Roman Polanski Appealing After Motion Picture Academy Expels Him, Bill Cosby

This convicted child rapist can no longer win awards! Image by Getty Images

By Jenny Singer May 4, 2018

If millennials are spoiled in part because they were given too many participation trophies, then boomers are leading us into complete social collapse because they want awards for denouncing a child rapist a mere 41 years after he admitted to rape.

Get the justice league over at the Motion Picture Academy Association a couple of medals and ice cream sundaes, because today, over four decades after director Roman Polanski was convicted of raping a thirteen year-old girl, a crime he admitted to, he has finally been expelled from the MPAA. Bill Cosby, who only last week was convicted of sexual assault though his sixty accusers have been speaking against him for several years, was also expelled.

Brava, brave academy! This show of nobility should get its own segment at the Oscars, sponsored by Pepto Bismol.

Polanski’s lawyer has announced that his client will appeal the academy’s decision. “We want due process,” said the lawyer of the man who, in 1977, pled guilty to charges of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

The MPAA, which is responsible for the Academy Awards, put out a statement after the board voted to expel Polanski and Cosby. They are two of only four people who have been expelled from the association in its history — the others are Harvey Weinstein, and a man who leaked Oscar movie screeners. The two most recent men’s expulsions are a response to the code of conduct the MPAA adopted after the Harvey Weinstein scandal, which the men are in violation of. “The Board continues to encourage ethical standards that require members to uphold the Academy’s values of respect for human dignity,” a statement from the organization announced.

So where’s my award for sitting through “The Pianist,” a 2.5 hour Holocaust drama directed by Roman Polanski, a known child rapist? It won him an Academy Award. In 2002.

Jenny Singer is a writer for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Jenny Singer is a freelance writer with pieces in Vox, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, and more. She was previously a staff writer at Glamour and the Forward, and she’s currently getting an MFA in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO