Continuing a lifelong commitment to not shutting the fuck up, sitting quietly in a villa somewhere, and just being glad he’s not in jail, Roman Polanski announced that he’s suing the Academy Of Motion Pictures Arts And Sciences today, hoping to force it to overturn its decision to expel him from its membership. Said decision came during the height of the #MeToo movement last year, a scant 41 years after Polanski fled the country after being accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl—and on the same day that the Academy gave Bill Cosby the boot, as well.
Polanski is now suing to have the decision reversed, because if there’s one person who knows all about a good old-fashioned travesty of justice, it’s got to be Roman Polanski. His attorneys are questioning the fairness of the procedure, which, per Variety, requires a two-thirds vote from the Oscar-granting body’s board of governors. Among their protests are the fact that Polanski was given no warning that the expulsion vote was set to happen, and that “there was not even any notice of why” such a vote might be taken, which, you know, huh. Really, Roman, buddy? You couldn’t hazard a guess?
To be fair to the apparently confused Polanski, the Oscars have had a decidedly mixed attitude toward the Chinatown director over the years; after all, he won Best Director at the annual awards as recently as 2002, for The Pianist. Still, the Academy was pretty clear in its reasoning in a statement today: “The procedures taken to expel Mr. Polanski were fair and reasonable. The Academy stands behind its decision as appropriate.”