have much French: “La Loi est la même pour les artistes et les citroyens.” It’s an interview with Maitre Eolas, author of a French legal blog, and he calmly shoots down most of the arguments against the arrest of Polanski. I like the last paragraph the best, where he answers the “objections” of the artists that it wasn’t fair to surprise him with an arrest when he came to collect an award in Switzerland:

C’est un peu le principe d’une arrestation que d’être effectuée par surprise, sinon, elle échoue… D’autres estiment qu’il ne pouvait pas s’en douter puisqu’il se rendait régulièrement en Suisse, dans sa maison à Gstaad. Cela n’a rien à voir car cette fois il venait recevoir un prix dans un festival, sa venue était annoncée dans tous les journaux. Et apparemment, la police lit le journal.

A quick and dirty translation (anyone who speaks French better than I do, please feel free to jump in with corrections!):

It is a principle that an arrest should be effected with surprise, otherwise it fails…they consider that he couldn’t have suspected it since he came regularly to Switzerland, to his house in Gstaad. But that this time he came to receive a prize at a festival has nothing to do with it; the venue was announced in all the newspapers, and apparently, the police read the news.

Waker Attie provides a better translation below–thanks!

It is somewhat the essence of an arrest that it comes as a surprise, otherwise it fails… Others think that he couldn’t have suspected it since he came regularly to Switzerland, to his house in Gstaad. But that is totally different: this time he came to accept an award at a festival, and his attendance was announced in all the newspapers. And apparently, the police read the news.

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Rapist, International Fugitive Arrested: Media Aghast

Categories: don't get your panties in a bunch, monday media watch, Outrage, privilege stories, rape is hy-larious, supremely sexist, your rda of misogyny

I will preface this by saying I like Roman Polanski’s movies, at least the ones I’ve seen–Rosemary’s Baby, Frantic, The Pianist, and especially Chinatown; I saw a restored print of it ten years ago that was almost a religious experience.

His sudden arrest in Switzerland over the weekend has stunned the world’s artistic community. A true cinematic artist, one who’s long-suffered and even been forgiven by his victim, opinion seems to be that…the man is a rapist and why the fuck are we having this conversation?

Yeah. Rapist. He didn’t “have sex” with a 13-year old girl. He raped her. Well, first he got her drunk and high on quaaludes. Then he raped her.

Don’t believe me? Check out the Smoking Gun’s transcript of her testimony. I looked at it for the first time on Sunday. It made me ill.

Predictably, the comments at the New York Times website were full of fail. A lot of people seem to feel that he’s “suffered enough.” They base this, I guess, because he hasn’t been allowed to re-enter the United States since he fled in 1977. Instead, he’s had to content himself with making lots of money directing movies in Europe and living in France.

Ya know, I just got back from France. That’s really not a hardship assignment.

The latest bit of doucheoisie posturing is this:

Nearly 100 entertainment industry professionals, including the movie directors Pedro Almodovar, Wong Kar Wai and Wim Wenders urged in a petition that Mr. Polanski be release, saying: “Filmmakers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision.”

Ronald Harwood, who won an Oscar as screenwriter of “The Pianist,” which Mr. Polanski directed, said: “It’s really disgraceful. Both the Americans and the Swiss have miscalculated.”

Jack Lang, a former French culture minister, said that for Europeans the development showed that the American system of justice had run amok.

“Sometimes, the American justice system shows an excess of formalism,” Mr. Lang said, “like an infernal machine that advances inexorably and blindly.”

One wonders, however, if Wong Kar Wei, Wim Wenders, or Pedro Almodovar would feel comfortable leaving a prepubescent female relative unattended around Roman Polanski. Or if they’d be arguing about the “great artist” exemption for a shocking act of rape if it were their 13-year old daughter.

Liss McEwan, as usual, hits it right on the head:

Very few, if any, of the people who have publicly defended Polanski, or who have worked with him, make it their business to champion or associate themselves with admitted child rapists. They make an exception for Polanski for the same reason exceptions have been for other famous, artistic men – directors, writers, actors, comedians, singers, musicians, dancers, choreographers, painters, sculptors, photographers – who have been known to sexually assault women and/or children: Because geniuses get special dispensation.

Because there’s only one Roman Polanski.

So goes the breathless defense of the artiste, while the flipside of that particular coin, because thirteen-year-old girls are a dime a dozen, goes unspoken.

So yeah. Overaggressive prosecution! Of a child molester! Who admitted to it! That’s overzealousness, all right! Just remember, as long as you can paint a nice picture or make a good movie, you get to rape young girls!

But not boys. That would be sick.

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Don’t Scream

Categories: (un)popular entertainment, media tool kit, rape is hy-larious

Good morning, ducks! Let me ask you–do you like to see women in stark screaming terror and in fear of imminent death? Or at least simulations of such? Well, the New York Daily News does! Today they put up a gallery of “screaming starlets” from nineteen separate horror movies! It’s one stop shopping for all your terror porn!

As a film buff, I’ve watched my fair share of horror films. The vast majority boil down to either stalker or torture porn, of course, with tons of women in various stages of undress being voyeuristically hunted down. Even if the trend lately is towards making the woman the hero, letting her ultimately triumph (for example, the American remake of The Ring or the original Halloween), you can be sure that she’ll first go through a degradation that no male hero would be forced to undergo. This is true of even the best of the bunch, such as the Scream franchise, which featured a woman hero who was easily the most capable character in all the films, or the solid-B movie The Descent, which at least featured a main cast of women who did things (like whitewater rafting, caving, and fending off cannibalistic subhuman cave dwellers), even if it did find room for the death of a child, a murderous catfight, and the heroine killing a mother and child–your basic smorgasbord of Hollywood misogyny.

I’m really baffled by why the News thought this was a good idea, though of course not surprised. We do live, as Liss McEwan put it yesterday, “in a rape-soaked culture” so I guess putting images of anguished women shrieking in terror on your web site is just giving the public what it wants.

Besides, it’s not like you can have photographs of naked women in your newspaper. I mean, this is America.

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This Week on Seth Rogen Watch

Categories: rape is hy-larious, seth rogen watch, tiger beatdown rocks

The amazing Sady of Tiger Beatdown, whose work I absolutely adore, has an article about the vile “date rape is hy-larious” comedy Observe and Report on the Guardian’s Comment Is Free website.

Go read it. Then like I did, go and read the entire archives of Tiger Beatdown. It’s worth it, even if it does! make you! use lots of! exclamation marks! Also: colons.

Sady is a one of a kind wonder, and her posts always make my day a bit brighter.

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Triple Threats

Categories: (un)popular entertainment, douchebaggery, rape is hy-larious, teh tranz

The News From WOUTR, all Outrage, all the Time:

I have Saturday Night Live on. This is mostly nostalgia, though I’m not quite sure what for; I started watching the show during the Dana Carvey/Phil Hartmann/Jon Lovitz years, which were not exactly a great epoch in the history of television comedy. If I have nostalgia, it is from watching the “Best of” shows that Nick at Nite showed in the very early years of its existence, which were culled from the work of the original cast.

But in any case, I’m home on a Saturday (outrage intereferes with your social life, and my boyfriend is located in a different timezone anyway) and awake in the early morning, so I have SNL on.

Not that long ago, “Weekend Update” had Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and was a bright spot on the show; now both have moved on to greener pastures, and we’re left with Seth Myers’ minor-league douchebaggery, which isn’t particularly outrage-inducing–or rather, it seems to be hard to pick out against the normal background noise of douchebaggery on television.

The guest this week is Tracy Morgan, returning to his old haunts. I was never a particular fan of his, so perhaps it’s odd that I’m dedicating the first real post of the blog to him.

Right in a row, there were three separate sketches:

  • A parody of “Big Love,” the show about traditionalist Mormons. Morgan played what looked to be a trans prostitute, picked up by the clueless paterfamilias to be the newest wife. (The character, played by morgan in a horridly bad blond wig, is seen shaving with an electric razor; which is so stupid–I mean, everybody knows you can’t get a close shave with one of those things! The Mach 3 is the pre-electro transpeeps’ best friend.) The closing credits for the spoof: “Yeah. It’s a dude.”
  • A fake commercial for a pill that would keep men from getting sexually aroused in inappropriate situations, like picking up your high-school aged niece and her cheerleader friends. I’m…not sure what to say, except, gross–the other example is a Santa worried about a stray erection costing him his job.
  • A short film where two guys go to a party and make disparaging comments about the people there–but here’s the catch!–their comments are shown to be literally true; so “look at those Jokers” cuts to three guys dressed as the Joker. You get the idea. One of the guys is described as a serial rapist; the cut is to a guy busily humping a box of cereal. Hy-larious! (To be totally fair, the bit ends with one of the guys saying, “look at those two douchebags” and the image is the two of them looking into a mirror.)

So: trans-shaming; a reminder that men! always get boners! whenever they look at anything female!; and a nice little dollop of rape humor. All right!

Yes, this is pretty much how this blog is going to go.