5 Reasons Why the Roman Polanski Story Doesn't Interest Me Much

By Kevin Tillman, AlterNet. Posted September 30, 2009.

The truth: I don’t actually care enough about the Roman Polanski story to come up with five reasons I don’t care about the Roman Polanski story. I’ve got one — you’re welcome to flesh out the rest in the comments.

Here it is: I don’t see that the story says anything we didn’t know about our society, and I think it says nothing at all about art or ideology or culture or even the ostensible moral failings of “Hollywood.”

Men — and in some cases women — from every walk of life, political orientation and station in life have coerced, drugged and raped young girls. It's disturbing but true. In “red” and “blue” states; blue-collars and white-collars; businessmen and starving-artist freaks. If there’s some reason I should extrapolate a larger meaning from this particular case of rape -- decades ago and in a rather rarefied circle -- more than any other, it’s unclear to me why.

And beyond that, it's just a celebrity story, and I’m just not that into celebrity stories. Especially one that peaked when I was 9 years old.

Having said that, a few quick thoughts (you knew I would!) ...

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