Everything about the latest Woody Allen controversy reeks of bad faith, and its effect on the media has been particularly disturbing, not least the LA Times’ decision to add a bizarre editor’s note at the end of this piece from the Cannes film festival by Kenneth Turan in which the paper effectively apologizes for its failure to participate in a long-running family feud pitting Allen against Mia Farrow and some of her children.
Some thoughts, in no particular order:
1. Allen should not be subjected to a public witch hunt over an allegation that has not been proven or even pursued by the authorities. Whatever people think of him or the reasons why the case never moved forward, we as a society need to be better than that. Yes, child abuse is abhorrent, but a false accusation of child abuse is abhorrent for a whole different set of reasons. If we aren’t sure what happened, we shouldn’t act like we are.
2. His audiences have the right, if they so choose, to enjoy his films without being reminded at every turn of the abuse allegations (just as they have the right not to watch them).
3. His hostile family members have the right, for sure, to rebroadcast the allegations whenever they see fit, but that does not mean news outlets should be cowed by them or apologize for not doing the same. We, the public, have the right not to be sucked into their family dysfunction and/or become amateur referees about who is in the right.
4. Allen’s publicist was 100% wrong to punish the Hollywood Reporter by excluding the publication from his Cannes news conference as a tit-for-tat for publishing Ronan Farrow’s essay — both as a matter of principle and also as a matter of strategy because the move only emboldens Farrow in his argument that this is all about Allen wielding the power of celebrity to be held to a different standard. Farrow is entitled to that opinion but holding it doesn’t necessarily make it right — not least because Farrow, his sister, and his mother have their own celebrity which they have used to press their side of the story. Sadly, and scandalously, Allen’s publicist is far from an outlier in her treatment of reporters who have incurred her clients’ displeasure.
5. We should, as movie-goers and citizens, be better able to distinguish someone’s artistic merit from their personal failings, especially if we’re not related to them. I wouldn’t ask Woody Allen to babysit, but I’m also not going to apologize for finding him one of the most interesting artists and filmmakers of the past 50 years — a view I would not change if he was hauled off in chains tomorrow.
Comments