All That Was Missing from the Polanski Story...

...was definitely: But what does Woody Allen think? [Trigger warning.]

The controversy surrounding fugitive film-maker Roman Polanski on Saturday drew strong words in his defence from fellow director Woody Allen after fresh allegations that he abused a minor.

...Allen, 74, said Polanski, who is fighting extradition from Switzerland to the United States to face sentencing in a 1977 child sex case, had paid a high price for his actions and that it was time to draw a line under the case.

"It's something that happened many years ago... he has suffered.... He has paid his due," Allen told French radio station RTL.

"He's an artist, he's a nice person, he did something wrong and he paid for it. They (his critics) are not happy unless he pays the rest of his life. They would be happy if they could execute him in a firing squad," he said.

"Enough is enough," he added.

Oh, right. I forgot how the child rapist is a nice person, and how child rape doesn't matter if you're an artist. Forget it, Jake. It's Moralrelativismtown.

As one of Polanski's "critics," I'll just note once again that Polanski did not, in fact, "pay his due," but skipped town specifically to avoid "paying his due," and, despite the absurd memes evidently floating around the entertainment industry that Polanski's been banned from the US by virtue of some exorbitant and extraordinary retributive gesture by the provincial and puritanical California government, the reason he's been "in exile" from the US is because he's a fucking fugitive.

I don't want him executed and his "paying for the rest of his life" would bring me no goddamn happiness. I would only like for the same justice that I would want to see in any case—and the reason this has gone on for 32 years is because Polanski himself has avoided that justice for all that time.

To turn his critics into insatiable witch-hunters is not merely spectacularly unfair, but an assertion predicated on ignoring Polanski's responsibility in this situation.

Which, granted, is hardly surprising from someone defending a child rapist.

Meanwhile, I love this:

Another of 76-year-old Polanski's prominent defenders, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, also spoke out, rejecting the new allegations by British actress Charlotte Lewis, while Cannes Film Festival president Gilles Jacob said no one was above the law.

Oh, well, if world champion child rape apologist Bernard-Henri Levy says the allegations are untrue, they must be!

Because, as everyone knows, in a rape culture, surviving rape renders you irrevocably compromised on the subject of rape, but defending rapists turns you into a goddamn bastion of objectivity.

Forget it, Jake. It's Rapeculturetown.