The public relations hit Hollywood took during their tone-deaf Rally ‘Round The Child Rapist Movement last September was pretty devastating for the entertainment industry as a whole. It was also probably the first time The Beautiful People had to confront the reality that their propaganda wing known as the entertainment media could no longer control the image of their narrative. Blogs, talk radio, Fox News and other truth tellers gave the child-rapist apologists a serious taste of accountability, and it stung.
In order to recover, the film industry can only play the revisionist game and try to rewrite their sordid Polanski support in the hopes that those of us who don’t think directing “Chinatown” earns you a free pass to anally rape a child will somehow forget. So, a little too late, along comes the Daily Beast’s Kim Masters who gives it the old college try with an article arguing that Polanski doesn’t really have as much Hollywood support as some of us might think.
After portraying himself as a victim in his public letter earlier this month, the fugitive director has lost support in the movie industry that once defended him.
Roman Polanski had better hope his recent statement–breaking his silence on his arrest last September and asking “to be treated fairly like anyone else”–falls on more sympathetic ears in Switzerland than in much of Hollywood. Because if industry power players were judging whether to extradite the 76-year-old director, chances are he would be on the next flight to Los Angeles.
Well that sure sounds a like a too-late moral awakening, but an awakening nonetheless. A quick perusal between the lines, however, tells the real story.
At first glance, Masters appears to have written a fairly convincing redemption story of an industry finally coming to its moral senses. The theory being that Polanski’s self-serving — “I can remain silent no longer!” — declaration earlier this month managed to wake the artistic class up to the director’s shocking lack of remorse; and that this final straw is what finally turned the tide on the same man who just seven years ago received a standing ovation after being awarded the Oscar for Best Director.
But as with all things in the world of the water-carrying entertainment media, you have to take a closer between the water-carrying. In Masters’ attempt to tell us Hollywood might not be all that bad, take a gander at the list of brave souls who dared speak out against the fugitive director:
- A film executive
- A top studio executive
- A prominent agent
- A producer,
- A Hollywood player
- One producer
Nowhere in this article is a single executive, player or agent named. Not one.
If indeed the tide of public opinion is turning against Polanski in what Masters describes as “much of Hollywood,” there shouldn’t be a need for Deep Throating. Unless Masters has permission but still chose not to print their names for some inexplicable reason, you have to assume that a bunch of entertainment big shots are worried about having their names tied to being critical of Polanski. It’s also fair to wonder why Masters couldn’t find, or didn’t bother to name, a single Hollywoodist willing to go on the record — willing to go out on a limb to state that a fugitive child rapist should be brought to justice.
Obvious questions lead to an obvious conclusion: publicly speaking out against Polanksi is not a smart career move.
That’s the real story here. But to find it you have to be skeptical and curious and willing to read between your own lines… and want to tell it.
Masters, however, does deserve credit for including this killer quote:
Having said that, the executive adds, “I’d work with him in a heartbeat. I think he’s a great filmmaker.”
That’s the real state of Polanski’s Hollywood tide.
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