Small Wonders:

In my near 20 years in the entertainment industry I’ve seen the bubble of self-importance in which A-List Hollywood resides. This has been only a minor personal annoyance for me. But with the recent uproar over Roman Polanski’s arrest, I can’t keep quiet.

I know this isn’t really a local issue. But as the father of two daughters, I think it’s a human issue. We live in the entertainment capital of the world, many of us gainfully employed there, and this negatively affects all of us. Hollywood is already condemned for being morally depraved. Letting an admitted sex offender ignore his punishment does nothing to change that view.

Harvey Weinstein wrote an open letter to the film industry calling on every U.S. filmmaker to lobby against bringing Polanski back to the States.

He called Polanski’s illegal sexual intercourse with a drugged and resistant 13-year-old girl the “so-called crime,” adding that “filmmakers are looking for justice to be properly served.”

Yes, Harvey. We are.

To anyone not blinded by their self-obsessed and self-gratifying lifestyle within the bubble of glamour and privilege that is A-List celebrity, the only proper justice is for Polanski to be returned to the U.S. and face the consequences of the crime to which he pleaded guilty.

“Roman Polanski is a man who cares deeply about his art and its place in this world,” Weinstein told us before going on to paint a dark picture should the world be denied Polanski’s talents.

I do agree that Polanski is a great artist. “Chinatown” is one of the greatest films ever made.

But this has absolutely zero relation to anything in this case; nor that this is “ancient history,” as some have suggested.

Part of the indignation of those who defend Polanski is due to how he was arrested — en route to receiving an award at a film festival in Zurich.

Polanski has served his time, Weinstein tells us: 42 days in jail before sentencing and 32 years living opulently in Europe.

So let’s go over a few things all this says about Hollywood:

 If you’re very talented, the laws of society and decency don’t apply to you.

 You’re not allowed to catch a famous, artistically gifted criminal unless you tell them exactly when you are going to do so.

 If you wait long enough, you become the victim of your crime rather than the perpetrator.