I'm really glad she was able to write this down and make it public.

It really needed to be said. Many people need to read this; I can only hope they do.

A big, fat K&R.

Mia Farrow being her mother make Dylan less believable? Why is Alan more believable than Mia?

I don't think that makes either one more believable. This is not something I have paid a lot of attention to but I do know there was a lot of bad behavior from both sides in that divorce and some of it brings into question what really happened.

Roy Moore was a judge. A judge believing someone means about nothing at this point.

things that happened to me when I was seven, and I believe she can, too.

What you can't do is demand others believe the same.

This article has a run down of some of the questionable behavior surrounding those allegations. I could swing either way on this one. Would need to see people tell me to my face to know what to believe and even then it would be tough.

https://www.thenation.com/article/woody-and-mia-modern-family-timeline/

Was that made up too?

Some of the responses here are almost worse than the testimony of a wounded child.

And there's this from her younger brother. (He also links to an investigative report in Vanity Fair that was very thorough.)

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/my-father-woody-allen-danger-892572

I believe my sister. This was always true as a brother who trusted her, and, even at 5 years old, was troubled by our father's strange behavior around her: climbing into her bed in the middle of the night, forcing her to suck his thumb — behavior that had prompted him to enter into therapy focused on his inappropriate conduct with children prior to the allegations.

But more importantly, I've approached the case as an attorney and a reporter, and found her allegations to be credible. The facts are persuasive and well documented. I won't list them again here, but most have been meticulously reported by journalist Maureen Orth in Vanity Fair. The only final legal disposition is a custody ruling that found Woody Allen's behavior "grossly inappropriate" and stressed that "measures must be taken to protect [Dylan]."

On May 4, The Hollywood Reporter published a cover interview with Woody Allen, quirky auteur. To me it is a sterling example of how not to talk about sexual assault. Dylan's allegations are never raised in the interview and receive only a parenthetical mention — an inaccurate reference to charges being "dropped." THR later issued a correction: "not pursued."

The correction points to what makes Allen, Cosby and other powerful men so difficult to cover. The allegations were never backed by a criminal conviction. This is important. It should always be noted. But it is not an excuse for the press to silence victims, to never interrogate allegations. Indeed, it makes our role more important when the legal system so often fails the vulnerable as they face off against the powerful.

Here is exactly what charges not being pursued looked like in my sister's case in 1993:

SNIP

saying she saw him with his face in Dylan's lap, and that he would have charged him except that the "victim" was too "fragile."

I think the prosecutor was right to take her well being into account.

sexually abused their daughter and took nude photographs of her teenage daughter. I would be "dramatic" too.

Oh, yeah, that's some big drama there.

Dory Previn blamed the young woman because she couldn't bring herself to blame her husband. It's not an unknown phenomenon. I've done it myself.

Sinatra as a much older man seduced a girl-- it's not the girl who transgressed all by herself. The grown man who had been married four times might be the one who constantly needed drama.

Just sayin... it takes two to tango, but usually only one gets the calumny. And when that one is younger and female, well, gotta wonder why. Previn and Sinatra (and Roy Moore, etc) were older, powerful men with many connections. Ditto Woody Allen. These men could control the coverage-- and they did.

has come to us through Woody Allen and his defenders.

"Drama" -- really? How much of the "drama" you're thinking about comes from Woody Allen? Why isn't HE the drama queen?

I remember trauma in detail. An airplane crashed on my elementary school. Want to hear all about it? It happened over 60 years ago.

If she was raped or digitally penetrated, there would be anal and vaginal tears and scars.

in which the mother made unsubstantiated claims that the father molested their daughter, and to bolster her accusation she made up quote from the son regarding events that he did not witness.

The judge believed the mother more or less unquestioningly.



That doesn't mean that Dylan is untruthful, but fabrication of this sort is not unheard of, alas.

None of his movies are my favorite. You don’t have to look too far to see the misogyny. He’s a vile human being.

...that if he'd been 6 feet tall, blonde-haired and muscular, he'd have been beaten to a pulp for some of the jokes he told about women...

I think people assumed that because he was short, scrawny and wore glasses that he was making all that stuff up, instead of actually living it.

N/t

Now I know why.

Thanks to Ronan Farrow for standing with his sister and for the devastating article about Weinstein.

It's creepy, and you can't really watch it without thinking that he's -- as usual-- echoing his own inner life. Dylan Farrow (and her sister Soon-yi) were dealing with a man who made film about his character having sex with a teen. You don't have to believe them (though you probably ought to)-- he's the one who made Manhattan.

Speaking of Manhattan, where he cast the teenaged (16) Mariel Hemingway:
Mariel Hemingway Says Woody Allen Tried to Seduce Her When She Was a Teenager
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/03/woody-allen-mariel-hemingway-manhattan

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-woody-allen-allegations-not-so-fast

The videotape and the medical exams weren’t the only problems Mia faced in bringing abuse charges against her former lover. There were problems with inconsistencies in her daughter’s off-camera narrative as well. A New York Times article dated March 26, 1993, quotes from Mia’s own testimony, during which she recalled taking the child to a doctor on the same day as the alleged incident. Farrow recalled, “I think (Dylan) said (Allen) touched her, but when asked where, she just looked around and went like this,” at which point Mia patted her shoulders. Farrow recalls she took Dylan to another doctor, four days later. On the stand, Allen’s attorney asked Mia about the second doctor’s findings: “There was no evidence of injury to the anal or vaginal area, is that correct?” Farrow answered, “Yes.”

In the midst of the proceedings, on February 2, 1993, a revealing article appeared in the Los Angeles Times, headlined: “Nanny Casts Doubt on Farrow Charges,” in which former nanny Monica Thompson (whose salary was paid by Allen, since three of the brood were also his) swore in a deposition to Allen’s attorneys that she was pressured by Farrow to support the molestation charges, and the pressure led her to resign her position. Thompson had this to say about the videotape: ““I know that the tape was made over the course of at least two and perhaps three days. I recall Ms. Farrow saying to Dylan at that time, ‘Dylan, what did daddy do… and what did he do next?’ Dylan appeared not to be interested, and Ms. Farrow would stop taping for a while and then continue.”

Thompson further revealed a conversation she had with Kristie Groteke, another nanny. “She told me that she felt guilty allowing Ms. Farrow to say those things about Mr. Allen. (Groteke) said the day Mr. Allen spent with the kids, she did not have Dylan out of her sight for longer than five minutes. She did not remember Dylan being without her underwear.”

On April 20, 1993, a sworn statement was entered into evidence by Dr. John M. Leventhal, who headed the Yale-New Haven Hospital investigative team looking into the abuse charges. An article from the New York Times dated May 4, 1993, includes some interesting excerpts of their findings. As to why the team felt the charges didn’t hold water, Leventhal states: “We had two hypotheses: one, that these were statements made by an emotionally disturbed child and then became fixed in her mind. And the other hypothesis was that she was coached or influenced by her mother. We did not come to a firm conclusion. We think that it was probably a combination.”


snip

not "recovered memories."

I can clearly remember things that happened to me when I was 7. I'm sure she can, too. Whatever reasons people had for not choosing to believe her in 1993, she is an adult now who can speak for herself.

When all this first came to light I remember thinking -- well, someday we'll find out the truth, one way or another, from Dylan herself. And I think we have.

For many years, my family talked about an incident that happened when I was maybe three or four, something funny that happened at a family get-together where I was present.

I'd heard the story many, many times - to the point where I could picture it in my mind, who was there, what was said, et cetera.

It turned out that I wasn't even there - it was a younger cousin who was actually part of the incident, not me. And yet I still "remember" it, clear as day, having been told the story so many times.

I remember a traumatic event from that age very clearly, and not because other people are telling me. I'm sure she does, too.

... going back to when I was a toddler, still sleeping in a crib. That has nothing to do with it.

If you are repeatedly told a story about something that happened when you were a child, it is easy to "remember it" as though it had actually occurred - despite the fact that it may never have happened.

or recovered memories.

She's told a consistent story all along.

... being hypnotized, or "recovered memories"?

Her story would "remain consistent" if she'd been coached repeatedly by her mother, and came to believe that things that never happened did indeed happen.

Don't you think it rather curious that no one has ever even hinted that Woody Allen was attracted to female children, or displayed any pedophile tendencies, other than Mia Farrow - who leveled that accusation in the midst of a contentious break-up? Not once, in a very long career, has there ever been so much as a whisper of that type of behaviour.

Woody making her suck HIS thumb.

Do you think Ronan's memories are all due to coaching, too?

... families tend to support their siblings and the parent they are closest to. Not unusual at all.

To get back at Allen

In her 2015 memoir Out in the Sun, Hemingway wrote that after she turned 18, Allen tried to lure her to Paris: “Our relationship was platonic, but I started to see that he had a kind of crush on me, though I dismissed it as the kind of thing that seemed to happen any time middle-aged men got around young women.”

Hemingway also wrote that her parents continued encouraging her to travel to Paris with a then-45-year-old Allen, even though she was unaware if she’d have her own room on the trip: “I didn’t know what the arrangement was going to be, that I wasn’t sure if I was even going to have my own room. Woody hadn’t said that. He hadn’t even hinted it. But I wanted them to put their foot down. They didn’t. They kept lightly encouraging me.”

After Allen traveled to her family home in Idaho to whisk her to Paris, Hemingway asked him: “I’m not going to get my own room, am I? I can’t go to Paris with you.” He departed Iowa on his private jet the next morning.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/woody-allens-creepy-obsession-with-adult-teen-romances

And there is his wife/adopted stepdaughter. I am inclined to think he more closely fits Roy Moore's profile.

on edit: she was 18, so legal age?

And certainly old enough to say she didn't want to travel with Allen - so why was she hoping her "parents would put their foot down"?

Her whole story is rather, uh, vague.

Google reveals he always appears touchy feelie. Not proof of anything but maybe too much PDA given the allegations of bad behavior.
Slight creep factor as Asian girls don't always like hugs, but again nothing provable.

Still, I would not trust my underage daughters in his company. Would you? So he is convicted in the court of public opinion.

As for Hemingway: At 18, she was still a kid in my eyes. Still young enough to get a pass from me for being slightly vague on sexual matters.

A father showing affection towards his daughters is somehow suspect.

The only "allegations of bad behaviour" have been from an ex, who was totally humiliated at being dumped for a younger woman. Sadly, Mia didn't have any problem breaking-up the Previn's marriage when she was "the younger woman".

"Slightly vague on sexual matters"? Saying that she thought Allen "had a crush on her" when she was 18 is not exactly evidence of anything remotely close to "sexual matters". Did Hemingway accuse Allen of anything sexual? No, she didn't.

Look, it's simple. The term "once a pedophile, always a pedophile" is all over this thread. And yet there has never been a hint of scandal about Allen being attracted to children. Are we supposed to believe that he's "always been a pedophile" and not a single person has ever so much as hinted at that being the case?

Woody Allen has worked with thousands of people over his long career. Funny that not a single one of them have ever even hinted that he has a predilection for female children. Even at the height of his battle with Farrow over her allegations, not a single person has come forward to say, "Well, now that you mention it, I did notice ..."

I doubt that the "always a pedophile" could have managed to keep his pedophilia a secret for decades, both before he was with Farrow and all the many years after.

He isn't going to win me back.

That sounds like a TrumpTweet!

but nice try, anyway.

Trump always refers to newspapers/news outlets he doesn't like by saying they have a dwindling audience!

since in this case it's true.

to travel to Europe with a man in his mid-40s. Why was it Mariel who had to confront Allen about the sleeping arrangements?

BTW, the teen relationship in Manhattan was based on a real relationship that Allen had with a teenager while filming Annie Hall.

Since he married his own young stepdaughter after an affair of apparently several years.

It's not like this guy hasn't ever crossed the jailbait barrier.
So I don't know if that and the film 'Manhattan' constitute a "whisper", but you might perk up your ears.

... who is attracted to younger women. Farrow accused him of sexually molesting a four-year-old child, not a "younger woman".

There is a difference between being attracted to younger women and being sexually attracted to four-year-old girls.

A child of 7 is impressionable. If say someone in her family fed her information unknowingly or carelessly that can translate into a "real" memory for a child. And considering how volatile the household was with high emotion that can make a dent in the psyche.

The psychologists didn't believe she was molested. I began wondering if someone else had molested her and she transferred it onto Allen but I still doubt that because of the different stories she gave and the therapists assertions.

She believes it happened and I have deep sadness about that for her and for her siblings that believe it. If something more solid were to come of this I would gladly change my mind but I do think this was a horrible fiasco and a deeply confusing time for everyone in that family. It's really a tragedy either way.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2014/02/woody-allen-sex-abuse-10-facts

I read others like that which were similar but not that one... and it does provide food for thought. .

My point was that there is another school of thought on this. Both deserve to be heard but ultimately I don't know how any one can come to a full conclusion considering the aspects of the dissolution of a relationship involving children, affairs, anger, custody, an unusual arrangement, etc. They went to court and he wasn't convicted.

The only conclusion I can come to is that Dylan definitely went through something terrible. She has either been victimized by Allen or maybe misled by Farrow, most likely unintentionally or maybe with her anger so palpable, with some misplaced intent.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/my-father-woody-allen-danger-892572

I believe my sister. This was always true as a brother who trusted her, and, even at 5 years old, was troubled by our father's strange behavior around her: climbing into her bed in the middle of the night, forcing her to suck his thumb — behavior that had prompted him to enter into therapy focused on his inappropriate conduct with children prior to the allegations.

Allen is easily obsessed as his films indicate. Early in his career it was the blonde non-Jewish girls who were child-like. Louise Lasser, Diane Keaton, Mia. He made jokes about his thing for non-Jewish girls. Mia was in "Rosemary's Baby" directed by Roman Polanski. Her demon baby, special baby, whatever the heck that baby was. He seemed to obsess over Mia for a time like she might be the one he could have a child with. Then a child of hers may not be his at all. And he becomes fixated on at least one if not two adopted children of hers. I am not saying this is anything but speculation, but Allen has a keen sense of irony. And obsessions he seems not to control all that well. Like a Hemingway novel what we see is the tip of the iceberg. What we can't see is the reality.

Accused by one daughter. Married to another. I have not watched a film of his since because I cannot get past his real life patterns.

She never appeared "child-like" to me. Nor did Keaton or Farrow. Just my own opinion on that, of course.

It has been awhile, so I may be off. The blonde women had slightly girl-next-door qualities in his films, especially Mia. They were not mature femme fatale types. So child-like to me in this case means free-spirited, petite, soft voices, tousled hair or in Keaton's case dress-up, etc.

I think Mia was always seen as a very hippie flower child. Anyway, I am not defending or refuting with any passion as I no longer watch his films where his old men obsess about barely legal young teens.

Farrow and Allen went through a particularly bitter break-up. Farrow had been humiliated by the fact that Allen was leaving her for a younger woman, her adopted daughter, Soon-yi.

Farrow's outrage at the idea was pretty ironic, given that Farrow herself - after being befriended by Dory Previn, who "treated Mia like a daughter" - embarked on an affair with Dory's husband, Andre Previn, and he divorced Dory in order to marry her. He was 16 years older than Farrow.

Woody Allen is wealthy and well-known - and yet not a single hint of being a pedophile has ever surfaced, and no such accusations have ever been made - EXCEPT for Farrow's accusations.

with Soon-yi, when she was his step-daughter and a teenager still in boarding school.



I couldn't believe people would defend him even after that, much less the rest.

... didn't have a typical father/daughter relationship. They never even lived in the same house; Mia maintained a separate apartment for her children while she and Allen were involved.

Farrow herself said after-the-fact that she was the one who fostered a closer relationship between them, encouraging Allen to take Soon-yi out to baseball games and other outings.

Farrow started dating Frank Sinatra when she was 19 and he was 48; they married two years later. I don't remember Sinatra having to be defended for "dating a teenager".

And he had the same parental relationship with Soon-yi that he had with the other children who were living with Mia -- except for, in Soon-Yi's case - the dollop of nude pictures on the side.

And Sinatra wasn't a father figure to Mia, or in a relationship with Mia's mother. There's no comparison.

He and Mia werent even married.

People cant get the basic facts of this case correct.

From Vanity Fair, 2008

https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/1992/11/farrow199211



Technically, yes, he wasn't Soon Yi's stepfather. He was father to her siblings and the partner to her mother for ten years before he got involved with her -- as a teenager.

..
in the face of one man:s denial.

Of course Farrow was angry, but I have no reason to believe she'd

seek revenge in such a pernicious way.

... in the middle of a contentious break-up.

I'm not of the the woman is always telling the truth school of thought. Women are just as prone to lie as men, especially when they are hurt and out for revenge.

Allen has had a very lengthy career - and yet no one has ever even hinted at his being a pedophile - ever - other than Farrow.

The testimony of a only "one" woman and "one" underage female is nothing compared to that of a famous male "with a lengthy career"..I think I know what school you are in.

... is famous, and has deep pockets - which would make him a great target for any "victim", legitimate or not.

And yet there hasn't been a single accusation made against him for molesting a child, other than an ex who was publicly humiliated by being dumped for another woman, and had an axe to grind.

Amazing, eh?

defend them using the same argument?..

Last edited Tue Nov 28, 2017, 07:32 PM - Edit history (1)

... multiple women came forward.

Where are the multiple children that Allen molested? Where were the parents of these children who were sexually assaulted by Allen?

Not only have there not been any such accusations over these many years, there have not even been rumours about such activity.

It's a matter of the weight of the evidence. Is it more likely that Allen has been molesting children for decades and has managed to completely escape detection, or is it more likely that a distraught Farrow leveled the accusations and coached her child to concur?

Given Allen's fame and high profile, how likely is it that not a single person, other than Farrow, has ever come forward with so much as a "now that I think back on it, I did see things that would lead me to believe he was sexually attracted to children"? Not one person has, and I think we can agree that Allen has had contact with literally thousands of people who would have noticed anything untoward in that regard. And when it comes to pedophilia, even the most closed-mouth people have a tendency to speak up.

It's like any other crime. If someone accused you of being an embezzler, and yet you'd worked for decades without ever being accused of such by anyone else, what is the likelihood that they are telling the truth and you have been getting away with theft without being caught, or even suspected of such behaviour, for an entire lifetime?

The position you are taking here seems to be that one accusation - unproven, and leveled by someone with her own agenda - outweighs a lifetime of never having been so much as suspected of such wrongdoing by a single other person, no less accused by anyone.

When you have talent, power, & money, the world is yours, no matter what you do.

But I can SORT OF understand when people separate someone's work or art from the person himself, as they do with Picasso. Still, I'm sure most people did not believe his daughter. Her brother said he always did (I read), and of course, now Mia Farrow does (and may always have).

He's a pedophile, for sure. And likely still is. Once a pedophile, always a pedophile?

... where Allen has been accused of pedophilia.

"Once a pedophile, always a pedophile." And yet amazingly enough, no such accusation has been made about him other than the single allegation made by an extremely distraught ex.

The porn photos he'd been taking of her when she was a child? The things they did together (that they admitted to Mia). The whole sordid story about a child and the man who was her only father figure in the family?

Once a pedophile, always a pedophile, they say. It's not something that's curable.

... when those photos were taken.

Allen was not "the man who was her only father figure" - she herself has said that. Her father is Andre Previn.

They are still together after twenty years. That sounds like a love match, not a "pedophile" and "child".

They had been carrying on for some time, at that point, of course.

Then there's Mariel Hemingway, who has stated that he tried to seduce her when she was underage and in one of his films.

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/11/20/art-monstrous-men/

Trying to divorce the artist from the art when those artists are revealed as abusers. The big names she taps are Polanski, Cosby, and Allen.

and I liked him previously, though not with the passion of some others. I always thought he was a bit overrated.

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/11/20/art-monstrous-men/

It's a really interesting examination of how we should approach the works of men who have been revealed to have been abusive, and how we abuse women who choose creative endeavours. Some small excerpts:



It goes into a great deal more depth, but I don't want to copy the whole thing here. I highly recommend this, it's an excellent read.

And have two children.
Don’t recall having heard any allegations against him in that time period.

the dams broke?

'cause we definitely have a Winner.

Woody Allen voluntarily agreed to stay away from Dylan and voluntarily underwent therapy because of his problem with "boundaries" with his daughter. Within days of signing a no contact agreement he went to a lawyer and sought full custody.

The issues of sexual assault came up after years of weird behavior with the child that adults found to be inappropriate. It is not a stretch to believe he crossed the line into sexual assault.

Mia was found at fault by the judge for not heeding the signs. If anything her hippy drippyness tended to excuse rather than accuse.

And Mia lied during the fight in court, claiming Ronan as Allen's son for child support (though she now giggles that he's likely Frank's, and claims she and Sinatra "never really split up," completely insulting Barbara Sinatra, Frank's wife at the time, in the process) so not a pillar of honesty there.

The Allen situation is a custody mess that leaves you unsure who to believe or what Dylan remembers vs. was told happened.

Lumping it in with cases with dozens of accusers like Cosby, Weinstein and Trump is a stretch.

Last edited Tue Nov 28, 2017, 12:09 AM - Edit history (1)

exposure to what was going on than the brother closest to her in age.

The younger brother has pointed out that his father was having sex with his sister, while the children were still living in Mia's home. (And now Ronan's father is married to Ronan's sister.)

...we might never be able to watch many films, listen to much music or enjoy art, sports, literature or even use recipes from the frugal gormet. Are we supposed to stop watching Hitchcock films and avoid movies with Errol Flynn or Joan Crawford? Thank goodness I was never a Fatty Arbuckle fan.

Have we forgiven Ted Kennedy for the tragedy at Chappaquiddick or do we just look the other way?

Over the course of my long life I've been disappointed by too many in the arts, lit, sports, politics. They don't deserve excuses. But at this point I let their works stand or fall on their own.

To answer your original question - Bananas. The wheel barrels of cole slaw get me every time.

new here? Because if there is I am missing it.

are people any more likely now to take the word of a woman than the powerful man she accused?

Woody Allen is creep as fuck, and I don’t have the angst of liking his movies while dispising the person.

This thread is disturbing BTW.

It appears that is the standard that we have to use in order to determine whether we believe an accuser, so I'll have to reserve my judgment until I know the political party of the accuser and the accused.