The song, “Alone Yet Not Alone,” was nominated for an Oscar, but then the decision was rescinded; the tune is from a Christian film of the same title. “Philomena,” a propaganda film strewn with lies about the Catholic Church, won four nominations. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does the balloting, and most of the voters are white men: in 2012, 94% were white and 77% were male. It would be nice to know if there is even one practicing Catholic among them.
If Hollywood is not Catholic-friendly, it certainly has no phobia when it comes to the sexual abuse of children. We know this because five years ago the Tinseltown celebs came to the defense of Roman Polanski, a confessed child rapist, when he won a Zurich Film Festival award. Harvey Weinstein, the distributor of “Philomena,” referred to the “so-called crime” that Polanski committed. But there is nothing “so-called” about plying a 13-year-old girl with a Quaalude and champagne, and then raping her in a tub.
“Free Polanski” was the name of the petition launched in 2009 to defend the man who drugged, penetrated, and sodomized the girl. It politely referred to this as “a case of morals.” That was the best it could do. It was signed by Stephen Frears, the director of “Philomena,” Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, John Landis, Mike Nichols, Steven Soderberg, and many others. The man who led the petition was Woody Allen.
Allen has been nominated for best original screenplay in “Blue Jasmine,” and Cate Blanchett is up for best actress. But the white boys who voted in February had to decide whether they wanted to honor a man whose adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, said he sexually abused her when she was a seven-year-old. Prosecutors found there was “probable cause,” but decided to spare Dylan the trauma of a trial. So Allen walked. Had he been a priest, he would have been in prison years ago.
Hollywood’s moral compass is set: it has infinitely more tolerance for celebrity child rapists than it does for Christianity, especially Catholicism.
