Crimes and Misdemeanors

It's not that I don't care about Woody Allen's daughter and the alleged abuse. I feel compassion for all victimized souls. Really I do.

Here're some mitigating dealios:
1)  She and the accused are both wealthy beyond belief. Certainly beyond my meager ability to grasp.
2) I resent the demand that I hate someone and the art they produce—the implied condemnation of me for still liking Annie Hall and Stardust Memories.

Mind you, money doesn't make everything all better. Of course it doesn't! BUT she and her very loving and supportive family have resources which most abuse victims can't ever possibly hope for. She has and will continue to have the best therapists for as long as she needs them. Even if that's the whole of her life.

More better than therapists, there's that devoted, comforting family.

She also has a rather immense pulpit from which she can now strike back. Is there a paper, an on line publication or TeeVee show NOT reporting on this?

From a NY Times op ed:

Yet the Golden Globes sided with Allen, in effect accusing Dylan either of lying or of not mattering. That’s the message that celebrities in film, music and sports too often send to abuse victims.

Oh please—the Golden Globes honored Allen’s body of work. They were NOT picking sides. They were not choosing to believe Allan versus his daughter. The bestowing of honor for his movies was not implicitly or explicitly an accusation.

It’s seems that it's not enough for Farrow to call out, to count coup on her alleged abuser—apparently everyone who’s ever worked for him is somehow complicit and must be scolded and shamed.

What if it had been your child, Cate Blanchett? Louis CK? Alec Baldwin? What if it had been you, Emma Stone? Or you, Scarlett Johansson? You knew me when I was a little girl, Diane Keaton. Have you forgotten me?

Cate Blanchett responded best by saying

"It's obviously been a long and painful situation for the family and I hope they find some sort of resolution and peace," Blanchett said, according to Wells.

Yes. It’s def sad and tragic all around.

Still, you know, I'm hard pressed to give a good god damn.

All parties have the mega wherewithal needed to survive this with the very best therapists and PR peeps. A young girl or boy from a poor family does not. Beyond the wealth, Farrow has the steadfast support of her mother and sibs. That’s a LOT and it's something many victims don't have.

I count as friends two young women (from different families) whose mothers not only didn’t believe them when they came forward to say ‘daddy’s hurting me' or 'daddy's touching me in a way that makes me unhappy,’ the mothers actually became angry AT THEIR DAUGHTERS. Both little girls were accused of making shit up and then, when the abuse was known to be fact/became unavoidable truth, THE GIRLS were blamed for their father’s crimes.

Intellectually I can understand how a mother could behave so astoundingly, criminally, horrifically towards a child. Emotionally? Not so much. I want to scream at the very, very least.

Ms. Farrow ends, saying:

Today, I consider myself lucky. I am happily married. I have the support of my amazing brothers and sisters. I have a mother who found within herself a well of fortitude that saved us from the chaos a predator brought into our home.

Yes. You, Ms. Farrow, have more than the vast majority of abuse victims have or could ever hope for.

Continue with your healing. I surely hope you can get to a happier, more whole place. Perhaps helping others by volunteering at shelters, talking with and listening to abuse survivors, just being there for others might go a long way towards bringing you to the other side of this.

And stop with the naming and shaming of folks who’ve acted in your alleged abuser’s movies. They were not complicit. They don’t deserve your wrath.