Woody Allen is a perennial headliner in my
'creep of the year' contest
Woody Allen’s son, Ronan Farrow, has written a scathing opinion piece for The Hollywood Reporter, titled “My Father, Woody Allen, and the Danger of Questions Unasked (Guest Column),” which is making the rounds on social media. The article about Allen comes on the heels of the director celebrating his new movie, Cafe Society, as he is premiering the film at the 69th Cannes International Film Festival, in southern France.
Those in Hollywood who have long supported Woody, despite any sexual allegations levied against him, are also being called out in the article. As seen in the above photo, Allen is joined by Blake Lively, Kristen Stewart, and Jesse Eisenberg — all folks mentioned in the article as looking past Woody’s past allegations to star in his coveted movies.
According to Deadline, Amazon paid eight figures for Cafe Society, which means Amazon paid anywhere from $10 million to $99 million for the privilege of working with Woody. Allen is likened to a man in a similar state that Bill Cosby once was: untouched by allegations of sexual abuse, with a powerful PR team that helped bury the stories of the accusers, or helped throw dirt on their names.
Ronan wrote about believing Dylan Farrow’s allegations of sexual abuse against Woody, and about kowtowing to questions he could have asked a Cosby biographer years ago.
“It was shortly before the Cosby story exploded anew that my sister Dylan Farrow wrote about her own experiences — alleging that our father, Woody Allen, had ‘groomed’ her with inappropriate touching as a young girl and sexually assaulted her when she was 7 years old.
See also: Woody Allen's Adoptive Daughter Dylan Farrow Renews Molestation Claim
“Being in the media as my sister’s story made headlines, and Woody Allen’s PR engine revved into action, gave me a window into just how potent the pressure can be to take the easy way out. Every day, colleagues at news organizations forwarded me the emails blasted out by Allen’s powerful publicist, who had years earlier orchestrated a robust publicity campaign to validate my father’s sexual relationship with another one of my siblings. Those emails featured talking points ready-made to be converted into stories, complete with validators on offer — therapists, lawyers, friends, anyone willing to label a young woman confronting a powerful man as crazy, coached, vindictive. At first, they linked to blogs, then to high-profile outlets repeating the talking points — a self-perpetuating spin machine.”
The power of Woody Allen’s Hollywood mystique meant that journalists had to play nice with their articles, his son wrote, or risk being banned by the same PR agents who could give him access to Will Smith and Meryl Streep. As a result, most reporters wouldn’t touch a story from Woody’s daughter that accused him of child sexual assault and rape.
One Los Angeles Times editor risked doing so, wrote Allen’s son, but the story was killed.
When the New York Times published Dylan’s story, it did so with a bunch of concessions. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Nicholas Kristof published “An Open Letter From Dylan Farrow” in 2014. Woody Allen, called Dylan’s “alleged attacker” by his son, got more than twice the space to publish his response.
See also He Said, She Said - Woody Allen, Dylan Farrow
“I believe my sister.”
Allen’s son stated that even as a 5-year-old, he found it weird that Woody would get into bed with his daughter and force her to suck his thumb. The charges of inappropriate behavior from Woody against his children were not pursued against him — writes his son — in order for Mia Farrow to spare Dylan from being traumatized — not just by the alleged assault, but by telling her story over and over again.
The prosecutor had “probable cause” to prosecute Woody Allen, but didn’t do so because of the fragility of the child victim, wrote his son.
[Photo by AP Photo/Joel Ryan]
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