The cultural elite is going to turn me into Bill O'Reilly before this is all over.
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The O'Reilly position would be (and probably is) that this petition is an example of the general permissiveness and distance from normal reactions typical of the "cultural elite".
Of course, that misses the target.
It misses the target, because the artists and intellectuals who're rallying around Polanski are motivated by a feeling -- either passionately felt or lazily assumed -- that one of their own is under attack and in need of defense. To nincompoops such as BHL, Polanski has become a sort of climate change era Wilde, set upon by small minds.
But, against the O'Reilly POV, this isn't an example of a general amorality which always and forever forgives sexual assaults...if the guilty party were outside the zone of sympathy, and famous (let's say, Bush, to pick an obvious example) many of these same people would express outraged opinions demanding belated justice be served.
We're witnessing a kind of tribally inspired application of blinders. Fairly typical really and something nearly all of us are guilty of from topic to topic.
Or, to follow Jordan's lead on the OJ saga, we can reference Chris Rock who, on the occasion of OJ's acquittal said: "black people are too happy, and white people are too mad." A pretty astute observation I thought which got to the heart of how both endlessly forgiving and wild eyed accusatory opinion were often inspired by other factors besides the case's raw details.
.d.
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Celebrity is just obscurity biding its time.
Carrie Fisher