Woody Allen

What do you think?

I don't believe the accusations.

I do, unfortunately.  He does not deny starting a sexual relationship with his adopted daughter when she was, like, 16.

Granted, Mia Farrow has a vendetta as wide and deep as the Grand Canyon, but Woody has given her cause.

[Edit: "In 1991, when the relationship began, Allen was 56 and Previn around 19."] Wikipedia.

Soon-yi was Farrow's adopted daughter, and Allen never married Mia Farrow. The age difference is perhaps worth comment - Allen says she was 20, and points out that Mia Farrow was bonking the much older Frank Sinatra when she was 19. Glass houses and all that.

His response seems quite cogent.

I believe her.
Women don't make that shit up. Kids don't make that shit up.
The price is too high when you are a victim. It makes much more sense to stfu rather than tell. So yeah, if the kid says she was molested I believe her until I have reason not to.

I don't believe her because of the Soon yi deal for reasons already pointed out. But I do believe her. It's way too easy to write WA off and this Casper Milqtoast character who could never hurt a fly and those are inevitably the dudes that get away with it for that very reason.

Jenni wrote:

Women don't make that shit up.

Yes they do, all the time. In custody battles, accusing the man of child molestation is a sure-fire way to win custody and damage the man. Works almost every time.

At this point, Dylan Farrow's memory can't be trusted. Mia Farrow has had too long to work on her. Dylan probably does believe she was molested. That doesn't mean it actually happened.

Being a child molester isn't a one-time thing. If Woody Allen is such a pervert, where are all the other victims?

richard09 wrote:

If Woody Allen is such a pervert, where are all the other victims?

He MARRIED one of them to keep her quiet.

richard09 wrote:

Glass houses and all that.

Yeah, what I take away is that those are some fucked up people.

Mia was almost 30 years younger than Frank Sinatra.*

Soon-Yi is 27 years younger than Woody.

I can't imagine dating someone a whole generation younger (or older!)


* - News article I read said 39 years, but Frank was born in 1915 and Mia in 1945. The author can't do math.

NoCoPilot wrote:

richard09 wrote:

If Woody Allen is such a pervert, where are all the other victims?

He MARRIED one of them to keep her quiet.

That is so ridiculous. A 20-year-old is not a child.

richard09 wrote:

NoCoPilot wrote:

richard09 wrote:

If Woody Allen is such a pervert, where are all the other victims?

He MARRIED one of them to keep her quiet.

That is so ridiculous. A 20-year-old is not a child.

But, she was a "child" in the home, Woody was her titular father.  How many years had she lived as his daughter?

Quote :

Before that year was out, Woody was sleeping with Mia’s adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, who was either 18 or 20. (She has no birth certificate, and her age was roughly determined by a bone scan.) Mia learned of the affair Jan. 13, 1992. She had brought 3-year-old Satchel to Allen’s apartment for his regular therapy session — the whole family saw shrinks — and discovered six nude Polaroids of Soon-Yi on his mantle, her legs spread open.

Quote :

That Valentine’s Day, she sent Allen a family photo with skewers piercing each child’s heart, a steak knife wrapped in a Xerox of a nude Soon-Yi through hers. She was still publicly going out with Allen. In the spring, after the couple dined at Elaine’s, friends described Mia as looking “like [a post-assassination] Jackie Kennedy on Air Force One.”

http://nypost.com/2014/02/08/woody-mia-a-greek-tragedy/

According to Wikipedia, Soon-Yi was adopted "around 1978" and Mia started dating Woody in 1980.  That means Woody was her dad -- or at least her mother's boyfriend -- for twelve years before their affair was exposed.

How long had it been going on?  Nobody is saying.

It *could* have started as early as age six -- the same age Dylan was when he's accused of molesting her.

And six-year olds have a much better memory than younger kids -- the "age of reason" where kids start making permanent memories is somewhere around six or seven.

I recall Dylan mentioning a pediatrist's opinion at time. Apparently there was reasonable grounds to suspect abuse, but whether it was Allen is another question. I'm wondering where this pediatrist is at.

As for Allen's guilt,  I just don't think there's enough to go on to make a firm judgement one way or the other. As for Jenni's point, I don't think people should be prosecuted based on accusation alone.  As for Richards point, Allen could have done a one off thing to mess with Farrow. We'll never know the truth.

Yep, it's like the Anita Hill / Clarence Thomas public spat, both sides seem credible yet they can't both be right.

IIRC Mia had Dylan checked out by a doctor at the time, the doctor's conclusion was ambiguous. So it's strictly a "he said - she said" with no proof. Both sides lose.

Whatever Mia hopes to gain is beyond understanding. Perhaps Woody's lifetime achievement award irked her, perhaps she is still shaking him down for $7 million. Either way, both their reputations are in tatters and the poor kid is in the middle.

Fox News wrote:

The history of the case is clouded by a 1993 investigation that was full of contradictions. Allen wasn't charged and a team of child abuse specialists from the Yale-New Haven Hospital brought in by prosecutors concluded Dylan had not been molested. But Maco claimed there was "probable cause" for charging him. In the custody battle, Judge Elliott Wilk concluded Allen's behavior with Dylan was "grossly inappropriate and that measures must be taken to protect her."

A disciplinary panel found that Maco may have prejudiced the custody battle by making an accusation without formal charges.

Source

richard09 wrote:

Being a child molester isn't a one-time thing. If Woody Allen is such a pervert, where are all the other victims?

Quote :

Among the people who’ve publicly taken sides in this Gothic family saga is Stacey Nelkin, who dated Allen when she was 17 and he was 41.

“What disturbs me is that Mia has tried to blur these lines — because he likes to date young women, he must have been interested in a 7-year-old,” she says. “Pedophiles are compulsive. No one has accused him before, and no one has subsequently.”

Nelkin first met Allen when he cast her in “Annie Hall.” A few months later, they began dating. She was still a student at Stuyvesant High.

“I was 17, but I was a sophisticated New York City kid,” she says. She recalls him as very considerate. “I rarely slept over,” she says. “He was adamant about me not staying so that I’d be at school on time.”

Source

Another takeaway for me: shrinks are a scam.

They don't help people make better life choices. Maybe they make heinous people able to live with themselves, I dunno.

Allen is still making films, although he can't get them released in the US anymore. Are they still about much-younger women finding him irresistible and falling in love with him? The last several Allen movies I saw were tediously predictable and egotistical.