Comments on: The Good Old Days

By: Salome

Salome — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:38:45 +0000

I really like Manhattan, and though I’m a bit uncomfortable with the relationship Woody Allen’s character has with Mariel Hemingway’s character, there’s a big difference between that and what Roman Polanski did. Not only because Hemingway’s character Tracy gave consent whereas Samantha Geimer was drugged and repeatedly said “no,” but also because Tracy was 17, and therefore of the legal age of consent according to New York state law. She was a kid, but she wasn’t underage when it came to sex.

The comparison of the two is simply disturbing, and it has the additional effect of further demonizing teenage girls’ sexuality by acting like consensual sex with a 17-year-old and rape of a 13-year-old are the same thing. THEY’RE NOT.

By: Nancy Green

Nancy Green — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:14:05 +0000

In the 70′s the whole thing was treated as a joke. A dirty joke, and if he was seen as doing something wrong, it was in committing immorality. It was not framed as harming a child. she was a ‘nymphet’ — a sort of sub-human species that bore no resemblance to any child you might know.
One of the most poignant things Samantha Geimer said was– ‘leave my mother alone.’
Her mother is still alive, still being slandered. But this perp premeditated, set up a situation, lied to the mother, raped the child– and the press is still blaming the mother.
But very belatedly the press is acknowledging that the crime was rape.

By: Bitter Scribe

Bitter Scribe — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:43:30 +0000

I think it’s true that in the ’70s, it was easier to find people who thought that having sex with a “nymphet” was cool, cutting-edge, daring, etc. Thank God we’ve backtracked from that.

The analogy that comes to my mind is that, around the same time, there was a much greater tolerance for drunken driving than there is now. And, while there may be instances in both cases of the pendulum swinging back too far (e.g., teachers afraid to hug students), I think society as a whole is far better off.

By: Molly (the artist formerly known as Alexis)

Molly (the artist formerly known as Alexis) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:45:42 +0000

I think I missed the part in Manhattan where Woody Allen drugged and raped his girlfriend. I’m having a hard time seeing how that’s evidence of “in the 70s, Polanski’s actions were viewed as totally kosher!!”

By: Nancy Green

Nancy Green — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:34:48 +0000

I give the internet credit for changing the way the press reports this.
I remember 1977, and the smirking attitude of the press. One reason is that the real story was ‘unprintable’ so they just did the lazy thing and printed Polanski’s version.
He is, other than being famous, a typical perp, self-justifying and full of excuses. He isn’t the most interesting or important part of the story.
The NYT article was pretty good, belatedly pointing out how society had changed, though they give conservatives too much credit.
Change has come because victims came forward, especially feminists against rape of women and children, and organized groups against clergy abuse. Law has changed.
And sites like Smoking Gun printed court testimony that shows graphically that Polanski’s crime was drug-facilitated rape of a child. You couldn’t even use those words in 1977.

By: Jill

Jill — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 04:09:57 +0000

Toothfairy, that’s my point — the article didn’t include all the facts. It didn’t include her being drugged, even though that’s totally undisputed. It didn’t include her saying no, even though that’s totally undisputed.

Of course statutory rape has a different bases from forcible rape — that’s why it’s a different crime. Questioning the wisdom of the age cut-off for statutory rape isn’t de facto rape apologism, but your comment — which was entirely ignorant of the facts — was.

By: beth

beth — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 03:58:51 +0000

@ jen (your twitpic). un-fucking-believable.

By: Toothfairy

Toothfairy — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:43:39 +0000

Jill.

Thanks for pointing out that the girl was drugged and did not consent. Unless I missed it, I did not see the New York Times story mention anything about her being drugged. But if she had indeed actually consented, there are published studies and other literature to support my point. Just in case you have not noticed, statutory rape has a basis different from rape and to question the justification for the cut-off age hardly amounts to rape apologism.

By: Jill

Jill — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:06:43 +0000

Agreed, Daisy. My beef wasn’t with the content but the tone — the idea that (a) conservatives did this, and (b) we lost something in the process.

Those are interesting examples, though. I think women in my generation are often shocked when we see rape apologism. I remember the first time I heard feminists talking about the “Why did she wear…?” argument about rape — “Why was she wearing a miniskirt? Why did she go there? Why did she do that?” — and I thought it was horribly out of touch. It made me think that feminists were totally outdated, because no one really blamed women for being raped anymore.

And then I saw it happen. And I saw that as far as women have come, we’ve also really stayed in the same place.

By: DaisyDeadhead

DaisyDeadhead — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 01:58:10 +0000

I actually agree, but not for the reasons they’re offering. Before feminism, rape and abuse of women was acceptable and thus, suitable comedy-fodder. Domestic violence was jokey-jokey too. Recall Ralph Kramden shaking his fist at Alice: “POW! Right in the kisser!”–this joke is simply unacceptable now. (And “The Honeymooners” was regarded as a wholesome comedy.)

In “Play it Again Sam”–Woody Allen says something about rape and Diane Keaton replies “Oh, I’d never get that lucky,” a really jarring comment that I don’t remember at all the first time I saw it. (Seeing it again, blew my mind that I’d ever missed it)…In (I think) “Bananas”, he jokes that he is “taking courses in advanced child molesting”–which again, I didn’t notice at the time… last time I saw the movie, it jumped right out at me.

The old Saturday Night Live had a famous, repeating skit with Gilda Radner and Laraine Newman as hyperactive, squealing little girls, happily crawling all over Buck Henry, a neighborhood child molester who endeared himself to parents by volunteering to babysit at a moment’s notice. He would play physical games with them (“There’s a surprise in my pocket, can you find it?”), give piggyback rides, wash their undies, etc. The joke was how wholesome Buck Henry was and how implicitly the girls’ parents (Jane Curtin) trusted him. Once she asked him why he never married, and he replied, “I think the right woman for me just hasn’t been born yet”–considered hilarious at the time and much-repeated, almost a catch phrase.

Sensibilities have changed in a big way. WE did that, not family values conservatives, and we should congratulate ourselves for turning the culture around in one generation.