Posts by sammielee24

131

Woody Allen speaks out

by NewYork44M in

woody allen wrote a very compelling article in the op-ed of the new york times.. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/woody-allen-speaks-out.html?ref=opinion&_r=0.

have you ever been accused of something you did not do?

if that happens, what do you do?.

This was more in the NY post article - how anyone thinks either Farrow or Allen should adopt kids is beyond me but I don't make the rules - perhaps it was their very liberal, selfish and immature ideals and behaviors that kept them together in the first place.sw

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On Aug. 4, 1992, Mia claimed that while she was out shopping, Allen had disappeared with Dylan for 15 to 20 minutes at their country home in Connecticut. That day, Mia was scheduled to sign custody papers. According to a September 1992 report in New York magazine, she had worked out an arrangement with Allen allowing him visitation. He agreed to keep casting her. They’d keep going on their annual, two-week trips to Europe as a family, and to the outside world, they’d remain Woody and Mia.

But before those papers arrived, Mia called her lawyer and said something very bad had happened. Allen had taken Dylan up to the attic and molested her. She videotaped Dylan — a tape that was later reported to have been edited in-camera — then took her to the doctor for an exam.

Mia also kept on with her plans to star in Allen’s next movie, “Manhattan Murder Mystery,” and placed a call to meet with the wardrobe supervisor on Aug. 9.

“She accused me of child molestation on August 4th, right?” Allen told “60 Minutes” that November. “And August 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th — you know, the week after, she’s fully saying, ‘When do we begin our new movie? I’m going for my costume fitting next week’ . . . And I said, ‘Are you kidding? You’re accusing me of child molestation, and you think we’re just going to go on with the movie? . . . This is insane.’ ”

By then, this neo-Greek tragedy had been playing out for eight months, and no one aside from the immediate family and their closest friends knew. But after a disastrous meeting on Aug. 13, when Allen felt Mia was trying to shake him down for $7 million (a sum her lawyer disputed), he filed for custody of their three children, then leaked the filing to several outlets, including the New York Post.

“On many, many occasions,” he told “60 Minutes,” “Mia had said to me, ‘You took my daughter, and I’m going to take yours.’ ”

Both sides began leaking to the press accusations ranging from unflattering to criminal. Woody only liked to be called “Max” in public. He wouldn’t shower at the house in Connecticut because the drain was in the middle, not the side. He never slept over at her apartment; instead, she’d trundle through Central Park with seven kids just to sleep at his place. Most damningly, he’d always had an interest in teenage girls and made light of child molestation — just look at his movies.

Mia, said Woody’s camp, was no naif. At 19, she began dating Frank Sinatra, 39 years her senior. They married when she was 21 and divorced soon after. She wrote a character reference for Roman Polanski when he was on trial for raping a 13-year-old girl.

As recently as 2005, Farrow flew to London, testifying for Polanksi in a lawsuit against Vanity Fair. (The mag reported Polanski hit on a woman three weeks after his wife’s murder; Farrow testified Polanski would never do such a thing.) Farrow dated the married composer Andre Previn for two years and got pregnant with his twins. Previn left his wife, Dory, who suffered a nervous breakdown. Mia hoarded kids and was a bad mother; several of her children were in trouble for shoplifting, skipping school, forging checks.

The ensuing custody trial demolished the myth of Woody and Mia as the ultimate in sophisticated, urbane couplehood. Two former employees testified that Mia treated her adopted kids like help, and that she once slapped an adopted son because he lost a dog leash. Sinatra threatened to break Allen’s legs.

A friend of Mia’s testified that Woody abused Satchel, threatening to break his legs and twisting one so hard the toddler screamed. Mia admitted on the stand that she had gotten into a brawl with Soon-Yi after her daughter said, “The person who is sleeping with [Allen] is the one with the relationship.” Household staff claimed to have witnessed Allen acting “inappropriately” with Dylan, one saying she had seen Allen with his head in Dylan’s lap.

Allen denied all accusations of abuse and held a press conference declaring his love for Soon-Yi. Though he was excoriated daily in the press for carrying on with his longtime lover’s adopted daughter, Allen could not understand the problem.

“I didn’t find any great moral dilemmas whatsoever,” he told Time magazine in November 1992. “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.”

Woody Allen was never charged with molesting Dylan. An investigative team of child-abuse experts at Yale-New Haven Hospital said he didn’t do it, while the state Supreme Court judge on the case, Elliot Wilk, said he didn’t know if Allen did it. Mia was awarded custody, and Allen was permitted supervised visits only with Satchel, now Ronan. By 1995, the visits stopped when the boy said he no longer wanted to see Allen, and a judge ruled the visits be suspended.

In 1997, Woody and Soon-Yi married in Venice and later adopted two daughters of their own. He still doesn’t understand why their romance repulsed people. “What was the scandal?” he said in 2011. “I fell in love with this girl. I married her.”

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.”

Modal Trigger

Stacy Nelkin, with two photos of herself when she was a teenager. Photo: Helayne Seidman

Their relationship was the inspiration for Allen’s film “Manhattan,” in which he romances a teenage Mariel Hemingway who, as Nelkin did, chases him, cajoles him into a relationship, then breaks it off, leaving him heartbroken.

“He said, ‘What is this, a pattern with you?’ ” Nelkin recalls. “I said, ‘A pattern? I’m 19!’ ”

Nelkin spent years in psychotherapy to work through that relationship. “Every therapist I’ve ever seen in New York, their eyes light up” at his name, she says. “At some point, They’ve probably all come across him.”

While Nelkin says she found Allen’s romance with Soon-Yi “creepy,” she thinks it’s unfair the public holds only him accountable for all that’s transpired.

“He and Mia,” she says, “created this Greek tragedy together.”

131

Woody Allen speaks out

by NewYork44M in

woody allen wrote a very compelling article in the op-ed of the new york times.. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/woody-allen-speaks-out.html?ref=opinion&_r=0.

have you ever been accused of something you did not do?

if that happens, what do you do?.

sammielee24

What I find is a disconnection in Woody's behavior. In his actions. In his accountability and responsibility and in pretty well almost every way.

First of all - he was acting in the capacity of father to all of the children in the family. Throughout interviews with reporters, one in 1991 as I recall, they talked about him spending weekends at the Connecticut home all together; of taking many vacations together and of him being there in the morning when the kids got up to helping put them to bed. Those are a lot of years to kids - there is consistency, a security factor - a trust and a family connection.

In his response article, Woody speaks of this all happening when he was 'blissfully' in the first stages of his love affair with a woman - this is certainly a disconnect. He was the father figure in the life of the young woman - had they been legally married, Allen would have legally been her step father and in a common law relationship, he was in fact a step father to the children. What he should have said is that he was blissfully in the throes of a love affair with one of his step children - because that's what she was. He separated the child and his relationship to the child and instead put in place the word woman in order to disconnect from the relationship.

Woody was almost 60 and Soon Yi was either 18 or 19 when the nude photos were taken. Nobody knows whether or not they were involved sexually prior to that and again, Woody seems more intent on pointing a finger at Mia and her relationships with other men, rather like a 'look she did it too so what'..kind of response that appears to looking for some sort of validation in his actions.

He points to his adopting two kids as being the barometer of his innocence - again 'look, they wouldn't have given me kids if I was guilty'.

Eventually this will go to sleep again - it seems that it was the accolades from his peers that opened these wounds again. Those who say Dylan is 'strange'..should evaluate the maturity level of a 60 year old man who could not restrain himself sexually around a teenager and who even now seems to disconnect himself from the father/child relationship and blame everyone else for his other father/child relationships. He abused at the very least, the position of adult authority, security, consistency and trust within the family and for the rest of the children by his actions. There are a great many young women out there that he could have gotten involved in - he took the opportunity to have a relationship with his 'step daughter'. It starts there.

Even if I can't stand Mia - I have to look at the adults for the behavior - both these adults were immature, selfish people - and nobody knows just how long any of this went on with Soon Yi before they ran off into the sunset together - opportunity bred familiarity and ultimately marriage - predators look for opportunity - who knows?

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It’s sort of like just enough,” Allen told his biographer Eric Lax in 1990. Their relationship worked, Allen said, “because we don’t live together and that she has her own life completely and that I have mine that we’re able to maintain this relationship with a certain proper tension.”

In February 1991, The New York Times ran an excerpt from Lax’s glowing biography, “Woody and Mia: A New York Story.” By now, they had one biological child together (or so we thought), 3-year-old son Satchel, now Ronan. Allen had also adopted two of Mia’s 11 other children — Moses, then 13, and Dylan, then 6.

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.

She phoned Allen, told him to stay away, and rushed back home with Satchel. Soon-Yi was there, and Mia attacked her, at one point reportedly breaking a chair over her daughter. Allen rushed over and declared his great love for Soon-Yi and his intent to marry her. According to a 1992 Vanity Fair story, Mia said, “Fine . . . Take her and go.”

Suddenly, Allen changed his mind, fell to his knees and proposed marriage to Mia. The thing with Soon-Yi, he said was “a tepid little affair” that was “probably good for Soon-Yi’s self-esteem.” Mia slapped his face, then Allen sat down with the rest of the family for dinner.

At the time, Allen was shooting “Husbands and Wives” — a film about adultery — and Mia had a starring role. The running joke on the set was that Mia needed a steady supply of “fresh babies.” Even after discovering the affair, she continued shooting. She veered from wanting to work things out with Allen to threatening his life and her own. She’d call him in the middle of night and threaten to gouge out his eyes, demand to know if Soon-Yi was better in bed.

Meanwhile, she adopted two more children. In February 1992, she brought home a 6-year-old boy with cerebral palsy and mental retardation. After four days, she re-homed him in the Southwest. She adopted another child, an 11-year-old blind girl from Vietnam, and after that, she took in Isaiah, an infant born to a crack addict.

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.”

Soon-Yi was exiled, sent in June to work at a camp in Maine, and while in one of their reconciliation phases, Mia was shocked to get a letter from the camp: Soon-Yi had been asked to leave, because Allen was bombarding her with calls. She had no idea where her daughter was, and didn’t find out till the tabloids ran a picture of Soon-Yi outside Allen’s apartment.

131

Woody Allen speaks out

by NewYork44M in

woody allen wrote a very compelling article in the op-ed of the new york times.. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/woody-allen-speaks-out.html?ref=opinion&_r=0.

have you ever been accused of something you did not do?

if that happens, what do you do?.

sammielee24

In fairness - here is her response - sw

Dylan Farrow Responds to Woody Allen: 'Distortions and Outright Lies'

8:27 PM PST 2/7/2014 by THR Staff

Woody Allen

The director's adopted daughter denies Allen's suggestion that Mia Farrow coached her to say he sexually assaulted her.

Dylan Farrow has responded to an op-ed Woody Allen published by The New York Times Friday.

In the response, provided to The Hollywood Reporter, Farrow denounced Allen's op-ed -- in which he suggested Farrow's mother, Mia Farrow, had coached her to accuse Allen of sexually assaulting her as a child.

"I have never wavered in describing what he did to me. I will carry the memories of surviving these experiences for the rest of my life," Farrow said.

She went on to challenge other points in Allen's op-ed, calling it 'the latest rehash of the same legalese, distortions, and outright lies he has leveled at me for the past 20 years."

Allen's op-ed came nearly one week after Farrow published an open letter on the Times website, where she detailed an alleged sexual assault Allen carried out on her when she was seven. Farrow is the adopted daughter of Allen and Mia Farrow.

The famous couple was together for 12 years, and split in 1992 after allegations of the abuse surfaced. Allen was never convicted of a crime relating to the allegations. In 1997 he married Soon-Yi Previn, also an adopted daughter of Farrow.

Read Farrow's full response below.

Once again, Woody Allen is attacking me and my family in an effort to discredit and silence me - but nothing he says or writes can change the truth. For 20 years, I have never wavered in describing what he did to me. I will carry the memories of surviving these experiences for the rest of my life.

His op-ed is the latest rehash of the same legalese, distortions, and outright lies he has leveled at me for the past 20 years. He insists my mother brought criminal charges - in fact, it was a pediatrician who reported the incident to the police based on my firsthand account. He suggests that no one complained of his misconduct prior to his assault on me - court documents show that he was in treatment for what his own therapist described as “inappropriate” behavior with me from as early as 1991. He offers a carefully worded claim that he passed a lie detector test - in fact, he refused to take the test administered by the state police (he hired someone to administer his own test, which authorities refused to accept as evidence). These and other misrepresentations have been rebutted in more detail by independent, highly respected journalists, including this most recent article here:

With all the attempts to misrepresent the facts, it is important to be reminded of the truth contained in court documents from the only final ruling in this case, by the New York Supreme Court in 1992. In denying my father all access to me, that court:

Debunked the "experts" my father claims exonerated him, calling them "colored by their loyalty to Mr. Allen", criticizing the author of their report (who never met me) for destroying all supporting documentation, and calling their conclusions "sanitized and therefore less credible".
Included testimony from babysitters who witnessed inappropriate sexual behavior by my father toward me.
Found that “there is no credible evidence to support Mr. Allen's contention that Ms. Farrow coached Dylan or that Ms. Farrow acted upon a desire for revenge against him for seducing Soon-Yi. Mr. Allen's resort to the stereotypical ‘woman scorned’ defense is an injudicious attempt to divert attention from his failure to act as a responsible parent and adult.”
Concluded that the evidence "...proves that Mr. Allen's behavior toward Dylan was grossly inappropriate and that measures must be taken to protect her.”
Finally, the Connecticut State prosecutor found "probable cause" to prosecute, but made the decision not to in an effort to protect "the child victim", given my fragile state.

From the bottom of my heart, I will be forever grateful for the outpouring of support I have received from survivors and countless others. If speaking out about my experience can help others stand up to their tormentors, it will be worth the pain and suffering my father continues to inflict on me. Woody Allen has an arsenal of lawyers and publicists but the one thing he does not have on his side is the truth. I hope this is the end of his vicious attacks and of the media campaign by his lawyers and publicists, as he’s promised. I won't let the truth be buried and I won't be silenced.

131

Woody Allen speaks out

by NewYork44M in

woody allen wrote a very compelling article in the op-ed of the new york times.. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/woody-allen-speaks-out.html?ref=opinion&_r=0.

have you ever been accused of something you did not do?

if that happens, what do you do?.

sammielee24

Nobody knows who is guilty or innocent of the charges - not everybody thought Woody was necessarily as innocent as he claimed to be - Mia should have taken a lie detector test but then again, she wasn't the one charged - perhaps if Woody had charged her with something, she would have been forced to have a test done and that might have brought things one step closer to closure...sw

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The Judge in the Custody case had this to say about Allen:

"his trial strategy has been to separate his children from their brothers and sister; to turn the children against their mother; to divide adopted children from biological children; to incite the family against their household help; and to set household employees against each other. His
self-absorption, his lack of judgement and his commitment to the continuation of his divisive assault, thereby impeding the healing of the injuries that he has already caused, warrant a careful monitoring of his future contact with the children."

Allen vs. Farrow

"Found that there is no credible evidence to support Mr. Allen's contention that Ms. Farrow coached Dylan or that Ms. Farrow acted upon a desire for revenge against him for seducing Soon-Yi. Mr. Allen's resort to the stereotypical 'woman scorned' defense is an injudicious attempt to divert attention from his failure to act as a responsible parent and adult."

30

Dylan Farrow on her abuse

by sammielee24 in

i recall when woody allen split and married his adopted daughter and this originally came out - dylan farrow put this out for everyone to see after allen won his latest award - some people have never believed her story - swife.

february 1, 2014, 3:04 pm.

an open letter from dylan farrowby dylan farrow frances silver dylan farrow.

sammielee24

J.D., Roman and Woody: Why ‘Great Men’ Get a Pass From Their Peers

Because Oscars matter more

By Nina Burleigh 2/04 12:19pm

NEW YORK, NY – DECEMBER 16: U.S. Actor-Director Woody Allen (L) speaks to reporters in New York, NY after a pre-trial hearing 15 December, 1992 on the custody fight between Allen and former girlfriend Mia Farrow. Farrow’s lawyers are asking that Allen not be allowed to contact his adopted daughter Dylan and not seek custody when his wife dies. (HAI DO/AFP/Getty Images)

How to handle Woody Allen at the Oscars is weighing heavy on the minds of Hollywood this week, after Dylan Farrow’s graphic account of alleged childhood abuse by her adoptive father.

Without dismissing her outright, a few of the stars she has cited by name in a letter published in The New York Times have called whatever went on between the two a private matter and not one that concerns them.

Cate Blanchett, Oscar-nominated for her performance in Blue Jasmine, delicately distanced herself from the fracas, telling reporters in Santa Barbara: “It’s obviously been a long and painful situation for the family, and I hope they find some sort of resolution and peace.” Ms. Blanchett’s co-star, Alec Baldwin, normally good for a ham-handed comment if not a punch in the nose, also tiptoed away, telling reporters: “You are mistaken if you think there is a place for me, or any outsider, in this family’s issue.”

But is child rape really just “a family issue”? Framing sexual abuse of a 7-year-old as a private matter is exactly the kind of logic that has given pedophiles a pass forever. Take into account the crazy he-said-she-said dysfunction of this particular family and Mr. Allen’s status in Hollywood, and his accuser is sunk.

Briefly, for those who haven’t read the letter: Dylan Farrow, now 28, married and living in Florida, says Woody sexually assaulted her for the first time when she was 7 years old, after taking her to the attic and instructing her to lie down on her stomach and watch her brother’s train going round and round a track. That happened after various “grooming” exercises, including sleeping with her in his underwear, separating her from her mother and siblings, frequently sticking his thumb in her mouth and burying his head in her naked lap and inhaling.

Dylan has not spoken publicly before, but this is not the first time we’ve heard the allegations. In 1992, when Mia and Woody were acrimoniously breaking up after Mia discovered Woody’s naked pictures of her adoptive daughter Soon-Yi, Litchfield County (Connecticut) prosecutor Frank S. Maco announced at a press conference that he believed Mr. Allen had molested Dylan Farrow but wouldn’t charge him to avoid a traumatic trial for the young girl.

Hollywood and entertainment fans spent all weekend arguing about over whether Dylan Farrow really lived the creepy stories she tells in her letter to Nick Kristof or whether her adoptive mom, Mia, implanted the memories in her mind. I find it hard to believe that a grown woman would invent something as queer and specific as the lap-breathing and broadcast it to the world, bringing down humiliation on herself for life, not to mention the wrath and contempt of the star machine.

The awful images she depicted weren’t enough to gross out Mr. Allen’s supporters in Hollywood. There’s a tacit assumption among the aristocrats of consciousness that Great Men are entitled to whatever it takes to juice their creativity.

Woody is, of course, catnip to big actresses, all of whom would sell their souls rather than turn down a part. Ms. Blanchett took on what was surely billed to her as “the role of a lifetime” playing the cuckolded, cracked wife in last year’s cringe-worthily misogynistic Blue Jasmine.

Among Woody’s great enablers is Diane Keaton, his collaborator and friend, who picked up his lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes. His apparent pedophilia gives a new meaning to Ms. Keaton’s bizarrely juvenile performance, as she serenaded Woody—wherever he was—with a children’s song called “Make New Friends.”

And anyway, Mr. Allen’s marked preference for female children and/or near-children puts him in esteemed company. Like Roman Polanski and J.D. Salinger (revealed in a recent documentary to have been afflicted with a strong preference for underage girls), men who spend their days humming “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” will not be called to task by fellow creative, whatever the evidence.

Salinger’s sickly friendships with little girls were always on open display, too, but that didn’t stop the literati from anointing him as a 20th-century genius. In both For Esme with Love and Squalor and A Great Day for Bananafish, his predilection for pedophilia was on full display. I remember reading the latter in high school and immediately picturing a man exposing himself to a girl underwater. I never got into a Salinger book after that.

LOS ANGELES, UNITED STATES: Actor-director Woody Allen (R) and his adopted daughter and girlfriend, Soon Yi Previn arrive for the world premiere of his new film, "Deconstructing Harry" 05 December in Los Angeles. The film stars, among others, Mariel Hemingway, Demi Moore and Elisabeth Shue and opens in the United States 12 December. (Vince Bucci/AFP/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, UNITED STATES: Actor-director Woody Allen (R) and his girlfriend, Soon Yi Previn arrive for the world premiere of his new film, “Deconstructing Harry” 05 December in Los Angeles. The film stars, among others, Mariel Hemingway, Demi Moore and Elisabeth Shue and opens in the United States 12 December. (Vince Bucci/AFP/Getty Images)

Their real-life methods vary, of course: Mr. Polanski, anally raping a 13-year-old in the louche heyday of 1970s Hollywood, Salinger grooming the model for Esme from girlhood, only to dump her the day after he had sex with her as an adult, and Woody allegedly hoovering up the scent of female childhood in the lap of his girlfriend’s adopted child.

What they all have in common is a cheering section of supporters, most of whom can put “Oscar nominated” or “member of the Academy” somewhere in their biographies. In the Woody camp right now, one finds Robert B. Weide, “an Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning filmmaker” who penned a massive defense for the Daily Beast this weekend, strongly suggesting that Dylan is making it up or at least describing an implanted memory. According to Mr. Weide, who made a documentary about Woody, the whole story could be a fantasy that grew out of Mia’s influence over her troubled daughter, at a time of deep turmoil in the family unit as sister Soon-Yi and Woody hooked up.

Wiede and other Woody supporters have a point. In the parlance of adoption reformers, Mia has her own pathology, being a “collector,” who adopted 14 children, many of them “special needs” kids. Think of cat ladies, and you get the idea.

But it is absolutely impossible to watch Ms. Blanchett emoting in the dramatic final scene where Mr. Baldwin tells her he’s in love with a young woman and not suspect that Woody was directing her to channel Mia on that day in 1992 when she discovered the nude photos of Soon-Yi.

As I wrote back when Mr. Polanski was arrested in Switzerland in ’09:

To many artists and their enablers in the creative world, the prosecution of a major male figure for something as apparently insignificant as forced sex with a female child is a witch hunt, the persecution of a genius by low-level, unimaginative legal drones, who wear uncool suits and wouldn’t know a semiotic deconstruction if it smacked them in the face.

Hollywood enablers are not alone. We, as a society, are O.K. with it too. Mr. Allen’s preference was never hidden. He cast 16-year-old Mariel Hemingway as his own lover in Manhattan. Hemingway later confessed that he was the first person she ever kissed and that she was “way too young” for that role.

We live in a society in which pretty young girls are presumed to be just what the doctor ordered for older men. We don’t marry off 8-year-olds to their uncles, Saudi-style, but we are not revolted by the image of gross Woody Allen in his late 50s kissing Mariel Hemingway. We consume such images from the point of view of male privilege. Unless and until Mariel, years later, says she didn’t really like it, we don’t even imagine what it meant or felt like from her point of view.

Celebrating the kind of old-man/girl love that Woody promotes in his movies is on one end of a spectrum of male privilege. At the other end are Dylan’s story and the fact that teen girls can’t ride subways and buses in our own great city without having to fear being groped and exposed.

Brooke Axtell, the founder of Survivor Healing and Empowerment, points out that 97 percent of rapists will never spend a day in jail.

Statistics like that tell us how far we have not come since Sigmund Freud noted that late Victorian women were conjuring up eerily similar memories of childhood sexual abuse. The great doctor chose not to devote his career to studying the pathology of men who couldn’t keep their hands off small females. Instead, he labeled these women hysterical and set about trying to figure out what internal flaw caused their disorder.

As we come to bury Woody, not to praise him, it’s helpful to recall that the founder of psychoanalysis, which is after all, Mr. Allen’s religion, was in the end a better friend to predators than to prey. So, too, is Hollywood.

30

Dylan Farrow on her abuse

by sammielee24 in

i recall when woody allen split and married his adopted daughter and this originally came out - dylan farrow put this out for everyone to see after allen won his latest award - some people have never believed her story - swife.

february 1, 2014, 3:04 pm.

an open letter from dylan farrowby dylan farrow frances silver dylan farrow.

sammielee24

Probably not a good idea to put that up here either until it is proven. People get sued for less.

--------------------------------

LOL...it has been posted in the NY papers - it's public - I don't think anyone is going to sue anyone for something in the public domain unless it's the person writing the article. It's their fight to wage - but considering that some of the discussion on the JW board revolves aroaund sexual abuse by the more powerful within a relgion, I found the parallels similar when it comes to her claim of sexual abuse by the powerful within hollywood. I don't know if it's true or not. Additionally, while anyone might agree that one cannot remain a 'victim' forever, it could be said that if not for those 'victim's' continuing to fight in any way they can, there would be no justice brought to light; and that can be found in the 30 year fight for those sexually abused by priests or Elders etc in any society. Perhaps her writing about it is her fight ....I don't really know. - sw

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"In an open-letter to The New York Times posted online Saturday, Dylan Farrow made her first public comments about the 1992 incident. In a letter to op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof, she said she was moved to speak out because of Hollywood’s continued embrace of Allen.

“That he got away with what he did to me haunted me as I grew up,” wrote Farrow. “I was stricken with guilt that I had allowed him to be near other little girls.”

The New York Times reported that Allen declined comment. Also, representatives for Allen and for former partner Mia Farrow also did not immediately return requests for comment Saturday from The Associated Press. Allen has long maintained his innocence"

30

Dylan Farrow on her abuse

by sammielee24 in

i recall when woody allen split and married his adopted daughter and this originally came out - dylan farrow put this out for everyone to see after allen won his latest award - some people have never believed her story - swife.

february 1, 2014, 3:04 pm.

an open letter from dylan farrowby dylan farrow frances silver dylan farrow.

sammielee24

I recall when Woody Allen split and married his adopted daughter and this originally came out - Dylan Farrow put this out for everyone to see after Allen won his latest award - some people have never believed her story - swife

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FEBRUARY 1, 2014, 3:04 PM

An Open Letter From Dylan Farrow

By DYLAN FARROW Frances Silver Dylan Farrow

(A note from Nicholas Kristof: In 1993, accusations that Woody Allen had abused his adoptive daughter, Dylan Farrow, filled the headlines, part of a sensational story about the celebrity split between Allen and his girlfriend, Mia Farrow. This is a case that has been written about endlessly, but this is the first time that Dylan Farrow herself has written about it in public. It’s important to note that Woody Allen was never prosecuted in this case and has consistently denied wrongdoing; he deserves the presumption of innocence. So why publish an account of an old case on my blog? Partly because the Golden Globe lifetime achievement award to Allen ignited a debate about the propriety of the award. Partly because the root issue here isn’t celebrity but sex abuse. And partly because countless people on all sides have written passionately about these events, but we haven’t fully heard from the young woman who was at the heart of them. I’ve written a column about this, but it’s time for the world to hear Dylan’s story in her own words.)

What’s your favorite Woody Allen movie? Before you answer, you should know: when I was seven years old, Woody Allen took me by the hand and led me into a dim, closet-like attic on the second floor of our house. He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother’s electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me. He talked to me while he did it, whispering that I was a good girl, that this was our secret, promising that we’d go to Paris and I’d be a star in his movies. I remember staring at that toy train, focusing on it as it traveled in its circle around the attic. To this day, I find it difficult to look at toy trains.

For as long as I could remember, my father had been doing things to me that I didn’t like. I didn’t like how often he would take me away from my mom, siblings and friends to be alone with him. I didn’t like it when he would stick his thumb in my mouth. I didn’t like it when I had to get in bed with him under the sheets when he was in his underwear. I didn’t like it when he would place his head in my naked lap and breathe in and breathe out. I would hide under beds or lock myself in the bathroom to avoid these encounters, but he always found me. These things happened so often, so routinely, so skillfully hidden from a mother that would have protected me had she known, that I thought it was normal. I thought this was how fathers doted on their daughters. But what he did to me in the attic felt different. I couldn’t keep the secret anymore.

When I asked my mother if her dad did to her what Woody Allen did to me, I honestly did not know the answer. I also didn’t know the firestorm it would trigger. I didn’t know that my father would use his sexual relationship with my sister to cover up the abuse he inflicted on me. I didn’t know that he would accuse my mother of planting the abuse in my head and call her a liar for defending me. I didn’t know that I would be made to recount my story over and over again, to doctor after doctor, pushed to see if I’d admit I was lying as part of a legal battle I couldn’t possibly understand. At one point, my mother sat me down and told me that I wouldn’t be in trouble if I was lying – that I could take it all back. I couldn’t. It was all true. But sexual abuse claims against the powerful stall more easily. There were experts willing to attack my credibility. There were doctors willing to gaslight an abused child.

After a custody hearing denied my father visitation rights, my mother declined to pursue criminal charges, despite findings of probable cause by the State of Connecticut – due to, in the words of the prosecutor, the fragility of the “child victim.” Woody Allen was never convicted of any crime. That he got away with what he did to me haunted me as I grew up. I was stricken with guilt that I had allowed him to be near other little girls. I was terrified of being touched by men. I developed an eating disorder. I began cutting myself. That torment was made worse by Hollywood. All but a precious few (my heroes) turned a blind eye. Most found it easier to accept the ambiguity, to say, “who can say what happened,” to pretend that nothing was wrong. Actors praised him at awards shows. Networks put him on TV. Critics put him in magazines. Each time I saw my abuser’s face – on a poster, on a t-shirt, on television – I could only hide my panic until I found a place to be alone and fall apart.

Last week, Woody Allen was nominated for his latest Oscar. But this time, I refuse to fall apart. For so long, Woody Allen’s acceptance silenced me. It felt like a personal rebuke, like the awards and accolades were a way to tell me to shut up and go away. But the survivors of sexual abuse who have reached out to me – to support me and to share their fears of coming forward, of being called a liar, of being told their memories aren’t their memories – have given me a reason to not be silent, if only so others know that they don’t have to be silent either.

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.

But others are still scared, vulnerable, and struggling for the courage to tell the truth. The message that Hollywood sends matters for them.

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?

Woody Allen is a living testament to the way our society fails the survivors of sexual assault and abuse.

So imagine your seven-year-old daughter being led into an attic by Woody Allen. Imagine she spends a lifetime stricken with nausea at the mention of his name. Imagine a world that celebrates her tormenter.

Are you imagining that? Now, what’s your favorite Woody Allen movie?

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Dead pregnant woman forced to stay on life support, due to TX State law

by adamah in

there's an interesting medicolegal issue arising out of tx, a pregnant women who suffered a pulmonary embolism in november and died (when she was 14 weeks pregnant).. however, the body has been kept on life-support all this time (against her and her husband's wishes), due to an ambiguous tx state law (tex hs.

code ann.

166.049) which actually blocks the ability of the patient and family to decide:.

sammielee24

Moreover, in the 1989 case of Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to invalidate a Missouri statute that declares that "the life of each human being begins at conception," that "unborn children have protectable interests in life, health, and well-being," and that all state laws (including criminal laws) "shall be interpreted and construed to acknowledge on behalf of the unborn child at every stage of development, all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of this state," to the extent permitted by the Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court rulings. A lower court had ruled that Missouri's law "impermissibl[y]" adopted "a theory of when life begins," and blocked its enforcement, but the Supreme Court nullified that ruling, allowing the law to go into effect so long as the state did not use it to restrict abortion.

In Congress, some opponents objected to the bill's recognition of the "child in utero" as a member of the human family who can be harmed in a crime. Yet, on July 25, 2000, the House passed on a vote of 417-0 a bill that contained the same definition of "child in utero" and that embodied the same basic legal principle. That bill, the Innocent Child Protection Act, said that no state or federal authority may "carry out a sentence of death on a woman while she carries a child in utero. . . .>child in 'utero' means a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb." The principle embodied in the Innocent Child Protection Act was obvious -- carrying out the execution would take two human lives, including one convicted of no crime. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act extended that same principle to the rest of the federal criminal code, recognizing that when a criminal attacks a woman, injuring or killing her and injuring or killing her unborn child, he has claimed two victims.//Key Facts in the Unborn Victim Act

285

Dead pregnant woman forced to stay on life support, due to TX State law

by adamah in

there's an interesting medicolegal issue arising out of tx, a pregnant women who suffered a pulmonary embolism in november and died (when she was 14 weeks pregnant).. however, the body has been kept on life-support all this time (against her and her husband's wishes), due to an ambiguous tx state law (tex hs.

code ann.

166.049) which actually blocks the ability of the patient and family to decide:.

sammielee24

If a fetus is just a fetus - why is it a child in cases of homicide? There are people in prison for killing a woman and charged with a double homicide - if a fetus is just a fetus - there should be no such thing as legal rights...sw

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-212) is a United States law which recognizes a child in utero as a legal victim, if he or she is injured or killed during the commission of any of over 60 listed federal crimes of violence. The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb". [1]

16

Another mall shooting - how soon until the question becomes ...

by Simon in

... not "why does this happen" or even "how do we prevent it" but "here's todays locations and body counts".. so sad that some people just went to the shops and now their families will never see them again.. seems like it is an insolveable problem for america..

sammielee24

Here is one of the article - interesting that the US has sent war ships to Russia in case they are the victim of terrorists - and to think that you would allow civilian terrorists to continue to shoot up people throughout the USA is really nonsensical. The 'rights' around gun ownership can be altered or ammended at will - other people in other countries still have guns and they still have mentally ill people but they still aren't going into the crowds and shooting innocents to the same degree that Americans are. It was declared that the USA could never have a universal health care system and yet it is happening.... sw

31 School Shootings in America Since Columbine, Only 14 in the Rest of the World Combined

December 15, 2012 policymic

It is the story of our times — someone walks into a public space, a theater, a mall, a school, armed with a gun, motivated by hate, by hurt, by some irrational form of desperation, and starts shooting. They come not to kill a specific person or persons, but to stage a dark and warped act of terror. They don’t care about the people on the receiving side of their hateful infliction, or their loved ones, their hopes and dreams. It's selfish and its beyond disturbing. For hours now, we've heard the details, the motives, the locations, the timeline, but all I want to hear about is the victims. I want to know about those 20 young children, all between 5 and 10. I want to know what they wanted to be when they got older, what their favorite school subject was, what they wanted most for Christmas. This world was robbed on Friday, and is every time we suffer this kind of loss. The next Dr. King, the next Steve Jobs, the next Gandhi may have all perished in the gunfire of a Connecticut schoolroom that morning. A parent should never have to bury his or her own child.

There have been 31 school shootings since Columbine. School shootings in every other country in the world COMBINED since that time is 14. We've created complex systems and over-funded programs to monitor foreign terrorists in every country, but somehow we've overlooked the terrorists at home. No one ever knows how these people got their guns or why they were given a pass on psychological evaluations. Somehow, in this complicated, brilliant, and resourceful society, where we can design a way to share cell phone content by touching two phones together, we can’t decipher the reasons these shootings keep happening nor a way to make it stop. As social critic George Carlin once said, "we have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; we have more degrees, but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, yet more problems," in other words, we're missing something; we're moving ahead, but all while falling backwards.

This is not a free country. A free country is one whose children feel safe. The countries we've been involved closely with over the past decades: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Bosnia, etc. — we were motivated to get involved because of our distaste for violence, our horror at seeing innocence slaughtered, a desire to pass on the flame of freedom to nations dictated by fear. Just last week, President Obama proclaimed, 'The world is watching' to Syria's president Assad, as the revelations of the lengths his regime may go to destroy its own people worsened. It's time for the rest of the world to say to us, 'We are watching.' Forget about nation building and removing terror from everywhere else except here. It's time to fix this place we all call home, it's time we hugged our children more and our guns less.