Woody Allen speaks out

by NewYork44M 131 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse

• 

  steve2

  There are no winners in this trial by media. The timing of Dylan's expose was perfect for she knew Allen was in line for a lifetime achievement award. The use of the media to score points is the scorned woman, Mia Farrow's trademark. Dylan follows her mother's response patterns perfectly. The airing of allegations is not for media entertainment. Now Dylan cries foul, calling Allen's attempts to defend himself as more "attacks" on her and her family. BTW, the theme of abuse in the attic was reflected in one of Mia's earlier husband's songs - a song that she long before the alleged abuse occurred had declared a favorite of hers. A coincidence that Dylan's media disclosures involved abuse in an attic? This would not be the first time a parent's own emotion dysregulation and poor judgement in publicizing matters that should be judged in a court of law taints a child's account of what allegedly happened.

  All the media "trial" has accomplished is a parade of strong opinions when the Courts are the most appropriate venue for these allegations.

  Because of years of fevered, vindictive press releases by Farrow, we will likely never know the extent to which her own wounded self has influenced Dylan. If the evidence as cited by Dylan is so convincing, she needs to take it out of the media arena and formally bring charges against Allen.
• 

  steve2

  This has nothing to do with support or otherwise for the "two witness" rule and everything to do with 1) using the media to try and convict a man who surely must be considered innocent until proven guilty and 2) a child who is clearly repeating her own mother's penchant for carefully targeted media smearing campaigns. As with most of these sorts of media circuses, truth is an early casualty - and no one wins but there are a lot of sad losers.
• 

  sammielee24

  --

  Six reasons why Dylan Farrow's statement of sexual abuse is highly credible

  Lisa Bloom
  NakedLaw
  Mon, 03 Feb 2014 09:58 CST Woody Allen's twenty-eight year old daughter, Dylan Farrow, has just written a powerful statement outlining the sexual abuse she says she endured by her father, Woody Allen, when she was seven years old. The famous director strongly denies the allegations, and claims that Dylan's mother, Mia Farrow, is responsible for the false claims.[1] A friend and filmmaker colleague has written a strong opinion piece defending Woody Allen.
  
  Woody Allen is presumed innocent. However, having represented many child sexual abuse victims for decades, I find Dylan's story is highly credible. Here's why.
  
  1. She is not seeking anything from Woody Allen. She is not suing him. No criminal case is pending. (Nor could there be, due to the statute of limitations.) She is not selling a book or movie or anything else. Her sole motivation appears to be to tell her story. When sexual abuse victims grow up and get healthy, telling is a crucial, life-affirming step. Secrecy is toxic. Telling is liberating. It takes the shame off the victim's shoulders and places it squarely where it belongs: on the perpetrator.
  
  2. She spoke out immediately after the incident, when she was seven years old. Many victims take years or decades to tell. Many keep the secret to their graves. According to reports, Dylan Farrow endured Woody Allen's alleged creepy but not criminal behaviors (putting his head on her naked lap, his thumb in her mouth) but told shortly after he sexually assaulted her, asking innocently whether this is something fathers do to daughters. This is not a story she just came up with.
  
  3. Blaming the mother is a tired, common strategy for those accused of sexual abuse. (Mothers also get blamed when they fail to act promptly in response to a child's accusation.) A loving, healthy mother will be sickened and outraged when a child tells on an adult for sexual abuse. This is how Mia behaved. She should not be faulted for it.
  
  The claim that Mia Farrow manufactured all of this does not ring true because (i) Dylan reportedly told a babysitter first; (ii) Mia Farrow reportedly gave her daughter multiple opportunities to recant if she wanted to; and (iii) Dylan is now a mature, happy adult who would have no motivation to continue to lie for her mother, twenty two years later, who lives a thousand miles away from her.
  
  Mia Farrow also did not sue Woody Allen for the sexual abuse of her daughter. She could have. She gained nothing by backing her daughter, and endured a nightmare in the courts and the media by doing so after a mandatory reporter went to the police with Dylan's allegations. She has spent her life raising her own biological children as well as disadvantaged, often disabled children, and fiercely advocating for human rights for desperately poor Africans and victims of genocide.
  
  4. Woody Allen not only has had a long-term, well-established interest in young girls, he's never seen anything wrong with it. His film Manhattan, in which he stars, features a forty-two year old man in a sexual relationship with a seventeen year old high school student without any compunction whatsoever. (Don't tell me things were different in 1979. Plenty of us opposed sexual abuse then too.) And more significantly, he demonstrated an outrageous ability to prey on Mia's family by secretly engaging in a sexual relationship with Dylan's teenaged sister Soon-Yi and taking explicit pornographic pictures of her. (He ultimately married her.) He made bizarre public statements showing an almost sociopathic lack of understanding of the devastating pain this caused to Mia and the siblings at the time, like:

  "I didn't find any moral dilemmas whatsoever, I didn't feel that just because she was Mia's daughter, there was any great moral dilemma. It was a fact, but not one with any great import. It wasn't like she was my daughter."

  Not important! Not a moral issue at all! No wonder Woody Allen is kept from making public statements now, hiding behind his publicists and attorneys.
  
  5. The lack of criminal findings tells us nothing. There was no finding of guilt, and no finding that Dylan or Mia was lying. In 1992 a prosecutor oddly announced that while there was "probable cause" to believe Dylan, he would not pursue the case because of the "fragility of the child victim."
  
  When it comes to allegations of sexual abuse, especially against wealthy, powerful men, the child is easily discredited and often loses. See, e.g., Roman Polanski. In this case the prosecutor is alleged to have persuaded Mia not to put Dylan through the ordeal of testifying. This is very common and completely outrageous. Children should be supported, prepared, and encouraged to testify. I have done this many times and they find it an empowering experience when it's over. Testifying teaches a child to hold her head high, that she can speak her truth without being swallowed up by the earth, that she has done nothing wrong and is a hero for bringing justice to the predator and protecting future victims. Discouraging kids from testifying allows predators to escape justice and to prey on others.
  
  Our legal system is entirely broken when it comes to child molestation. It's heartbreaking. People contact me constantly seeking help for prosecutors who won't prosecute, or police who won't investigate.
  
  6. Dylan's story is entirely consistent with what we know about sexual abuse. Commonly, decades pass before a victim can become centered and brave enough to speak out. (Many never do.) Dylan's details are powerful (such as getting sick looking at toy trains to this day and Woody's claimed "grooming" behavior like putting his head in her naked lap and his thumb in her mouth) and consistent with the literature about the effects of molestation on its victims.
  
  Woody Allen's friend says that the idea of him molesting her in an attic when he was claustrophobic and there were others in the large house implies that child molesters behave rationally. Nothing could be further from the truth. Child molestation is inherently irrational, compulsive behavior. Little girls are commonly molested when family lurks in the next room. Little boys are victimized in homes, hotels, out of doors, anywhere and everywhere. The digital sexual assault Dylan alleged can happen in seconds and leave no trace.
  
  Woody Allen's publicist said that seven year old Dylan was unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Seven year olds do not fantasize about sex with their father. They don't fantasize about sex at all. To a seven year old, sex is disgusting and unimaginable.
  
  This matter will probably never be resolved, as no one is going to court now. But the least we can do is acknowledge the credibility of Dylan's story, and, more broadly, show respect to other sexual abuse victims by avoiding tired myths about how and why they speak out.
  
  [1] Ronan Farrow, Dylan's brother, who supports her claims, will soon host a show on MSNBC, where I am a regular contributor. I have never met or spoken to him or anyone else involved in this story
• 

  Ruby456

  imo Dylan is seeking justice, and at the moment I feel like listening to her story and am wanting to give her lots of space to hear her out because of this open arena of contestation. And looking at the situation from this vantage point, Woody Allen seems to incriminate himself all the time, for example the idea that children shouldn't be believed because they phantasize about sex is so Freudian and rather typical of a man who seems stuck in his own (self identified) neuroticism. Another thing, everything he accuses Mia Farrow of could be true of his own conduct towards her so I would take what he says with a large pinch of salt - both (woody and Mia) seem to be complex individuals and the attic song and the incident of sexual abuse in the attic could have been a way for Woody to get back at Mia and fulfill his own frustrated needs at the same time just as easily as that the incident could have been fabricated by Mia to get back at her husband. In contrast to them Dylan has never wavered in her accusation.

  Woody Allen's identity as a gifted author and playwright can be seen as separate from his identity as protrayed by Dylan and one does not cancel the other imo.
• 

  Magwitch

  Fatfreek thank you for sharing your horrific story. I am so sorry this happened to you.
• 

  FatFreek 2005

  Thanks for your supportive response, Magwitch. I've also received several encouraging PMs, one of which conceding that she had been coached into wrongly charging her father years ago. She later apologized and they now have a good relationship.

  Len
• 

  steve2

  Regardless of the merits or other wise of Dylan's allegations of abuse, trial by media - with its by now familiar taking the role of courtroom where anything goes - reduces the coverage to little more than appealing to public emotional outpourings. Dylan's reactions to Allen "attacking" her in public in response to her own exposing of him to public shame shows she wants the

  shame him into silence. Everything, now matter how compelling, is reduced to an awful show of claim, counterclaim and outrage that there's even been a counterclaim. There are no winners here and certainly the "truth" is left to people to decide for themselves - a precarious outcome for all concerned.
• 

  adamah

  Adam said- Heck, I'm wondering if the Soon Yi affair wasn't a way for Woody to get even with Mia for her affair with Sinatra, on the side?

  Celebrities and their tangled love lives....

  Talesin said- Heck, I'm wondering if grooming Soon Yi wasn't a way for Woody to adopt more little girls to play with?

  Perverts and their tangled webs of deceit ....

  Do you really not see a difference here? Mia herself admitted to carrying on the affair with Sinatra in Vanity Fair. Woody is accused of molesting Dylan, but apparently you don't believe in the "presumption of innocence" thing upon which American jurisprudence is based?

  Instead, some are content to drag this out in the court of public opinion, and not a REAL court of law (and apparently Dylan and Mia just plumb lost track of time on the statute of limitations to file criminal charges, despite frequent contacts with lawyers over the years with custody issues, etc).

  SammieLee, there's so many biases to pick apart in that article, it would take a long post to dismantle it. But this part caught my eye:

  When it comes to allegations of sexual abuse, especially against wealthy, powerful men, the child is easily discredited and often loses. See, e.g., Roman Polanski. In this case the prosecutor is alleged to have persuaded Mia not to put Dylan through the ordeal of testifying. This is very common and completely outrageous. Children should be supported, prepared, and encouraged to testify.

  I found the irony of mentioning Roman Polanski too much to pass commenting on, since Roman Polanski plead guilty and was CONVICTED for the rape of a 13 y.o. girl (he was 44 at the time of the offense, and got her drunk on champagne and quaaludes before raping her, to loosen her up). Polanski fled the country before his sentencing to prison.

  Mia had an affair with Roman Polanski, too (in the Rosemary's Baby days), but guess who testified ON BEHALF of an admitted and convicted child molester in his libel suit in 2005?

  From:

  http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/213078/isnt-it-just-a-little-weird-that-mia-farrow-is-still-friends-with-roman-polanski/

  Mia Farrow, who appeared in Polanski’s 1968 film “Rosemary’s Baby,” has said in as recently as 2005 that she still regards him as a close friend Which, perhaps, is why she flew to London to testify in his behalf in his libel suit against Vanity Fair, which had alleged that Polanski had hit on a Swedish woman right before Sharon Tate’s funeral.

  So yes, I find this a bit weird.

  mia farrow ✔ @MiaFarrow Tweets:

  A woman has publicly detailed Woody Allen's molestation of her at age 7. GoldenGlobe tribute showed contempt for her & all abuse survivors

  7:34 AM - 13 Jan 2014 1,538 Retweets 1,012 favorites

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  Farrow has never spoken out against Polanski. Not one word. Ever. She has, however, maintained her friendship with the admitted child rapist.

  I think this is weird. Flat out, weird. Also, in more mature terms, it is pretty damned hypocritical. One would think that if Farrow has this position on the Golden Globes giving Woody Allen an award for his achievements in cinema, that she would have it on being actual friends with Roman Polanski. There is a difference between saying someone is a good filmmaker and having someone be your actual friend.

  BTW, here's the wise advice of the victim of Roman Polanski, Samantha:

  http://www.today.com/books/girl-victim-roman-polanski-case-breaks-her-silence-8C11144935

  There is even, as we parents say, a teachable moment. We have what I think of as a Victim Industry in this country, an industry populated by Nancy Grace and Dr. Phil and Gloria Allred and all those who make money by manufacturing outrage. I’ve been part of it. If you spent years reading about yourself in the papers with the moniker “Sex Victim Girl,” you’d have a lot to say about this issue, too. But for now I’ll leave it at this: It is wrong to ask people to feel like victims, because once they do, they feel like victims in every area of their lives.

  I made a decision: I wasn’t going to be a victim of anyone or for anyone. Not Roman, not the state of California, not the media. I wasn’t going to be defined by what is said about me or expected from me. I was going to tell my story, my truth, through nobody else’s perspective but my own.

  And that is what I have done.
• 

  adamah

  Yeah, Len, thanks for sharing your perspective.

  BTW, Mia mentioned this in the Vanity Fair article, and had to chuckle at the rampant narcissism on display in a publicity stunt designed to troll the media, with no actual intent to carry through on the threat (starving to death):

  In April 2009, after the International Criminal Court indicted Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir for atrocities and he ordered 40 percent of the humanitarian-aid workers out of the country in retaliation, Mia went on a hunger strike to raise awareness and put pressure on him. She had to stop after 12 days. “My blood sugar betrayed me. The doctor said I was going to go into convulsions and then into a coma. I promised the children I wouldn’t do that. I don’t regret it. I did two or three Larry King shows, two or three Good Morning Americas. My driveway was filled with satellite trucks—we couldn’t have ever got that kind of press for the people of Darfur.”

  It reminds me of the hunger strike a resident of Utah started to protest gay marriage in his state, saying he wouldn't eat until the law is thrown out by the courts. He started eating again after he got really, really hungry (he beat Mia's 12-day fast, making it to 15 days).

  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/06/utah-man-gives-up-gay-marriage-hunger-strike.html
• 

  sammielee24

  Adam - if you want to pick apart the article, contact the write - Ms Bloom. She is a lawyer and has a lot more experience than I - sw