Now… we’ve been making fun of Geimer/Silver/Newman team clumsy antics, but it is time to get serious. Because rape is a grave matter. It is a tragedy in the life of its victim, and child rape is probably the worst that can happen in a life.
And in my
opinion, Geimer/Silver/Newman are committing here a crime, worse than even
Geimer’s perjury and false rape cry.
What Geimer
experienced was no rape. It wasn’t forcible rape because nobody forced her or
coerced her. It wasn’t non-forcible rape because nobody threatened or
intimidated her, and she did not depend on Polanski in any way (other than her
family’s desire to use him for their purposes). It wasn’t rape
by use of drugs because nobody drugged her. It wasn’t rape of any kind because
she never said “no” and because she “felt certain she could have made him
stop”. It was only an unlawful intercourse – which nobody calls “rape” when
Geimer kept doing it with countless others, as she so vividly describes.
No. All it
was is a foul setup. Or even if we, contrary to all logic and common sense,
leave aside all documented evidence we’ve seen and consider only her own words, it was only her wish to have
her career promoted – that was why she behaved the way she did; that was why
she never did anything to resist; that was why she lay down and spread her legs.
Not to
mince our words, the only options left to qualify the events are: either as a
setup or as prostitution.
But Silver
and Newman, obviously, understand all this too, and in spite of everything
Geimer has written or said, in spite of all the documents, they try their best
to defy logic and common sense, to mock the readers’ mental abilities, and
somehow push the idea of rape unto them nevertheless.
The easiest
way for this is to repeat the word “rape” in every passage. That, and “rape
victim”. We know that Geimer herself had never called this event “rape” – some
vestiges of conscience must have stopped her every time. “Just sex”, she said,
and “it could only be called rape because I was thirteen”, meaning “statutory
rape”, that is, unlawful intercourse, something she indulged in for years and
years. In Odd Man Out she says it’s
preposterous that people call Polanski a rapist; but no rapist means no rape. But now, in this book, it’s “rape” and “rapist” on every
page.
I
knew I hadn’t wanted to have sex with Roman, but did that make it rape? I
thought rape had to be violent. When I was told that what he had done was a
serious crime because of my age, I was shocked.
No, that
didn’t make it rape unless she made it clear to him that she did not want to
have sex with him – which she never did; but the most important is that here we
hear Geimer’s voice: no, she did not feel it was rape at that time. She was
shocked that it was a crime because of her age, because she had already
participated in exactly the same crime – and would do so many times in the immediate
future.
She writes
that when she was ten years old, a horrible thing happened to one of her
friends:
The
man grabbed her, put her in the car, took her into the woods, and raped her.
Then he left her, naked and shivering.
(…)
He hurt her, she said, and she bled. (…)
So
in later years, if you asked me what rape was – and I was asked, over and over – this was it: it was being abducted by a
stranger. Being taken to the woods, to a dark alley. It was quick and brutal
and anonymous. There was no room for seduction or gentleness, even gentle coercion, in my definition.
No coercion – even gentle – is ever mentioned in her
account, but that is not the point now. Yes, that was rape. What happened to that
girl was rape. How much persuasion did it take to make Geimer agree that her
case was in any way like the one she describes? Calling what happened to that
girl and the casual “just sex” where Samantha, in her own words, never felt in any danger and knew she could
stop it at any moment, where she confesses to have made a conscious,
calculated decision to let him “do it” – calling these two events the same word
means ridiculing rape and its true victims.
And that’s
exactly what Geimer/Silver/Newman do. It’s not enough for them to get the money
and the fame. Now they also want the honors and the admiration. Now they want
to have the same crown of thorns the true rape victims have to wear – only cast
in gold.
And
then there was that other drama vulture, Dr.Phil McGraw. I read that he said I
had a classic case of victim’s guilt, and he’d like to help me. It’s that kind
of patronizing attitude that perpetuates rape victims thinking they should have something to feel guilty
about. Dr.Phil, you’re mistaking survivor’s pride for victim’s guilt.
She really
says this. She actually calls herself a
survivor. What is it – some perverted envy? After all, Polanski, with countless tragedies in his life, has been
called a survivor such a lot of times it’s already a cliché; and now, having
taken from him everything she could, she also wants a part of this? Or is it
that a claim at martyrdom should sell the book better? Apparently both, but
there’s more:
The
lasting effect of my experience with Polanski has not been trauma, whether
psychic or physical. It’s been a desire to maintain and nurture real connection
– with friends, family, husband, even exes. (…) And perhaps my experience has
also created in me an empathy, and sometimes even a desire to reach out to
women who have been the victims in highly publicized criminal cases.
Don’t they – Silver/Newman/Geimer – even
realize how disgusting it is? Comparing her little adventure with the ordeal of
the women who have actually been raped, humiliated, hurt, traumatized; to whom
horrible things have been done –means trivializing rape and mocking the true
victims.
This
year I felt compelled to write to the sixteen-year-old girl raped by the two
high school football players in Steubenville ,
Ohio
“(…)…
I was raped by Roman Polanski(…) I just wanted to tell you that it gets better,
that you’ll be alright(…) We survivors are many, and we are strong. (…)
Now, how
should that feel to the Ohio
When I look at Samantha laughing in that
Jacuzzi, I can’t help feeling that she laughs at real rape victims.
Geimer
hasn’t stopped at that, by the way. You can see more of her open letters to
other victims online. She is endeavoring to profit that event of her life fully, to
milk it dry.
And, with the help of all the media, who, as we showed here, have been trying to pretend she was dead
set on preserving her “dignity” and “anonymity”, she is gambling on the
readers’ having no memory at all. She insists that she is only now coming out
of shadows, finally deciding to tell the story “in her own words” – as if there
hadn’t been countless interviews and other public appearances, all looking like
desperate attempts to stay in the limelight.
Ask
yourself this: Would you like the craziest thing that ever happened to you as a
teenager broadcast and then dissected over and over on television, in the
blogosphere?
Well, looks
like she would.
The
lawsuit began in 1988 and was settled five years later for a six-figure
sum(…)The other terms of our settlement(…) include that Roman was forbidden
from ever discussing the events of that night, or ever speaking about my family
or me. I agreed not to commercially exploit the story (…).
And people
wonder why he doesn’t say anything clear in his defense, suggesting that he has
nothing to say. Very well: the falsely accused doesn’t even have the right to speak,
while the false accuser can do anything she likes, and break the terms of the very
settlement she cites. Tell me this book is not commercial exploitation of the
story. In one of her numerous interviews to Larry King she also said the photos
were “not for sale”. Here they are now, one on the cover of the book, others
inside (carefully selected, of course. Not the ones I have shown you).
In the
book, she is very reserved about the number of her interviews and TV
appearances, and very sparingly, if ever, quotes from them. We know the reason
why: all her statements contradict each other, her testimony, and what is
written now in the book, - or all of the above. She is also trying to make it
seem like the limelight around her is not in any way staged.
…
an op-ed piece I wrote for the Los
Angeles Times in February 2003, right before the Oscars. It was titled
“Judge the Movie, Not the Man.
That
piece created a firestorm, and the day it was published, February 23, 2003,
Larry Silver and I appeared on Larry King
Live to discuss it.
That how it
works? On so short a notice? A piece appears in print, creates a firestorm,
Larry King makes the decision to see her and all the necessary arrangements,
and the program gets aired – all within one day?
Back
in 1978, after we requested that the most serious charges against Polanski be
dropped, my family and I were harshly criticized: Did those people only report
his crimes so they could get money through a civil suit? Larry had to state over
and over again that there would not be a civil suit.
It’s the
same principle as with the anonymity. You say enough time that you have been
anonymous all those years, and people believe you. Just wake everyone in the
middle of the night and ask, “Who is Samantha Geimer?” – and they will reply,
“It’s the anonymous girl who treasures her privacy above all.” Likewise, if you
keep repeating that the accusation was not for money, everyone will believe you,
especially if your lawyer states it “over and over again”. Then you just take
your money, and nobody bats an eyelash.
The very
same principle is pursued throughout. You write open letters to rape victims,
insisting you “know what they feel”, and everyone believes that you do. You
call yourself a “rape victim”, and everyone believes that you are. You call
yourself a “rape survivor” often enough – and nobody remembers that the only
thing you have “survived” is an attempt to exploit a famous man for money and
fame. An attempt that brilliantly succeeded, of which The Girl is the final proof – if anyone still needed one, that is.
No comments:
Post a Comment