Link: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/polanski-child-sex-victim-speaks/Story?id=125360&page=1
Through the article “Polanski Child Victim Speaks Out”, it is quite lucid that the media puts the blame primarily on Roman Polanski and accuses him of statutory rape. However, I feel that this opinion is a biased take on the case, especially when the case is analyzed through the lenses of age, gender and class. Firstly, the most significant issue behind this predicament is the big difference in age. If Samantha Geimer, the victim, had not been 13 years old at the time, then the case might not have been declared as a rape. It was certainly a case of wrong moral sense on Roman Polanski’s part, but not of a certain forced sexual intercourse. The reason why I feel quite strongly about this is that Samantha Geimer admitted a few things during the first trial which pointed out her involvement or lack of rejection in the sexual intercourse. Firstly, she took the Quaalude by her own choice with her knowledge of the substance and its effects. Secondly, she voluntarily took off her own dress before coming into the Jacuzzi, the main event which led to the intercourse. Furthermore, the fact that she was not a virgin at the time means that she would be aware from early on the signs of leading into sexual intercourse, and the only rejection she expressed was saying a meek “no”. These claims are based on the official transcript of the trial “The Shoot Gun”
Besides age, I feel that gender is an important issue in this case. Because Roman Polanski is a male, he is immediately deemed of wanting and forcing the sexual intercourse. Based on the evidence from the trial transcript described above I doubt that the sexual intercourse was not of mutual consent, and I blame the media for over publicizing otherwise. Thirdly, because Roman Polanski is of a significantly higher class than Samantha Geimer, the blame is immediately placed on the one with the higher social hierarchy. The one of lower class is often portrayed as the helpless and oppressed, even though class might not actually play a direct role in this issue. Therefore, in my opinion, the claims I made substantiated my belief that this article unjustly accuses Roman Polanski as the only party at fault.
This article makes it seem as though rape is a minor issue. It brushes it off as if it is just a small dispute between an older man who seemed to have a lack of judgement on one night and a girl who could not do anything but accept what was placed onto her because of social pressures. This shows how the intersectional factors influence how victims and rapers are viewed in the media. Because Roman Polanski was a male, who was powerful through social class, he is not blamed severely for running away to France when he had committed a crime. He is not responsible of the image of white powerful men, because he is instead viewed as a deviant. Also, the article showed how because she was of a lower class, they had blamed her for wanting to have sex with Polanski to gain fame. The victim of a rape case was blamed, rather than the raper because the media views a white man powerful man, not unmoral enough to rape a young girl. Through this article being through the point of view of Geimer--who gained some settlement in a civil suit, which interestingly enough could not be publicly discussed--the problem of this rape has become a minor incident rather than a serious rape case. It proves that the media is influenced by those who are powerful, because those with monetary power are able to manipulate and persuade those who are weaker to change their opinion in front of the media. In this article, the only thing Geimer wants is for Polanski to be pardoned and allowed to enter the country because he is a wonderful director. She does not talk about the injustice of how she was taken advantage of through rape.
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