The View Takes on Roman Polanski, Whoopi Comes Up With New Definition of Rape

Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet at 1:33 PM on September 29, 2009.

Some of the most complex issues of our time have been tackled (and figured out!) on The View. So it's no surprise that on their Monday morning show the hosts weighed in on the Roman Polanski arrest scandal.

"He had a terrible time, and he's a wonderful director." says Joy Behar.  "But, he did rape a 13-year-old child."

Rhetorician/legal scholar Whoopi Goldberg has a problem with that seemingly non-controversial point: "The language that we use here is very important, because, that is not the allegation ... "

There's some more back and forth, during which Goldberg berates the other guests for talking about Polanski as if he ... raped a 13 year old? Guest star Melissa Gilbert appears similarly hesitant to come down hard on Polanski, making the points that the girl's Mom was in the building; and it's been a pretty long time since it happened; and, you know, years later the victim doesn't want deal with it, so ... (A large picture of the victim flashes on the screen to underscore the sensitivity of that point).

Then, Whoopi Goldberg outdos that brilliant reasoning by coming up with a really good legal defense for rapists: "What I'm saying is that he did not rape her, cause she was aware, and the family, apparently was aware ... "

After more back and forth, Goldberg finally comes to her point: "He was not charged ... I know it wasn't rape-rape. I think it was something else ... but I don't believe it was rape-rape."

As Lindsay on Jezebel notes, while it's very, very good that Goldberg insists on using precise language and dealing with facts over hype, it's very, very bad that Goldberg implies that a 44 year old having sex with a drugged 13 year old is not rape.

Obviously we have a major problem, as a culture, with trying (not imprisoning, trying) a nice looking, old, famous guy for a crime perpetrated a long time ago on a non-famous girl child. 

Forget about what Polanski is guilty of or what should be done about it; what does the public reaction to the controversy -- which seems to involve a lot of contortions to make up excuses for Polanski -- tell us about our culture's attitude towards women, men, assault, and, well, who matters and who doesn't? 

For a really good take-down of all the absurd defenses spun in the day and a half since Polanski was arrested, check out the following piece by Little Light of Feministe, It's Still Rape: A Much Needed Dose Of Sanity On Roman Polanski. 

Here are some choice parts:

But, can’t we just drop a mere statutory rape charge after thirty years? You mean because the other charges were dropped on a plea-bargain, drugging a girl and having sex with her stops counting as a flat-out rape no matter what her age?

But, she's grown-up now, can’t we just drop it? She wasn't then. And if she were, it would still be rape.

Isn't this just stuffy Americans judging a brilliant man on sexual peccadilloes like they always do, because Americans can't handle sex as a culture? Yes. Absolutely. The rest of the world thinks raping kids is a-okay, whoops, our bad, we're just too uptight about drugging people and forcing sex on them. You know us Americans. We're always up in arms about sexual assault this, consent that.

But he's an old man now. Yes, and due to the Oldness Exception Act of 1967, old people are no longer accountable for felonies and shouldn't face consequences for doing things that are wrong.

But he’s really talented, and I really like his movies. That's. Nice.

But we don't know all the facts!

That's what a trial is for.

Here's a video segment of that episode of the View:

Tagged as: women, rape, men, whoopi goldberg, roman polanski