Woody Allen speaks out

by NewYork44M 131 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse

  • sammielee24
    sammielee24

    There are no winners here and certainly the "truth" is left to people to decide for themselves - a precarious outcome for all concerned.

    ------

    but perhaps that is all she wants - people to decide for themselves whether or not a man who (according to her) molested a child, is deserving of a life time achievement or humanitarian or any other award. Perhaps when she saw the accolades and applause being heaped on her abuser, she felt cheated out of a childhood, her innocence and perhaps she saw the possibility of repition in the man who now has two little girls.

    This is her way of dealing with it and maybe that is all she has left.

    To say it serves nobody is just an opinion - perhaps to her, in her life, in her struggles - it serves a purpose that you can't imagine.

    Just a thought. sw

  • steve2
    steve2

    sw, I would usually concur:It is crucial for victims of abuse to find the voice to speak out. But this has become little more thanmedia fodder and Dylan is playing right into it. The trouble is, once this is "given over" to the media, anything is fair game, including Dylan's own wellbeing.

    Look at the way she reacted in print when Allen dared respond. Even in a law court, the defendant is innocent until proven guilty and he has a right of reply. Now he is being shamed into silence. It has element of, "I want the right to tell my story and, if you do not believe me, I will shame you into silence for daring to question me as a victim". This sounds perilously close to the very way Mia Farrow spoke when Allen had an affair and later married Mia's adopted daughter. This media expose adds no integrity or sense of recovery, if that is what Dylan is hoping to achieve. The media have given her the dubious status of solidifying her victimhood. However, it skates perilously close to the lynch mob mentality in which the public come to their own fickle emotion-based conclusions.

  • sammielee24
    sammielee24

    But it's okay.

    If Dylan only wants to be heard and bear in mind what sparked it all was not just her, but a tweet from her brother, then she has a platform. She can afford to take her voice public perhaps to her, it is an even balance. Her father is in the business of playing to the public and if indeed she has been molested, in her mind the justification of using the same public forum to voice her disgust, is, to her, very rational. Woody Allen is a public figure. He makes money off of the public. He is awarded applause and sentiment based on his public performance. Perhaps to her, it was important to play the game in the arena he is most familiar in.

    I am not a fan of regression therapy because I don't trust it - there are far too many people who have been the victims of rape, abuse and violence from a very early age who never forget the smells, the sights, the sound and the places of their torment but then again, that's just me.

    I think it's her call to make - it's her abuse she speaks about and how do any of us know that when she sees her father with his two daughters, sees her sister married to her father and is faced with a picture of his father holding the hand of his young teenage daughter - how do we know what memories come flooding back? How do we know there is not some deep, searing fear that what was done to her - is being done to them - but they can't speak up.

    We don't know - and ultimately it's up to them to figure it out - her allegations - his denial - sw

    ----

    Calling attention to someone’s birthday-party behavior may seem trivial at best. However, Dr. Coates, who just happened to be in Mia’s apartment to work with one of her other children, had only to witness a brief greeting between Woody and Dylan before she began a discussion with Mia that resulted in Woody’s agreeing to address the issue through counseling. At that point Coates didn’t know that, according to several sources, Woody, wearing just underwear, would take Dylan to bed with him and entwine his body around hers; or that he would have her suck his thumb; or that often when Dylan went over to his apartment he would head straight for the bedroom with her so that they could get into bed and play. He called Mia a “spoilsport” when she objected to what she referred to as “wooing.” Mia has told people that he said that her concerns were her own sickness, and that he was just being warm. For a long time, Mia backed down. Her love for Woody had always been mixed with fear. He could reduce her to a pulp when he gave vent to his temper, but she was also in awe of him, because he always presented himself as “a morally superior person.”

    One summer day in Connecticut, when Dylan was four and Woody was applying suntan lotion to her nude body, he alarmed Mia’s mother, actress Maureen O’Sullivan, and sister Tisa Farrow when he began rubbing his finger in the crack between her buttocks. Mia grabbed the lotion out of his hand, and O’Sullivan asked, “How do you want to be remembered by your children?” “As a good father,” Woody answered. “Well, that’s interesting,” O’Sullivan replied. “It only lasted a few seconds, but it was definitely weird,” says Tisa Farrow.

    On August 4, Woody was in Connecticut to visit the children, and Mia and Casey went shopping, taking along Mia’s two most recently adopted children—a blind Vietnamese girl named Tam, 11, and Isaiah, a seven-month-old black baby born to a crack-addicted mother. While they were gone, there was a brief period, perhaps 15 minutes, when Woody and Dylan vanished from sight. The baby-sitter who was inside searched high and low for them through the cluttered old farmhouse, but she couldn’t find them. The outside baby-sitter, after a look at the grounds around the house, concluded the two must be inside somewhere. When Mia got home a short time later, Dylan and Woody were outside, and Dylan didn’t have any underpants on. (Allen later said that he had not been alone with Dylan. He refused to submit hair and fingerprint samples to the Connecticut state police or to cooperate unless he was assured that nothing he said would be used against him.) Woody, who hated the country and reportedly brought his own bath mat to avoid germs, spent the night in a guest room off the laundry next to the garage and left the next morning.

    That day, August 5, Casey called Mia to report something the baby-sitter had told her. The day before, Casey’s baby-sitter had been in the house looking for one of the three Pascal children and had been startled when she walked into the TV room. Dylan was on the sofa, wearing a dress, and Woody was kneeling on the floor holding her, with his face in her lap. The baby-sitter did not consider it “a fatherly pose,” but more like something you’d say “Oops, excuse me” to if both had been adults. She told police later that she was shocked. “It just seemed very intimate. He seemed very comfortable.”

    As soon as Mia asked Dylan about it, Dylan began to tell a harrowing story, in dribs and drabs but in excruciating detail. According to her account, she and Daddy went to the attic (not really an attic, just a small crawl space off the closet of Mia’s bedroom where the children play), and Daddy told her that if she stayed very still he would put her in his movie and take her to Paris. He touched her “private part.” Dylan said she told him, “It hurts. I’m just a little kid.” The she told Mia, “Kids have to do what grown-ups say.” Mia, who has a small Beta video camera and frequently records her large brood, made a tape of Dylan for Dylan’s psychologist, who was in France at the time. “I don’t want to be in a movie with my daddy,” Dylan said, and asked, “Did your daddy ever do that to you?”

    According to people close to the situation, Mia called her lawyer, who told her to take Dylan to her pediatrician in New Milford. When the doctor asked where her private part was, Dylan pointed to her shoulder. A few minutes later, over ice cream, she told Mia that she had been embarrassed to have to say anything about this to the doctor. Mia asked which story was true, because it was important that they know. They went back to the doctor the next day, and Dylan repeated her original story—one that has stayed consistent through many tellings to the authorities, who are in possession of the tape Mia made. The doctor examined Dylan and found that she was intact. He called his lawyer and then told Mia he was bound by law to report Dylan’s story to the police.

    Mia, who never sought to make the allegations public, also told Dr. Coates, who is one of three therapists Woody Allen has seen on a regular basis. Coates too told Mia that she would have to report Dylan’s account to the New York authorities, but that she would also tell Woody. Mia burst out crying, she was so afraid. Ironically, the next day, August 6, Woody and Mia were supposed to sign an elaborate child-support-and-custody agreement, months in the negotiating, giving Mia $6,000 a month for the support of Satchel and Dylan and 15-year-old Moses, the other child of Mia’s whom Woody had adopted on December 17, 1991. Mia believed Woody’s sessions with Dr. Coates had definitely improved his demeanor with Dylan, but because of her concern about Woody’s past history, she had insisted that he not have unsupervised visitation until Dylan and Satchel were through the sixth grade, and that he no longer be able to sleep over at her country house, as he had so far insisted on doing, but stay in a guest cottage across the pond.

    [From Vanity Fair's archive, 1992 article

  • sammielee24
  • adamah
    adamah

    BOC said- I don't know. I think at best, she had two of the most narcissistic, shitty parents on the planet. I honestly don't believe either one.

    Yup.

    Hate to sound like a BK recruiter, but birds of a feather flock together (and adopt little birds to teach their tricks), and what goes around comes around.
    BTW, I found part interesting in the Vanity Fair interview:http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2013/11/mia-farrow-frank-sinatra-ronan-farrow

    It is striking how much Mia and Ronan are alike—the same porcelain skin, the same intense blue eyes, the same ability to perform. He was only 11 when he entered Bard College; Mia drove him back and forth nearly every day—90 minutes each way—for four years. Ronan is writing a book on America’s proxy wars, but he also writes songs and scripts. Mia sent me a tape of him belting out Stephen Sondheim’s “Not While I’m Around,” which she used to sing to the children, and his phrasing sounds eerily familiar.

    In August of last year, gossip columnist Liz Smith wrote that he had been in Los Angeles visiting Nancy Sinatra Jr. and “has caused the anti–Woody Allen contingent to point out that such a connection gives heft to the ongoing theory that Ronan is not the son from [Mia’s] relationship with Woody, but from her post-divorce romantics with the late Sinatra himself.”

    I asked Nancy Sinatra Jr. about Ronan’s being treated as if he were a member of their family, and she answered in an e-mail, “He is a big part of us, and we are blessed to have him in our lives.” She said of Mia, “From the early days until now, we have been like sisters. My mother is also very fond of her. We are family and will always be.”

    I asked Mia point-blank if Ronan was the son of Frank Sinatra. “Possibly,” she answered. (No DNA tests have been done.)

    Ronan attended Sinatra’s funeral, in 1998, with his mother, Nancy Sinatra Jr., and Nancy Sinatra Sr., who fusses over him and cooks for him like a grandmother, he says. Mia told me that she and the two Nancys put several items into Frank’s coffin, including “a small bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a dime, because he always told us never to go anywhere without a dime. ‘You never know who you’ll have to call.’ ” Mia also put in a note and her wedding ring.

    “Was he the great love of your life?,” I asked.

    “Yes.”

    Welcome to the World of instant celebrity-hood with the genes to guarantee success!

    That leads some to suspect there's a more cynical motive at work here (and thus, likely probable, if Mia's as smart and shrewd as those who know her best claim), explaining all of this recent head-line-grabbing and spotlight-seeking media frenzy: star-making and image-building.

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/03/woody-allen-dylan-farrow-abuse-allegations

    Indeed, the larger context for this rehashed scandal is not a pattern of abuse or the ongoing dysfunctions of a celebrated family but rather the demands of a publicity rollout. Twenty-one years after the event – all parties long quiet – a story is revived. It is an old scandal for a new generation.

    The impetus seems to be to establish Mia Farrow as a celebrity activist worthy of the world stage, and, as well, to launch a public career for her son Ronan.

    The campaign began in the November issue of Vanity Fair in a profile of Mia Farrow by Maureen Orth, an acquaintance (Orth is the widow of NBC's Tim Russert), in which Farrow offered the headline grabber that Frank Sinatra, rather than Woody Allen, might be Ronan's father. In a demonstration of Farrow's famous media acumen, that's all she said, Sinatra "might" be – worldwide titillation followed.

    The terms of the article would have been negotiated beforehand [see footnote]. Mia Farrow is, at this point in her career, not a Vanity Fair worthy subject. Hence, in return for laudatory press coverage of her charitable work, and near sycophantic treatment of her yet-to-be-employed son, she would have had to agree to revisit her legendary scandal. That, and then some. The price of publicity for her and Ronan was, in effect, Allen.

    It's an agit-prop piece. Orth wrote Vanity Fair's 1992 piece about Woody's break-up with Mia, his relationship with Mia's adopted daughter Soon-Yi (his future wife), and Mia's charges of his sexual abuse of Dylan – it is practically speaking the same piece now.

    It's unremitting and unequivocal. Mia – good, great, noble. Woody – evil, duplicitous, dangerous.

    Neither the other Mia of many reports, hungry for press and out for revenge, nor the long-married Allen with teenage daughters, steadily doing his work, are present here.

    The Vanity Fair piece effectively launched Ronan. Overnight he went from unknown to celebrity, shortly hired by MSNBC. Two weeks ago, he was given a permanent spot on the cable news network's schedule. He has, I am reliably told, promised a grateful MSNBC that his public fight with Allen is far from over.

    Several weeks ago, during the Golden Globe Awards where Allen was given a lifetime achievement award, Mia tweeted her displeasure, and then Ronan, upped the ante, and tweeted more pointedly about the 21-year-old molestation charge.

    Then last week in the Daily Beast, Weide, who made the 2012 PBS American Masters documentary about Allen, followed up with his close analysis of exactly what happened in 1992. It's quite a demolition job on the Vanity Fair piece, deconstructing timeline, opportunity, and circumstance. What's more, it paints a far more complicated picture of Mia from the one she has curated about herself, including that her brother is in jail for child molestation – Mia's own family is a horribly dysfunctional one – and that her son, Moses, no longer speaks to her and accuses her of "brainwashing".

    The stakes were raised, in other words.

    Hence, Mia enlists her good friend Kristof to provide a forum for Dylan Farrow's letter. Kristof says it is the first time Dylan Farrow has spoken, but, in fact, that's what Vanity Fair said three months ago, when Dylan spoke to Orth. But this time, Dylan appears in open-letter form – in her own voice. It's a riveting and astute piece of writing – a study in artful composition. It is a 28-year-old's absolute memory of being a seven-year-old. Some of this she recalled for the Vanity Fair piece. But there are now many new details.

    On Saturday night, shortly after the letter's release, Lena Dunham, in the midst of on her own massive media rollout for the third season of HBO's Girls, began tweeting her support for Dylan Farrow – who, one might assume, she knows only on the basis of this letter, moved by its striking language and detailed memories, rather than any outside facts. (Dunham, a child at the time of the scandal, was joined in something of a Twitter-wide celebration among other young women of the unknown but suddenly famous Dylan.) Or perhaps, she knows of Dylan directly from Mia, who added a Girl's promo to her Golden Globe tweet – "Time to grab some icecream & switch over to #GIRLS" – when Allen's award came up.

    If you tweet for me; I'll tweet for you.

    It is a story of interlocking media deals and cultivated media cronies. Everybody is at work here. Everybody is someone else's instrument. Everybody is promoting something. Two decades have passed but the Allen-Farrow betrayal, break-up, and molestation charges are somehow, all of a sudden, as vivid as yesterday.

    Here's a certainty: When you play out your personal dramas, hurt and self-interest in the media, it's a confection. You say what you have to say in the way you have to say it to give it media currency – and that's always far from the truth. Often, in fact, someone else says it for you. It's all planned. It's all rehearsed. This is craft. This is strategy. This is manipulation. This is spin.

  • DJS
    DJS

    Well stated Adamah,

    I have researched this mess and many experts say the same thing; we will never know, both are screwed up and Dylan and Woody both have some compelling statements to make. I am annoyed as usual by the black and white, right and wrong, judgmental comments by so many on this topic. As usual. No one wants to qualify their statements. They toss around words like 'proof' as if there is any. And so many of the 'definiitive' statements made in this OP threat are pure bullshit. Twisted, false, half truths or something someone read that supported what they wanted to believe withour reading any rebuttal to their 'facts.' This site distresses me. If Mr. Allen is telling the truth his arguments are compelling. If Dylan is telling anything near the truth her arguments are compelling. Either way, if I'm on that expert committee back when all of this occured, I would have 'voted' just as they did. The DA still could have taken it to trial. And lost.

  • talesin
    talesin

    How ironic.

    A bunch of ex-Jehovah's Witnesses arguing over whether a celebrity is an accused child molester.... when we KNOW how clever they are.... how even the poorest ones are able to cover up their crimes against children ... and here we have a rich man, a powerful man ..

    I have been following this story since its inception ,,,,,,, yes,,, all these years........ many facts have been distorted in this discussion, in the defense of this person who I see as despicable, and why? Because he is famous and you like his movies? Yes, I *was* an Allen fan.... and since the 90s, when the events first came to light, I have been unable to watch one of his movies without feeling queasy.

    and here is Adamah,,, and others ... to defend him!

    I am filled with disgust ............. having worked in this field, and been an advocate for years.............

  • MrFreeze
    MrFreeze

    Considering Woody Allen had relations with Soon-Yi when she was underage, why is it so hard to believe Dylan Farrow? Even looking at Woody Allen's brand of "humor" he clearly has some type of issues.

  • steve2
    steve2

    I read the Vanity Fair article some time ago. What astonishes me is this: If it is an accurate overview of other adults, including Ms Farrow, her mother and an employee, who saw firsthand highly questionable, if not worrying, incidents involving Allen and Dylan, why did none of them at that time stop his contact with Dylan and alert the authorities? Why was it only once Ms Farrow found out that her 18 year old adoptive daughter was having a sexual relationship with Allen - and who defied her adoptive mother and refused to end it - that, within weeks, Farrow enlarged the lagging media witchhunt against Allen by including allegations never aired before about Allen's behaviour towards 7-year-old Dylan and overtime drip fed the media the incidents subsequently collected together and outlined in Vanity Fair? As with all the questions hurled in Allen's direction over the years , those put to Ms Farrow have never been satisfactorily answered, if at all. Those who claim Dylan has consistently told the same story need to re-read the initial allegations. They are not the same and have the flavor of being much elaborated on over the years.

    Again, this trial by sensationalist and ratings-driven media is a sadly pathetic outcome from people who cry foul but who then do not accept responsibility for ensuring this is tested and evaluated in the appropriate arena. With at least three eye-witnesses and the victim speaking out and no arrest to stand trial, what did the authorities conclude that some posters here seem reluctant to acknowledge? Questionable and largely self-serving and inexplicably non-actioned eye witness accounts and a victim whose own slowly developing story bore the hallmarks of a parent who was offended and outraged by her partner developing a consensual sexual relationsjip with her 18-year-old adoptive daughter. The whole ugly picture reeks of dysfunction all around. Even Ms Farrow's long time friend Roman Polanski was arrested, tried and found guilty so to suggest Allen was protected from facing trial is ludicrous.

  • truthseekeriam
    truthseekeriam

    Totally agree talesin.

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