Here's a news item designed specifically to make us all throw our hands up in the air and yell at our computer screens in disbelief. Director Roman Polanski — the man who was convicted of having unlawful sex with a minor in 1977 and has lived in Europe to avoid jail time ever since — thinks the #MeToo movement has gone too far.
In a new interview with the Polish edition of Newsweek [via the Associated Press], Polanski had plenty of negative things to say about the anti-sexual misconduct movement. He started by referring to #MeToo as "collective hysteria of the kind that sometimes happens in the society."
"Everyone is trying to sign up, chiefly out of fear," Polanski said. He went on to compare it to the way North Korea mourns for the loss of its leaders, saying that "you can't help laughing" at their tears.
"To me this is total hypocrisy," Polanski concluded, though he didn't exactly explain why.
Newsweek explained that the interview took place before Polanski was stripped of his membership to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Since then, Polanski's lawyer Jan Olszewski has spoken out against the ruling, saying that the Academy broke their own rules by stripping him of his membership.
Olszewski added that the decision showed signs of "psychological abuse of an elderly person" for "populist goals."
In a new interview with the Polish edition of Newsweek [via the Associated Press], Polanski had plenty of negative things to say about the anti-sexual misconduct movement. He started by referring to #MeToo as "collective hysteria of the kind that sometimes happens in the society."
"Everyone is trying to sign up, chiefly out of fear," Polanski said. He went on to compare it to the way North Korea mourns for the loss of its leaders, saying that "you can't help laughing" at their tears.
"To me this is total hypocrisy," Polanski concluded, though he didn't exactly explain why.
Newsweek explained that the interview took place before Polanski was stripped of his membership to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Since then, Polanski's lawyer Jan Olszewski has spoken out against the ruling, saying that the Academy broke their own rules by stripping him of his membership.
Olszewski added that the decision showed signs of "psychological abuse of an elderly person" for "populist goals."
