Comments

2
Look at the date of the defense written by the friend -- it was written before the long letter, in response to the Golden Globe tweets.

I'd be careful to make that clear in this report.
3
I kinda find this hard to follow. Is it not likewise a basic premise that Allen should be extended the presumption of having told the truth as well?

Given that, we do indeed find ourselves in some odd position of saying that one side is not telling the truth. But isn't this the case for every single disputation of fact ever?
4
This is really the ne plus ultra of ridiculous Ansel Herz posts.
5
Time for Miss Henderson to reread 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and learn about the rights of the accused.
6
If Mia Farrow wasn't involved, I'd believe Dylan.
7
I read plenty of Woody Allen defenders questioning the credibility of Dylan Farrow yesterday right here on Slog.
8
Wait, doesn't presuming that the accuser is telling the truth require presuming that the accused is lying? I'm not making a comment on Woody Allen's guilt or innocence but that line of reasoning makes no sense.
10
@4

This story is supremely important. The verdict will change yours, mine, everyone's life!
11
Woody Allen is weird looking, talks funny and a little creepy/sleazy. Ergo, he's guilty. Despite the fact that case had no legs, his guilt is obvious because I don't like the way he looks. My take is I don't know what happened. You can believe what Dylan wrote or not. You can say the case against against him was weak, or not. But for most people who claim to know what happened it's all about how they judge the characters of the people involved. Can we simply say "we don't know", or is that too much to ask? Can we enjoy Woody Allen and Mia Farrow films/works without steeping them in moral condemnation when no one (but Dylan and Wood Allen) knows what actually happened? Believe who you want. No one was charged, no one was convicted.
12
I suppose you could treat it as a kind of Scroedinger's Rape Accusation, in which the accused and the accuser are both in a box and, until you open the box and discover which one is guilty, they are both innocent at the same time.
13
"A story engineered by a vengeful lover," eh? So he's admitting to having slept with Dylan. That's a start...
14
No opinion on Woody Allen's guilt or lack thereof but this quote is a real good example of how whenever anyone starts bandying about the term 'rape culture' they immediately start to sound like a crank.
15
At the time there was an official investigation and the simple reality is that Woody Allen was not then charged with a crime. I cannot claim to know anything about anything, but as a disinterested bystander I think I have to let that be the final word. Soon-Yi also appears well able to make her own life decisions.

Of course everyone is free to make decisions about whether to despise Allen and whether to watch his films or not. But, I don't think continuing to enjoy his work is in any way playing into "rape culture".
16
Without presumption of innocence you don't have a legal system, you have witch hunts.
17
@13, the "vengeful lover" he's referring to is Mia Farrow, not Dylan.
18
"This is a basic principle: until it is proven otherwise, beyond a reasonable doubt, it’s important to extend the presumption of innocence to Dylan Farrow, and presume that she is not guilty of the crime of lying about what Woody Allen did to her."

What a twisted little bit of sentence engineering.

No one is saying Dylan Farrow was not innocent. She was a child so, of course, she was innocent.

It's the adults we question. Mia and Woody.
It seems odd that Mia Farrow - who has brought a lot of children into her life (both by birth and adoption) - and then was in a long-time relationship with Woody Allen and yet in his entire life, just one child said he touched her? If he's a pedophile, it just doesn't seem plausible. He worked with child actors as well.

And, as the article points out, he did this when he went to Farrow's house (they lived apart the entire time they were together) to iron out separation differences and, in a house full of children and a couple of nannies, that's when he decides to molest Farrow's daughter? Again, not so plausible.

And Mia seems willing to hurt anyone. Her latest statement that her son, Ronan, is probably Frank Sinatra's son probably isn't good news to Sinatra's widow, Barbara, who is still alive (and was married to Frank at the time).

Is Allen guilty of bad behavior with Mia and Andre Previn's daughter who he took up with when she was about 20? Sure. But Mia herself married Frank when she was 21 and Frank was 50 AND broke up Andre Previn's marriage. Marrying her daughter doesn't make Allen a child molester.

Allen and his wife, Soon-Yi, (interesting that he married her and not Mia), have been married since 1997 and have their own children.

I think there is much more to this story (and go read the Vanity Fair story on Mia - that's some reading) before you feel certain about anything.
19
Been tricky to sort my thoughts on this whole meshuggah situation: I'm trying to separate out what actual facts are, from my OMG circle the wagons around that poor woman, emotional reaction.

Someting to think about: The state's attorney investigating Allen on these charges way back when, Frank S. Maco, said that he found probable cause to prosecute Mr. Allen, but that Dylan would've been too traumatized by the process of trial.

Mr. Allen's camp/lawyers sought disciplinary charges against Mr. Maco for the comment (which, if he's innocent, would've been the logical thing to do). Those disciplinary charges were dropped. Which means that Mr. Maco would've had to present his case or evidence to the state board, his "probable cause", & they would've had to decide that there was something solid enough there to justify his remark.

I've seen people use children against each other in custody cases. It's very ugly & I'm not saying Ms. Farrow was an angel of a parent.

But I'm more inclined to believe Dylan Farrow than not. I can believe her, & be annoyed at the way her family seems to be using her trauma - all of this is timed to promote her brother's new TV show - at the same time.
20
Ansel Herz and Dan Savage and to a lesser degree Constant , Goldstein and the other Stranger 'writers' are the reason why the Stranger doesn't practice journalism. Writing by omission, mis-statement and outright lie isn't bias or advocacy journalism it's merely laughable.

And this little exercise in idiocy is a textbook example. I don't know if Allen raped this then child. But I say that while an idiot like Herz goes off on some strange twist of the presumption of innocence in which the accuser is presumed accurate and the accused guilty.

Having a bias is inevitable, as is writing from that bias. But what journalists do is write in sufficient, and sufficiently accurate, detail that even those who don't share their bias still get a sense of what happened in a given story.
21
Crazy that Mia is a friend of Roman Polanski, who was convicted of raping a minor, right? I just wish I could crawl inside her head and figure out what the heck is rattling around in there.
22
@11 -- Allen is "a little creepy/sleazy"?

He married his children's sister.

He's also known to have dated a 17 year-old high school student while in his 40s.

You admit that he's "a little creepy/sleazy" AFTER saying that's he's weird looking and talks funny. Do you honestly think his appearance and way of speaking are bigger factors than these in people's perception of him as a potential predator?
23
@21,
Agree. I would find it very difficult to remain friends with a convicted rapist who raped a minor. And, it's presumed that she, Farrow would believe her daughter not Allen. So, you pose a very good question.
24
you're looking a full set of creepy, sometimes crazy, celebrities here - on both sides. you don't really want to make any of them your poster children for any social issue. it'll only make a muddle of anyone's good efforts (that is, wrong battle-ground here)
25
What @21 said.
26
@18

"Allen and his wife, Soon-Yi, (interesting that he married her and not Mia), have been married since 1997 and have their own children."

The fact that he was able to adopt MORE children after being legally banned from seeing the children he already had -- AND after running off with his children's sister -- is one of the most fucked up aspects of this story. Nobody with that track record who wasn't also extremely wealthy and powerful would have been able to pull that off. Very sad.
27
@21 BOOM
28
Jezebel brings up more points and confuses me even more than I already was:

http://jezebel.com/what-we-should-talk-a…
29
I don't know what happened. There are some very unpleasant things attributed to Allen (his relationship with Soon-Yi is not one of them, however). But there are some very unpleasant things attributed to Farrow, who in her own right is a bit of bad news. One of those things is a history of repeatedly coaching her kids to tell the stories her way. I think it's possible that Dylan thinks she's telling the truth but isn't. It's also possible that he had sex with her. I dunno. Seems like something a court should settle, not a reporter.
30
@20 - I believe you are confusing an opinion piece with journalism. Not the same thing.

I can say without reservation that the evidence presented to the public in this case is insufficient to believe that Mr. Allen committed a crime. At the same time I can also say without a personal doubt or a feeling of contradiction that Dylan believes she is telling the truth, thus granting both parties the presumption of innocence.

But then again this is just my opinion and I don't claim to be a journalist.
31
Fuck you people. This thread makes me depressed that I read all your comments every day. Rape culture is a thing. If you don't believe that, you're a part of it. Seriously, fuck you people.
32
@31, I take it that logically speaking, if rape culture is a thing, then Woody Allen must be guilty? Seriously, fuck us people.
33
Hooray! The internet is having a trial!

What could possibly go wrong?
34
@32 no. it's that he very well might be. And defense of him at his step daughter's expense perpetuates our victim blaming culture.
35
@34 I don't see how we can make you happy. As the original post pointed out, to say that Woody Allen may be innocent is to suggest that his alleged victim is lying. So . . . shall we stop saying that he may be innocent?
36
23: I've encountered a lot of people over the years who have a visceral reaction to Woody Allen's mannerisms and looks, and say shit like "I always knew he was weird, you could just tell." Marrying a nineteen-year-old adopted child of your ex-wife is sleazy, but it isn't quite child molester sleazy. People have an idea in their mind about what sexual predators look like, and this makes it very easy for them to imagine Woody Allen molesting Dylan. If he looked like Harrison Ford or Robert Redford at the time, you wouldn't have had as much presumption of guilt, I guarantee you. That doesn't mean he's innocent of course, but it is a factor.
37
@35 My point is that it isn't ok to automatically dismiss accusations of rape because you don't want to believe it. It's a thing that happens. Just because someone makes movies you like doesn't mean he isn't capable of something humans have done forever. To dismiss Dylan's accusation automatically is the type of bullshit that make victims afraid to call out their attackers.
38
@34 we are not defending him at Dylan's expense - where do you get that? Almost everyone here (as far as I can tell) believes that Dylan is sincere in her account of what happened, but that doesn't mean Allen molested her because of the extensive extenuating circumstances surrounding this horrible case. Yes rape culture exists - I know that for a fact, whereas, based on what I have read, I have sincere doubts that Allen committed a crime. I can hold both thoughts in my head simutaneously.
39
#34: It is possible that she's lying or mis-remembers. If you want to call chance or probability rape culture, so be it.,
40
@38 Yes. You are. You are literally defending him.
41
#40: Yeah, fuck the rule of law.
42
Fnarf -- You're right, the fact that Woody married Soon-Yi shouldn't be considered "unpleasant". That would be understating it. She's his children's sister. They were part of the same family, which makes it more incestuous or fucked up than unpleasant.

43
@41 That's part of the problem. He was never tried for it. Your comment is uninformed bullshit. There has been no attempt at "rule of law".
44
@40 but NOT at Dylan's expense....that was the part of your accusation that I was responding to
45
43: Now you're just being wildly subjective.
46
@44 I disagree. I'm not trying to be dick and calling bullshit on you (like I am on the other dude commenting), but I do think that it is at her expense. You're saying you don't believe her. Because of her mother's actions 20 years ago. Why exactly do you think she is telling this now?
48
He was never tried for it because there was never enough consistent evidence to charge him.
49
@45 Your name is Jizzlobber. Fuck off.
50
49: Attacking my admittedly tasteless moniker (named for a song, not an act), isn't really an argument, but hey, no problem.
51
Is there often much "evidence" produced when a man touches a little girl's vagina?
52
@46 -- I do believe Dylan, as I stated. I just think it is muc more likely that the person who victimized her was Mia rather than Woody. I don't even think Mia did it intentionally, but at the time she was filled with hatred for Allen and it is pretty clear she coached Dylan until, at best, Dylan became confused about what happened. At worst, she created false memories.
53
@52 Gross.
54
Ansel, thank you for posting this sentence:

But “he said, she said” doesn’t resolve to “let’s start by assume she’s lying,” except in a rape culture, and if you are presuming his innocence by presuming her mendacity, you are rape cultured.
55
55: How about c) not assuming anything?
56
@47: Do you really think repeating "Really?" over and over is in any way intelligent or clever? It's not.

57
@55 OK. Then don't assume she wasn't molested. Simple. Glad we're on the same page.
58
Or allow me to clarify. I think her letter is likely true, at least in part, and I can imagine the crime having happened. All things considered, my inclination is to take her side. But I can't say "I know" one way or another. I feel bad for her, and I hope she finds some measure of comfort of justice, but it's the difference between believing something and knowing it. The rape culture concept, employed in this context, oversimplifies the situation by assuming knowledge where none exists. If you want my opinion, he probably did something. I think her letter rings true. But I'm not going to claim, like some high priest who can look into a person's soul, that I know.
59
@47 - The science on manipulation of memory is pretty through. Look back on the "recovered memory" lawsuits of the 80s or the Satanic Cult abuse scares. There were children and adults who ended up believing falsely concocted memories about things that could not possibly have occurred. Young children are especially susceptible to this.

Check out the wikipedia article and read some of the journal articles found in the reference section - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_impl…
60
#57: Yeah, I agree with you on that 100 percent.
61
@59 There's no denying that that does exist, but it shouldn't be assumed. The fact that it is assumed if one of the reasons victim stay silent.
63
@57.....that is what "more likely" means - that I acknowledge there is a possibility that it happened. My question now I guess is that since we know that Allen will never be tried in a court of law for this and I don't think we'll ever know for certain what really happened - are we just going to keep taking sides in what is becoming a very public family fight, and to what end?

I guess maybe Dylan felt she had to go public as part of her recovery, but what therapist would have recommended this? Does her action seem like an act of revenge rather than an act of healing? Not accusing, blaming, or judging her, but somebody did ask a question earlier about why she is doing this now, and I honestly don't know.
64
@ 61 - It should not be assumed, of course. But experts who worked with Dylan at the time believed that it was true that she had been coached.
65
@62 Fair enough. My bad. Is my grammar deficiency really the issue here?
66
@61 - It should not be assumed -- I completely agree.

In this case, we can go a little further than assumption based on the video that Mia Farrow provided the police. I admit, I haven't seen this video, and I am only going off of the descriptions that I have heard of the video. I have heard there are some problematic features of the video, such as cutouts and editing, but for the moment I'm going to disregard all of that and take Mia Farrow at her word that she didn't, in any way, coach or prompt her daughter outside of the video.

The descriptions in the video of what Mia asked Dylan are what we now know to be textbook cases of what you DO NOT ask a child. At the time of the trial, none of the research on memory implantation had been published (to my knowledge, there was nothing on this before the mid-nineties) so there was no way that the judges, the prosecutors, the psychologists who interviewed Dylan, the divorce attorney, or Mia herself could have known the possible result of her questions.

Given this to be the case and that we have factual evidence of Dylan being interviewed in the way that we know can lead to memory implantation, I don't think it exists as part of rape culture to say that this is a case in which memory implantation MAY have occurred. It's also not unreasonable to say that it is possible Dylan is not lying and is also not factually correct about the events that occurred.

67
@51 The hymen could be damaged, the vaginal walls could be scratched/injured, there could be bruising to the perineum or other areas. All depends on how rough the touching was, how deep the digital penetration was, etc. The story is that Mia took Dylan to a pediatrician right away, but I haven't seen anything from this visit on the record. A doctor who saw her 4 days later said the hymen was intact and there wasn't other evidence -- but my vagina heals quite rapidly after rough sex so I don't know how much evidence would remain 4 days later.
68
"Rape culture" is a politically slanted and biased term being injected into our judicial system by radicals. Just as the young men from the Duke lacrosse team whose lives were ruined.
69
Mmm thanks for the weekly dose of rape culture.
70
@51: Of course there's evidence. Don't be a moron. (There are all kinds of evidence that are not physical, DNA, photographic, etc.)

@ Capelletti: Don't be an asshole. Bady characterizes any uncertainty as to Dylan's claims as an accusation of the "crime of lying." There is no such crime. NO ONE--NOT A SINGLE PERSON--is accusing her of a crime. That's why Bady's comment is inflammatory bullshit. There is a crime of perjury (that would be lying under oath). It is possible, though difficult, to collect damages for libel or slander. But neither libel nor slander is a crime. In between, there's a whole lot of "We have no idea what the truth is." And refusing to immediate presuming that an accuser's words are the gospel truth does not constitute rape culture--even if there are many, many other aspects of our culture that do constitute rape culture--just as immediately presuming that a accuser's words are the gospel truth is not evidence of the absence of rape culture. Lighten the fuck up. This is Seattle, not Riyadh.
71
@65 No charges were brought against him from the investigators who looked into the alleged incident at the time. That is really all we have to go on.

I don't think pursuing this as a test case is a great idea, but feel free to shoot yourself in the foot.
73
Assuming the guilt of any man accused of rape based on one person's account, without a hearing full of evidence, is just as gross as assuming that anybody accusing another person of rape is automatically to be believed because it would be rude or "rape culture-y" to question them.
74

Slightly changed excerpt from the Daily Beast article:

"Why does Dylan say it happened? Because she obviously believes it did, so good for her for speaking out about it in Vanity Fair. Her brother Ronan believes it happened, so good for him for sticking up for his sister in 140 characters or less. They’ve both grown up in a household where this scenario has been accepted as indisputable fact, so why shouldn’t they believe it?"

Basically, Dylan MAY have been coaxed into this story by her mother when she was 7 years old, then held onto it as fact ever since. You can extend the presumption of innocence to BOTH Dylan and Woody by assuming that Dylan really believes what she is saying is true, even though it may not in fact BE true. Simple.
75
Am I the only person who read this?

But really, folks, what's your favorite Woody Allen movie?
76
Before judging, I recommend everyone see the Oscar nominated film "The Hunt" (2013) which recounts the real life Kafkaesque story of a school teacher who went from well loved to town pariah because of something a preschooler imagined seeing. It's brutal, and infuriating!

Preview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieLIOBkMg…

On Netflix (streaming and DVD):

http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/The-Hunt/70…

Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Hunt-Mads-Mikkelse…

78
i'm curious how many of you are in your 20s and are new to these allegations.

it was played out in real time for everyone in the 90s. it was lurid, and mia farrow didn't come out of it (or go into it) smelling like a rose. look at the behavior she modeled. go look at ronin farrow's face again. and don't make the assumption that soon-yi previn was a passive victim of allen's perversion.

that said, i have no doubt that dylan farrow believes her story intensely.
79
@72: Really?
80
Mia Farrow is still friend with Roman Polanski (who was actually convicted of a crime), so her credibility is fair game.
81
@80 -- You know who else publicly supports Roman Polanski?

Woody Allen.

It might be the only thing Woody and Mia still agree on.
82
@81 Yep, they're both assholes. And if Allen was making the same accusations as Farrow, I wouldn't believe him either.
83
What makes sense to me is to not presume anything and make up one's mind based on the known facts, whether the accused is Allen or Amanda Knox. In this way, I found the Daily Beast article more convincing since it was actually about facts concerning the case.
84
"Assuming the guilt of any man accused of rape based on one person's account"

That's all a white woman had to do to a black man in the old days. Funny it's now the left that wants to bring back those horrid standards of proof.
85
I still have yet to hear a reason she would out with this 20 years later. I know it happened in the early 90's, but that was when she was a child.

I honestly don't understand why you people seem to think that this is a thing that doesn't happen. Did you really grow up in a place that child molestation and rape is not thing that happens?
86
@83 -- The Daily Beast article did state many facts, but also presented certain assumptions of the author as facts. The idea that Woody Allen's relationship with Soon Yi only began when she was 19 was stated as a fact in the article, for instance. The relationship was certainly only discovered when she was 19, but I don't know how Robert B, Weide can know for a fact that it only began then. He also cited Allen's claustrophobia as proof that he would never take Dylan into a confined space to molest her, which seemed like quite a stretch to me.
87
@85, the timing is the most suspicious part of this whole thing. Why would she wait 20 years and come out with this now? I'm sure it has absolutely nothing to do with the Oscar buzz over Allen's newest movie. Or does it? Hmm.
88
@87 or Ronan Farrow's upcoming teevee show.

89
@87 yeah, because Woody Allen's movies have never had press before 2014. That was a dumb statement.
90
Regardless of what you think, this is America. We don't try people on the Internet, we try them in a court of law, where people really are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Since there has been no conviction, and never will be, Woody Allen is an innocent man. Yes, so is George Zimmerman. Bitch and moan about it all you want, but that doesn't change anything.
91
Marrying his longtime lover's adopted daughter makes Woody Allen creepy at best, regardless of the success of the marriage to his "step-daughter."

Mary Kay Letourneau's marriage to Vili Fualaau and the two children that have resulted from their union doesn't mean that her having sex with him when he was a young boy and her student wasn't illegal and just plain wrong.

As to Woody Allen's guilt, if Mia and her daughter are honestly representing what happened to Dylan, she should avail herself of every legal option to seek justice and compensation.

First Degree Child Sexual Assault is a Class A Felony in both Connecticut and New York; neither state has a statute of limitations for this crime. So, if Woody Allen is guilty, Dylan can press charges at any time she so desires.

Unfortunately, in the State of New York, "rape" is defined as "vaginal penetration" only. Anal or oral rape is not legally rape under New York's statutes. Rape committed by a woman is also not classified under the statutes defining rape, unless she penetrates her victim.

Advocacy groups have been working for some time to get the "Rape is Rape" bill passed in New York that would correct and expand the existing laws to include anal and oral rape and that, hopefully, would include language that would make it possible to prosecute women who commit rape for the actual crime of rape.

If it is this hard to get New York to do the right thing, just imagine the seemingly impossible process of change for rape victims in other parts of the nation.

Just consider how "conservatives" support big government, expanded centralization of power and unconstitutional force against women already.

When Republicans say that they want to protect women by passing more and more laws that empower big government to intrude a woman's body, her rights and her choices, consider this fact - none of these assholes have introduced, sponsored or passed legislation to reduce violence against women or legislation to hold the body, the rights and the choices of the men involved in these pregnancies to the same level of big government force and intrusion.

If the government can compel or conscript a woman's body against her will to bear a child for the state, why can't the government compel and conscript the body of the man responsible for the pregnancy to work for the state to pay for the pregnancy and the child. Hell, if you can force a woman to have a baby for the state, you can force the responsible man to get a vasectomy...even against his will. Right?

Why should the force that so-called "conservatives" advocate for big government to use against women not be wielded in equal measure against the other party to the pregnancy?
92
@90

People who confuse the law with right and wrong are either idiots or sociopaths.

The law is not about right and wrong; the law is about who will and will not have power.

The courts are not a system of justice; they are a system of judgments.

Eschew obfuscation, or be revealed as a fool.
93
Cappalletti, you and others fighting rape culture in this fashion are overcompensating for the fact that most rape victims are doubted. How? By immediately accepting any claim that a rape DID occur.

Fighting rape culture properly requires accepting that things are not black and white. By demanding that we must accept ALL rape charges as truth - the message you, Ansel, and others are sending, if not stating outright - is exactly as bad as as dismissing all rape charges as false. BOTH APPROACHES ensure that innocent people will be hurt, because being shitty knows no gender. Women historically suffer more, but making men suffer in return won't make things right.

When it comes to any charge of rape, especially one that can no longer be supported by corroborating evidence, it is fair to take a hard look at the claimant and question whether there are any ulterior motives, because a man's reputation - and a livelihood dependent upon it - are at stake. It's why we presume his innocence. (BTW, I do think you seem confused about the distinction between "presume" and "assume.") It's also why we look to see if there's a history of rape allegations or other circumstantial evidence in support of it, such as, Has anyone accused Allen of this before? Molesters aren't known for successfully resisting recidivism, after all.

None of this means that Farrow, her mother, or brother are lying. But unless this enters the legal system, we'll likely never know.

If you're someone for whom everything is black and white, then I'm sorry, because accepting ambiguous situations as such is probably unacceptable, perhaps even incomprehensible to you. But things are not black and white. Unless someone invent both a way to travel back in time AND a way to observe the past without disturbing it, we won't know.
94
I think it's possible that Mia Farrow created this story and coached her young daughter into telling it as a way of exacting revenge against Woody Allen for running off with Soon Yi. I also think Woody Allen has exhibited a pattern of behavior that could be viewed as predatory, and I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that he could be capable of molesting someone.
95
@ 94, "Woody Allen has exhibited a pattern of behavior that could be viewed as predatory..."

I'd be interested in knowing more about this pattern of behavior.
96
@95 -- Like how he dated an underage high school student when he was in his 40s. Or the fact that he married a girl he met when she was 8 or 9 years old, who was the daughter of his girlfriend and the sister of his children. That type of thing.
97
@ 96, dating a 17 year old isn't predatory in and of itself. Nor is marrying someone who was a child when you met them.

Sorry, I thought you might have been citing something like .. I don't know, maybe the kind of stuff Michael Jackson did. Always hanging out with children, never having a solid long term relationship with anyone, that kind of thing.
98
There are a lot of people defending Woody Allen in the same ways they defended Michael Jackson, now that you mention it.

But he was a GREAT GUY!! Just GREAT with kids!!

And yeah, a man in his 40s dating underage girls is predatory. And I think marrying your children's sister, who you've known since she was a young child, seems predatory. I guess that's just me.
99
@11 "Woody Allen is weird looking, talks funny and a little creepy/sleazy. Ergo, he's guilty. Despite the fact that case had no legs, his guilt is obvious because I don't like the way he looks."

Speaking of which… google "Dale Akiki" … or just go to this link:
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/May/…

At least Woody Allen is rich enough not to have to wait in jail for more than years before he can even get a trial ...
100
Allen still doesn't compare to Jackson. He hasn't shown that he wants to spend all his time with either mid-to-late teen girls the way Jackson wanted to spend all his time with tween-to-early-teen boys (note the specificity of age), OR with prepubescent girls either.

"And yeah, a man in his 40s dating underage girls is predatory."

17 isn't underage in a lot of jurisdictions. (I should mention that I'm taking your word that that happened, by the way.)

"And I think marrying your children's sister, who you've known since she was a young child, seems predatory."

It isn't just you. Many people have hated Allen for simply that. But "seems" is the key word. It's subjective.

I'll note a few things here. You acknowledge that Soon-Yi is NOT Allen's daughter, but called it "incestuous" elsewhere. I think you're trying to paint it as such by repeatedly describing her as "your children's sister," which awkwardly distinguishes Soon-Yi's relationship within the family. "Step-sister" would be more honest, even though it might make it seem more alright.

Two, the fact that Allen has remained married to her as she has grown into middle age is testimony against Allen as a "predator" of "underage" girls. I can think of two legendary entertainers, Charles Chaplin and Groucho Marx, who both tended to divorce wives when they got to be around 30 and enter into relationships (sometime marry, sometime not) with ever younger women - some as young as 16 or 17. I think guys who seek out such relationships - some, anyway, if not all - often have fundamental problems with maturity, and seek out young partners because they're about as mature as they can handle. And those girls probably grow into women who realize that they have a big baby on their hands.

But Allen hasn't cast off Soon-Yi, now that she's past 40. (Marx and Chaplin never waited nearly as long.) And as far as we know, he hasn't been stepping out on the side with teens either.

Getting back to "seems," it would seem "predatory" to me too, but for the fact that Allen and Farrow always lived apart, and that Soon-Yi never considered Allen to be a father figure in her life - that was Andre Previn.

To me, it seems weird, but not much more. I'm in my 40s now, and if I weren't married I can't fathom entering a relationship with someone under 30. But different stroke for different folks. I wasn't present to see how Soon-Yi and Woody Allen's relations went, either before they began seeing one another or at that time, so it's not fair to come to any harsher judgment. We can be squicked out, but we can't judge it as "predatory" without stronger evidence that it was (e.g., the child bride syndrome in Asia or with the FLDS polygamists).
101
on this site it is only predatory if a priest does it. Or a Russian. But hey, Woody, he's just this guy, you know...
102
@100 - That's like saying Roman Polanski probably didn't rape a 13 year-old because he's managed to maintain a marriage with an adult woman. You're approaching this from the perspective of a rational person who's NOT a pedophile. It's like the Daily Beast article insisting that it wouldn't make sense for Allen to molest Dylan in a house full of people during a heated custody battle. It never makes sense to molest anyone in any scenario, but fucked up people do fucked up things. Not even saying that he's guilty, but I don't know how some can be so unfailingly convinced of his innocence and defend him with these same old chestnuts people roll out every time they don't want to believe that someone is a child molester.

But he's such a GREAT DAD!! He's MARRIED!! < --- These tell us nothing.

103
For fuck's sake there's a difference between 13 and 17.
104
"That's like saying Roman Polanski probably didn't rape a 13 year-old because he's managed to maintain a marriage with an adult woman."

You're mixing up two different things here, which makes it hard to answer, but here goes. First, Dylan Farrow's charges were NOT under discussion. What was, was your assertion that Allen has exhibited a "pattern" of "predatory behavior" in the past - namely, dating a 17 year old and a 19 year old who happened to be the older step-sister of his children, but was never his step daughter.

If I was making my statements with the aim of dismissing her allegations and arguing for Allen's innocence, that would be fair. But I wasn't, so it's not.

(At this point I'll go on record as saying that I find her allegations are powerful and compelling. But more on that later.)

"You're approaching this from the perspective of a rational person who's NOT a pedophile."

I hope I am. Pedophiles are known for extremely high rates of recidivism, so if it's happened once, it's likely happened many times.

"But he's such a GREAT DAD!! He's MARRIED!! < --- These tell us nothing."

Neither does his relationships with young women three times the age Dylan was when she says she was molested. And I never commented on what kind of dad he was. However, I do think that maintaining a decades-long relationship with one of these women tells us that he's not inordinately attracted to young women in an unhealthy fashion. If he were, I'm sure Soon-Yi would have been cast aside for another teen.

Now, let me tell you whether I believe Dylan Farrow's charges. The answer is - insufficient data. I don't disbelieve her. But I don't see any good supporting evidence. You cite Allen's relationships with teens (late teens, legal in many if not most jurisdictions), but from what I know, pedophiles stick to victims of a particular age. If Allen likes prepubescent girls, he's not likely interested in teen girls too. (He could be, but it's rare enough to make it reasonable to doubt it.) No one else has ever accused him of molestation, either. Again, high recidivism - if he's done it once, there must be other victims. And as wealthy as he is, those things usually can't be buried completely.

But for me, one of the most compelling reasons to NOT simply accept it is the fact that they didn't press charges for a rather flimsy reason - her well being. I'm a parent of two girls, currently aged 6 and 9, so I think I can relate to Mia Farrow on this point. If someone had done that to MY girl, I'd want them in jail for the rest of their lives. That's partly selfish, but not entirely - If I don't do my damnedest to get that person off the streets, he's free to victimize more children. It would be my civic duty, just as it is to report child abuse if I witness it.

The fact that Mia Farrow didn't push it - ESPECIALLY after Allen was denied custody and visitation - makes me wonder. (Although the fact that the family court issued such a prohibition also makes me wonder if it's true - but then again, the burden of proof in civil suits such as divorce is not as stringent as it is in courts of law.)

There are other things people have brought up - revenge for Allen's recent public honors, promotion for Ronin Farrow's upcoming show, Dylan and Ronin being rehearsed by Mia on what to say as children, the long term poisonous effect bitter breakups have on children - and those are plausible. None of them mean that Dylan Farrow isn't telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. But it makes it hard to accept them as such.

But I don't dismiss Dylan Farrow's allegations and insist Woody Allen is innocent.

I hope this clarifies things.
105
@ 103, immaterial. Polanski really raped that girl - it wasn't just statutory. It would have been rape if he had done it to a 33 year old woman.
106
I can't believe that I'm still following this thread, but I think Matt-from-Denver is onto something with his 93 post.

I think this is the view of a lot of people:

If we always take the accuser at their word in lieu of evidence, there will be 0 rapes that go unpunished (though there will be a few instances where innocent people are unduly punished).

If we never take the accuser at their word, there will be a non-zero number of rapes that go unpunished (though this nevertheless allows innocent accusees from being punished as well).

Tack number two allows for rapes to go unpunished whereas tack one does not. Tack two consitutes a 'rape culture' whereas tack one does not.

Tack number one of course does not comport with our traditional notions of justice and law, but it is nevertheless a coherent novel notion of justice. I disagree with it and wish that proponents would cop to its premises and repercussions

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