Open Letter From Dylan Farrow on Abuse by Woody Allan

[Zombie Glenn Beck]

Speaking as:

a) A dude
b) Someone who had to google who Woody Allen even is
c) Someone who agrees that Woody Allen is probably a pedophile

All this flaming has gotten way out of hand. I seriously doubt anyone who reads RI and who posts on this board thinks that pedophilia is ok or supports it in any way. There is genuine ambiguity in this case and I dont think its some kind of moral failure to consider that. Men are generally horrible(being a subset of human beings who are horrible as a rule) but I think the average RI user is different from the mold. So can we please stop trying to paint each other as being Hitler incarnate?

[brekin]

brekin wrote:
P.S. Not implying that you are Hanibal Lecter justdrew

Smiths wrote:
yeah, right ...

confirming my point above that those who have expressed a questioning of the Project Willow/Nordic line have been effectively, and now literally, demonised
and Sunny says "Choose love", with who, the men you have designated as the enemy?
for your information my wife works with victims of crime, mostly females, most of whom have suffered horrendous abuse and are let down by 'the system'
I am a man with a brilliant, courageous, loving and strong woman as a partner, perhaps because i had a strong and progressive Mother as an example,
as a father of a young man i have imbued in him a respect and love for women and men, for good, caring and loving people, for equality of all regardless of sex, or race, or any other prejudice

none of this precludes me from knowing bullshit and stupidity when i read it, and this thread has been full of it
so dont give me your "some men get it some dont" bullshit

I wasn't implying justdrew was Hannibal Lecter. If anything, I was implying he was a little a la Clarice Starling too naive to the evil compartmentalization and justification that those who violate people are capable of. I was taking his words of good will and showing how they don't work with those who lack significant levels of empathy. For the record, I don't believe justdrew is a demon, or can be turned into one. But what do you think about Woody and Dylan talking out things over coffee? Think it a good idea?

Also, for the record, I'm not working for the Nordic/Sunny "line". I'm working my own line which crosses with many others. Because I work my line I keep a close watch on this heart of mine. I keep my eyes wide open all the time. You sound like you don't like men being unfairly targeted as a group. Either do I. So I guess we are working the same line on that. But other than your solid pro-feminist pedigree you've outlayed above I'm having a hard time discerning where you are on the whole thing. You don't like bullshit and you don't like the male race being vilified. ok. But where are you regarding the allegations?
I've gone back a bit and haven't been able to tease out your stance other than what you think is bullshit. But I'm wondering now what you think is the real shit?

[justdrew]

just to head off a possible unnecessary digression, I got your point brekin, and wasn't offended.

[smiths]

honestly Brekin, i dont know

Dylan says Woody Allen did it, he had the opportunity, so its possible

Moses says Mia brainwashed them, Mia clearly hated Woody Allen and had the motive to say any number of terrible things about him over an extended period and affect Dylan's memories and perception

At no point have i defended Woody Allen, especially not for the absurd reason that i might like a few of his films

Because i dont know and the whole series of events and outcomes seem complex and fucked up i dont wish to make an assertion either way

i am saddened by people who say, "he probably did it", or "she is making it up"

i think it ought to be able to be investigated again but apparently there is a time reason why this cannot occur which seems wrong to me

i am also mindful of two critical incidents i have been a personal witness to over the last 15 years.

Firstly, a 19 year old girl who i shared a house with got together with a 45 year old man who was our landlord. He was married with two young children and it destroyed his marriage.
His wife accused him of molesting his 7 year old daughter, argued that he shouldn't be able to see his children and he was investigated. The children were interviewed by a psychologist and gave confused and contradictory accounts.
all the people i knew formed opinions about it. many he said they thought he was guilty because he had got together with a girl so much younger than him, "they just had a feeling".
then, out of nowhere, his wife retracted the charges. she admitted that she had made them up because she hated him and wanted to hurt him and ruin him forever. i thought she would get charged with some crime but there is none.
she applied to take the children with her to a foreign country and succeeded. he hardly ever sees his children who he loves and only ever cared for and protected.

Secondly, my own ex-wife did everything she could to brainwash my son against me and against my current wife because she never accepted our separation and wanted to destroy my subsequent relationship. Fortunately i had shared care of my son and saw him on a weekly basis and was able to help him to understand and deal with the difficulties of the relationship. I also took him to a psychologist when he was about 8 to talk to about what had been said over the years and the psychologist got in contact with my ex-wife and spoke to her and the manipulation and brainwashing ceased.

had i not had shared care and been able to look after my son and have him know me for who i am, his mother, my ex-wife, could have made him believe whatever she wanted about me and there is nothing i could have done about it,
and it happens all the time

[Project Willow]

For a brief moment i would like to replace emotional projection with biology.

Please do, because something emotional is preventing you from reading what is actually being posted. What I wrote was quite specifically about child sexual abuse, that is, prepubescent children, so your citation of male rape of fertile females in the animal kingdom is moot. Prepubescent females are not fertile so there's no point in raping them if reproduction is the goal, which begs the question, why is it so common in humans, which was the point of my post.

You're also ignoring the fact that, if indeed you were refering to her, Soon-Yi is Woody's wife's adopted daughter. Adopted children form the same bonds with parents and siblings as biological children. They even develop what that researcher termed incest avoidance, so there's a little more than a culturally derived ethical problem with Woody choosing her for a mate.

Proclaiming that finding a 16 year old girl attractive suggests the tendency towards raping a 7 year old girl is stupid, reckless bullshit.
(as for claiming that an artist that demonstrates neurotic behaviour exposes a tendency towards child molesting, the stupidity is so immense i cannot fathom it)

I haven't made either of those claims. I believe Dylan. I find Judge Wilks' conclusions, and the witness testimony convincing. I don't care whom he finds attractive, Woody's marriage to Soon-Yi is a violation of the familial bond which suggests he's comfortable putting his needs before the needs of vulnerable family members, and that's also backed up in the court testimony. It doesn't prove he molested Dylan, but it suggests he's capable of it. Regardless, I believe Dylan.

As for the products of an artist. I am an artist, and there is nowhere that the very center of my being is more exposed than in my work. This is not true for all artists, but you'd be hard pressed to make the case that Allen doesn't draw from his internal emotional and psychological landscape, external relationships, and family life for his script writing. Regardless, I never claimed to come to certainty about any of this based solely on Woody's work. Again, I believe Dylan.

Stick to attacking the behaviour of child abuse and exposing the perpertrators (mostly men i know) and the networks of protection.

That's what I'm doing here.

Look, no one is saying that individual men here are bad. We're all addressing and decrying systems of behaviors, those common to perpetrators and to bystanders (see Freyd's Blindness to Betrayal). This is a forum where practically all we do is dissect the crimes of the power elite, and the systems that protect them, yet for some reason the very idea that Allen deserves the same scrutiny is offensive. I hear that you're offended, and I'm sorry you're offended, but if you find nothing but offense in my opinion on the case, then there's nothing left to do except to continue to label what I'm saying as ignorant and bullshit, and I do really wish you'd quit that.

[RocketMan]

but a key thing for me... PW, where do you get that specificity from? I don't see that level of specificity in the OP's letter. "sexually assaulted" seems to be the total description of "events in the attic" - is your writing above your interpretation or is that detail alleged somewhere? I just don't think I've seen that specific thing stated anywhere. but I could certainly have missed it I guess. the whole 'grey area' concept could certainly include some bad stuff, but I can't help but think there are degrees even in that.

how would I feel? If it were on one end of the spectrum, I'd probably forget about it and not let someone else's bad behavior overly influence my life. Other end of the spectrum, I don't know.

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/201 ... nan-farrow

In August 1992, after disappearing with Allen in Mia’s Connecticut country house and reappearing without underpants, Dylan told her mother that Allen had stuck his finger up her vagina and kissed her all over in the attic, charges Allen has always vociferously denied.

As a practical matter, I don't see how you can get around the fact that males account for the overwhelming majority of violence perpetrated on this planet. As a man, I might not feel too fucking great about it, but there it is. I've never felt disparaged because of my sex by Project Willow and find Nordic's angry, somewhat self-loathing tirades funny in a Louis CK kind of way.

[sunny]

and Sunny says "Choose love", with who, the men you have designated as the enemy?

I choose to love the men who have proven to me that they won't rape/kill/molest/assault or otherwise abuse me or my offspring or other women and their offspring. I'm sorry but it's just a fact: women cannot afford to assume the men they meet will not do one or more of these things.

For the record I was never molested*; never been raped by a stranger; never been date raped**; never been a victim of domestic violence.

But I can't throw a rock and not hit a woman I know who hasn't had one or more of these things happen to them. I'll bet you and everyone else on this board could say the same.

A 19 year old friend of my daughter was murdered by her boyfriend, shot in the head. A coworker's cousin was the victim of a serial killer. I'll bet at least some of you could relate similar close-at-hand stories of murder and mayhem perpetrated by men against women.

*There were several instances in my childhood which could be described as coming close to molestation but I won't go into it. Oh, just as a for instance there was that one time my teenaged cousin coerced me into showing him my 6 year old 'butt' by 'encouraging' me to smoke a cigarette and then threatening to tell if I did not show him it.

**Almost. 16 years old, had to run down the street screaming to get away from him.

[sunny]

Perhaps the following doesn't belong in this thread but in light of Shirley Temple's death and the nature of this discussion maybe it isn't too out of place.

The pajiba piece where I found it was entitled "The Disturbingly Suggestive Review Graham Greene Wrote of a Shirley Temple Movie That Nearly Led to His Imprisonment". The intro to Green's review of Wee Willie Winkie, [directed by John Ford!] written for the magazine Night and Day, is no less obtuse. The author clearly missed Greene's point as much as Temple, her minders and the authorities all did in 1937. Green apparently had to flee to Mexico to avoid being arrested for stating what appears obvious to us in the present day:

The owners of a child star are like leaseholders — their property diminishes in value every year. Time’s chariot is at their backs: before them acres of anonymity. What is Jackie Coogan now but a matrimonial squabble? Miss Shirley Temple’s case, though, has peculiar interest: infancy with her is a disguise, her appeal is more secret and more adult. Already two years ago she was a fancy little piece — real childhood, I think, went out after The Littlest Rebel). In Captain January she wore trousers with the mature suggestiveness of a Dietrich: her neat and well-developed rump twisted in the tap-dance: her eyes had a sidelong searching coquetry. Now in Wee Willie Winkie, wearing short kilts, she is a complete totsy. Watch her swaggering stride across the Indian barrack-square: hear the gasp of excited expectation from her antique audience when the sergeant’s palm is raised: watch the way she measures a man with agile studio eyes, with dimpled depravity. Adult emotions of love and grief glissade across the mask of childhood, a childhood skin-deep.

It is clever but it cannot last — middle aged men and clergymen — respond to her dubious coquetry, to the sight of her well-shaped and desirable little body, packed with enormous vitality, only because the safety curtain of story and dialogue drops between their intelligence and their desire. “Why are you making my Mummy cry?” - what could be purer than that? And the scene when dressed in a white nightdress she begs grandpa to take Mummy to a dance - what could be more virginal? On those lines in her new picture, made by John Ford, who directed The Informer, is horrifyingly competent. It isn’t hard to stay to the last prattle and the last sob. The story — about an Afghan robber converted by Wee Willie Winkie to the British Raj — is a long way after Kipling. But we needn’t be sour about that. Both stories are awful, but on the whole Hollywood’s is the better.”

http://www.pajiba.com/celebrities_are_b ... onment.php

[Nordic]

honestly Brekin, i dont know

Dylan says Woody Allen did it, he had the opportunity, so its possible

Moses says Mia brainwashed them, Mia clearly hated Woody Allen and had the motive to say any number of terrible things about him over an extended period and affect Dylan's memories and perception

At no point have i defended Woody Allen, especially not for the absurd reason that i might like a few of his films

Because i dont know and the whole series of events and outcomes seem complex and fucked up i dont wish to make an assertion either way

i am saddened by people who say, "he probably did it", or "she is making it up"

i think it ought to be able to be investigated again but apparently there is a time reason why this cannot occur which seems wrong to me

i am also mindful of two critical incidents i have been a personal witness to over the last 15 years.

Firstly, a 19 year old girl who i shared a house with got together with a 45 year old man who was our landlord. He was married with two young children and it destroyed his marriage.
His wife accused him of molesting his 7 year old daughter, argued that he shouldn't be able to see his children and he was investigated. The children were interviewed by a psychologist and gave confused and contradictory accounts.
all the people i knew formed opinions about it. many he said they thought he was guilty because he had got together with a girl so much younger than him, "they just had a feeling".
then, out of nowhere, his wife retracted the charges. she admitted that she had made them up because she hated him and wanted to hurt him and ruin him forever. i thought she would get charged with some crime but there is none.
she applied to take the children with her to a foreign country and succeeded. he hardly ever sees his children who he loves and only ever cared for and protected.

Secondly, my own ex-wife did everything she could to brainwash my son against me and against my current wife because she never accepted our separation and wanted to destroy my subsequent relationship. Fortunately i had shared care of my son and saw him on a weekly basis and was able to help him to understand and deal with the difficulties of the relationship. I also took him to a psychologist when he was about 8 to talk to about what had been said over the years and the psychologist got in contact with my ex-wife and spoke to her and the manipulation and brainwashing ceased.

had i not had shared care and been able to look after my son and have him know me for who i am, his mother, my ex-wife, could have made him believe whatever she wanted about me and there is nothing i could have done about it,
and it happens all the time

Yes but in the case of the landlord, did the 7 year old vehemently confirm the charge 21 years later at the age of 28?

That is what makes this case completely different than the type of thing you're talking about!

Because yes, what you describe "happens all the time" but this case is not that.

If it was, I would totally be on the fence about Allen's guilt!

[Fresno_Layshaft]

Nordic you are missing the point.

The mother recanted, that's the important part of Smiths anecdote. The question it raises is, 'what happens if she never recanted?'. Do the children grow up thinking thinking their father abused them?

[brekin]

Smiths wrote:

honestly Brekin, i dont know
Dylan says Woody Allen did it, he had the opportunity, so its possible
Moses says Mia brainwashed them, Mia clearly hated Woody Allen and had the motive to say any number of terrible things about him over an extended period and affect Dylan's memories and perception

At no point have i defended Woody Allen, especially not for the absurd reason that i might like a few of his films
Because i dont know and the whole series of events and outcomes seem complex and fucked up i dont wish to make an assertion either way
i am saddened by people who say, "he probably did it", or "she is making it up"
i think it ought to be able to be investigated again but apparently there is a time reason why this cannot occur which seems wrong to me
i am also mindful of two critical incidents i have been a personal witness to over the last 15 years.

Firstly, a 19 year old girl who i shared a house with got together with a 45 year old man who was our landlord. He was married with two young children and it destroyed his marriage.
His wife accused him of molesting his 7 year old daughter, argued that he shouldn't be able to see his children and he was investigated. The children were interviewed by a psychologist and gave confused and contradictory accounts.
all the people i knew formed opinions about it. many he said they thought he was guilty because he had got together with a girl so much younger than him, "they just had a feeling".
then, out of nowhere, his wife retracted the charges. she admitted that she had made them up because she hated him and wanted to hurt him and ruin him forever. i thought she would get charged with some crime but there is none.
she applied to take the children with her to a foreign country and succeeded. he hardly ever sees his children who he loves and only ever cared for and protected.

Secondly, my own ex-wife did everything she could to brainwash my son against me and against my current wife because she never accepted our separation and wanted to destroy my subsequent relationship. Fortunately i had shared care of my son and saw him on a weekly basis and was able to help him to understand and deal with the difficulties of the relationship. I also took him to a psychologist when he was about 8 to talk to about what had been said over the years and the psychologist got in contact with my ex-wife and spoke to her and the manipulation and brainwashing ceased.

had i not had shared care and been able to look after my son and have him know me for who i am, his mother, my ex-wife, could have made him believe whatever she wanted about me and there is nothing i could have done about it,
and it happens all the time

Thanks for sharing your background on issues related to this and sorry to hear about your own travail. I agree we can't wantonly convict Allen in the court of public opinion just because he is a man and his accuser is a young woman, but I don't think we can stay in a holding pattern indefinitely because the situation is complicated and Mia Farrow may have her own vindictive agenda. People do ugly things in custody battles (and after) and use their children as pawns which we all I believe can agree is fucked up. And there is never going to be a parade or commercial for good, long suffering fathers who have been victimized by vindictive ex-wives who are just out to do as much damage as they can. I know such woman exist and there probably is a bias in our culture not to recognize it as much. But just as we can't let our "feelings" alone determine that Allen is a obvious perp because of our own life experiences and jump over logic and the facts I think we also can't just assume Allen is in the clutches of Mia's dastardly plan based on "feelings" influenced by our own possibly different life experiences. (Not saying you are doing so.) The shit is messy and complicated. But I don't think anyone on the board, though, hasn't considered the fact that Mia could be out to destroy Allen for her own selfish reasons. (Her backing of Polanski is especially troubling.) But, for me, looking at the gestalt of everything we know about Allen in light of this controversy - he is the one coming out the worse for the wear. And really, if one thing has been conclusive is that Allen was a really, really shitty father. The only two children of Farrow's (and his) that he paid any attention to were Dylan and Soon-Yi. And there is nothing but controversy regarding his relationships with them, and even a non-partisan would say that is all his own doing.

Allen from the beginning has been a far, far cry from just being a helpless pawn. I mean for him to be in treatment for having an inappropriate relationship with Dylan when he didn't even live with his kids is troubling on so many levels. To him to have sexual relations with Soon-Yi shows he has no moral compass and a disregard for family dynamics in general. There is more out there that I tend to believe that would make things more conclusive. Other potential victims of Allen, or a collaborator of Farrow's who helped cook up "the plan", may come forward at some point. But I'm not going to hold my breathe and we have to make judgements all the time in life based on what we know. Knowing what we know as of now i don't think anyone would be ok with having Woody Allen around their child alone. I would guess even those who are holding out hopes of hope that Allen is blameless, when it came right down to it, wouldn't send their kid over to Uncle Woody's whose motto is "the heart has its reasons". Sometimes complicated situations are actually pretty simple overall really.

[Project Willow]

Because yes, what you describe "happens all the time" but this case is not that.

It doesn't actually happen "all of the time". According to studies, the rates are between 2 and 6% specifically for false charges of sex abuse during custody disputes.

The other issue here is that there isn't evidence that Mia concocted the story or coached her daughter. If you read the custody decision, and various news and media accounts, it's clear that Allen's claims about Mia do not hold up under scrutiny. Mia went to great lengths to maintain a connection between Allen and the children in spite of her fears and outrage. Here is what the judge said:

There is no credible evidence to support Mr. Allen's contention that Ms. Farrow coached Dylan or that Ms. Farrow acted upon a desire for revenge against him for seducing Soon-Yi. Mr. Allen's resort to the stereotypical "woman scorned" defense is an injudicious attempt to divert attention from his failure to act as a responsible parent and adult.

Ms. Farrow's statement to Dr. Coates that she hoped Dylan's statements were a fantasy is inconsistent with the notion of brainwashing. In this regard, I also credit the testimony of Ms. Groteke, who was charged with supervising Mr. Allen's August 4 visit with Dylan. She testified that she did not tell Ms. Farrow, until after Dylan's statement of August 5, that Dylan and Mr. Allen were unaccounted for during 15 or 20 minutes on August 4. It is highly unlikely that Ms. Farrow would have encouraged Dylan to accuse her father of having sexually molested her during a period in which Ms. Farrow believed they were in the presence of a babysitter. Moreover, I do not believe that Ms. Farrow would have exposed her daughter and her other children to the consequences of the Connecticut investigation and this litigation is she did not believe the possible truth of Dylan's accusation.

[Spiro C. Thiery]

There is no credible evidence to support Mr. Allen's contention that Ms. Farrow coached Dylan or that Ms. Farrow acted upon a desire for revenge against him for seducing Soon-Yi. Mr. Allen's resort to the stereotypical "woman scorned" defense is an injudicious attempt to divert attention from his failure to act as a responsible parent and adult.

Not acting as a responsible parent or adult is hardly all he was being accused of.

Ms. Farrow's statement to Dr. Coates that she hoped Dylan's statements were a fantasy is inconsistent with the notion of brainwashing.

So, if she were concocting the story, she'd have told Dr. Coates that she hopes he is guilty?

It is highly unlikely that Ms. Farrow would have encouraged Dylan to accuse her father of having sexually molested her during a period in which Ms. Farrow believed they were in the presence of a babysitter.

So she wouldn't want anyone else to be able to corroborate the story?

Moreover, I do not believe that Ms. Farrow would have exposed her daughter and her other children to the consequences of the Connecticut investigation and this litigation is she did not believe the possible truth of Dylan's accusation.

Well, that's really the crux of it, isn't it? The bottom line is, if the State's Attorney believed they had a case, they failed to prosecute and, therefore, failed justice. "Sparing the victim" versus prosecuting a child molester? They failed miserably.

[BrandonD]

Yes but in the case of the landlord, did the 7 year old vehemently confirm the charge 21 years later at the age of 28?

That is what makes this case completely different than the type of thing you're talking about!

Because yes, what you describe "happens all the time" but this case is not that.

If it was, I would totally be on the fence about Allen's guilt!

As a related example, the child who accused Michael Jackson of sexual assault later came forward as an adult and admitted that it was all a lie, he had been coerced to lie by his father.

[seemslikeadream]

10 Key Steps for Writing About the Woody Allen Scandal That Will Wow the Glitterati and Your Pretentious Editor
A public journalism service announcement.

February 11, 2014 |


For would-be commentators struggling to keep up with the most explosive celebrity scandal in 2014, here are a few helpful hints.

1. Insist that you don't want to write about the scandal and agonize over the flood of useless and irresponsible commentary. Then write about it, preferably at great length.

2. Claim that you are not the sort of person who does armchair psychologizing and legalizing, then do it anyway. Bonus: mention the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders with great confidence.

3. Know your characters! Choose from a variety of cultural stereotypes: Allen the Creepy Lech, Mia the Unhinged, Dylan the Deluded, Ronan the Opportunist. Alternatively: Allen the Misunderstood Genius, Mia the Mother Bountiful, Dylan the Very Scarred Person, Ronan the Prodigy. Bonus: Draw on fictional examples of same ( Lolita will show your literary chops).

3. Assert an upstanding moral attitude through use of words like "behoove" (It might behoove Mr. Allen…) and “decency” (if Mia had any...), etc.

4. Pretend objectivity with phrases like, “Of course, we really don’t know the facts in this story” and, “We’ll likely never know what happened.” Then deliver foregone conclusions in exhaustive detail.

5. Pretend insight into the minds of people you have never met. Compare them to your relatives. Remember: celebrities are just like us!

6. Do not, under any circumstances, suggest that social and legal attitudes shift over time. Cultural relativism is strictly verboten.

7. Establish credibility by citing your friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend who worked/socialized/went to band camp with the parties in question. Make something up if necessary; no one will know.

8. Liberally sprinkle your article with generalizations: “All predators groom their victims,” “Women in acrimonious divorces always use children as leverage," “victims of child abuse unfailingly exhibit x/y/z behaviors.” And so on.

9. Hint that anyone who disagrees with your position is a moral leper. Or just say it outright.

10. Repeat the previous steps several times.

Finis! Your article is now ready for publication in everything from the tackiest tabloid website to the pages of the most august newspaper.

P.S. Don’t forget to tweet prolifically.