Note to the geographically challenged:
There is, indeed, a place called Hollywood, but it is grungy and full of tourist traps, and no one in the entertainment industry goes there very often. In fact, there is a place called “West Hollywood,” which is a nice little town of its own run largely by gay men, and patrolled by L.A. County Sheriffs who once in a while put on the latest fashions, go to clubs, and leave (seemingly) alone, in order to make make sure the homo-haters who like to beat people up are not cruising around.
There is a place call North Hollywood, which is in the San Fernando Valley, and is not just shabby, but permanently unfashionable.
So those who work in “Hollywood,” the concept, rarely go near “Hollywood,” the place. People in the entertainment industry live and work in Los Angeles and its suburbs. So they are in neighborhoods that may or may not be part of the city proper. They may even be little cities of their own, such as Santa Monica, the “Bay City,” which has its own police force, or Burbank, or WeHo.
Guess who else lives in the Los Angeles area? Regular people. Some of ’em work in and around the entertainment industry, and some do not. They are teachers and cops and firefighters and postal service employees and hair stylists and chefs and small business owners and computer programmers and cinematographers and actors and animation artists and grocery-store clerks and producers and waiters and waitresses.
To say that females in Southern California should be written off from a young age as belonging to a service caste, and should be regarded simply as sexual slaves to the dominant males who live here, is enraging.
Roman Polanski met this girl in his neighborhood, and flattered her, and made her think that he could help her break into an industry she wanted to work in. And he manipulated her over and over again, and when she said “no” he took her by force.
Perhaps someone will rape Tom Shales, and then explain that it’s okay, because he’s only a WaPo writer, and they are fair game. After all, anyone who works inside the Beltway is not really a human being. Not really.
Tom Shales is slime.
UPDATE: Dan Collins is also appalled, and brings up the almost-related issue of trying minors as adults. But let’s remember, if we can, that despite what the glitterati are saying, the girl was the victim in that situation. The criminal was Roman Polanski.
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Ummm, I think that’s a pretty far out reading of Shales–that he thinks 13 year old girls are sex slaves or not really human.
I think what he was saying is that little girls grow up very fast in that climate and that a 13 year old girl from Hollywood would be much more, um, mature, shall we say?, than a 13 year old girl from Iowa. Whether that’s true or not is debatable as Hollywood exports its innocence-busting, sexualized culture by the trainload. What’s not debatable is that Hollywood’s culture IS innocence-busting and sexualized, as implied and accepted by Shales’ own remarks.
Oh, and Tom Shales is still slime.
When you speak of Tom Shales, do you mean Tom Shales the TV critic? If so, why?
Thanks for the link, Attila. Here’s my idea for a new TV series. I bet a lot of it would take place in L.A.
I’m trying to show the logical endpoint of his strain of thought. Certainly I realize that what he thought he was saying (pretended he was saying) is “there’s no such thing as a truly innocent 13-year-old in the L.A. area.”
But I was one once. An innocent 13-year-old in the L.A. area. So he’s wrong on that count.
Unless one wants to get back to the notion that because the girl had had sex with her boyfriend she was therefore no longer truly “innocent,” which is a blame-the-victim argument.
I do not buy the notion that seeing sexualized images of young women in the media justifies forced sex or statutory rape. Once we’re there, we might as well go full-bore Muslim extremist, and kill women who’ve been raped because they have brought “dishonor” to their families.
“People in the entertainment industry live and work in Los Angeles and its suburbs.”
And around the country, at newspapers and TV stations and wherever the products are sold. Like the folks that made the girl’s life a living hell after the rape. Her only mistake was doing what she is doing now–forgiving Polanski because of the horrible treatment she received from the Press. Who does she think sent those folks around? ‘Sent’ might be too strong a word because some went ‘on spec’ because they were hoping to catch a few eyes in the Hollywood power structure. I will make a bet that quite a few “swag bags” went out that year. And invites to the good parties and interviews with the right people. Exactly what Tom Shales is trying to hang on to now. It beats working for a living.
Some people get it right though, like these three (including Cokie Roberts). Although that one woman might be better off it she learned that ‘documentaries’ are not surveillance camera video tapes with sound–they are only as accurate as the people squeezing them out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MztRLkft6m0&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MztRLkft6m0&feature=player_embedded
Funny, in the world where the Tom shales think the young girls are so innocent the kids have watched all kind of critters mate. Many have assisted in calving or watched their mamma cat bear her kittens.
City kids may or may not know much about having sex, country and small town kids know about procreation. And innocent or not, the girl was still thirteen, Polanski knew she was thirteen, he still got her drunk, then drugged her, then when she begged him to stop, anally raped her. That is not an indictment of Hollywood, it is an indictment of Polanski.
As a resident of North Hollywood, I cherish its perpetual unfashionabilty. It keeps people like Tom Shales out of the neighborhood.
Pretty much makes it worth the police tape around the building every now and then.