Via the AP and headlines at HotAir yet another twist to the Polanski saga:
Mitterrand’s 2005 book, “La mauvaise vie” or “The Bad Life,” describes painful periods in his childhood and his homosexuality. One passage describes his “bad habit of paying for boys” in Thailand. Mitterrand later denied he was a pedophile, saying on France-3 television that he uses the term “boys” loosely.
Mitterrand was a television personality when the book came out but not in the government. President Nicolas Sarkozy named Mitterrand culture minister in June this year.
Concern about the book resurfaced in French political circles after Mitterrand’s impassioned defense of Roman Polanski last week. The director was arrested in Switzerland on U.S. charges of having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 in Los Angeles.
Oh it’s a bad habit well that’s different, that certainly drops the Ick Factor, I’m Sure Tom Shales will think so too.
Then again if we could only get Hollywood to treat this bad habit like smoking then we might see change.
I’m with John Noltie it’s all about moving the ick goalposts:
And this is how cinematic propaganda works. Whether the filmmaker’s motivations are good or evil, the idea is to get decent and thoughtful people to start second guessing themselves as they’re enveloped in the dark and held captive by the powerful sound and fury of the moving picture. First we’re led to identify and sympathize with a particular character, then that character does something designed to challenge our belief structure. This can range from, “If John Wayne opposes racism, maybe I should,” to, “Well, if a loving mother is okay with it, maybe I need to get a little more nuanced and tolerant about this whole child-rape thing.”
On its face, that may sound laughable, and maybe it is, but that doesn’t mean our eyes are lying to us. Last year merely topped off a campaign targeted at our children that began some time ago.
It is my opinion that the culture wars in general and the war on Christianity in particular is all about legitimizing sin and removing guilt from it. Once it becomes unacceptable to call sin “sin” then everything changes. That way this case matters; it exposes in sharp relief the contradictions that this involves, and we will as a culture have a choice to make. Is this unacceptable or a bad habit?
Update: Of course some uses of the Ick factor are simply brilliant.
Update 2: Don Surber notices
Hey, maybe there is an opening in the Obama administration. Consider the safe schools czar.
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