I’ve never been a huge fan of Woody Allen movies. Probably the one I like best is Radio Days, where he really didn’t appear, but it was nominated for best original screenplay.
There is a huge wave of sentiment on the internet these days about allegations that he may have molested his 8-year old daughter. SLATE magazine seems to be leading the charge with articles that assume his guilt, have already tried and convicted him, and want to coerce everyone into shunning the man and his life’s work.
I heartily disagree. We have a system in the United States where our constitution says that we are innocent until proven guilty. Woody Allen was investigated at the time these charges originally came up, and they were dropped. He has never seen a court and we have no reason whatsoever to assume the man is guilty of anything.
His ex-girlfriend, Mia Farrow is understandably bitter since Woody dumped her and married her adopted daughter. By the way, Soon-Yi was 19 when the relationship began, of legal age, able to make her own decisions. Mia Farrow and Woody Allen were never married, there was no legal relationship between Woody and Mia’s adopted daughter.
Woody and Mia’s son, Ronan is apparently convinced something happened and by taking advantage of the family news worthiness, insists on making a stink. Perhaps he should spend some time gazing in the mirror and looking at his mother’s own problems. Tell me this man is not the son of Frank Sinatra? He certainly looks nothing like his alleged father, and is the spitting image of Frank.
The latest was an article on Slate that insists that should Cate Blanchett win the Oscar for her role in the latest Allen movie, she should refuse to acknowledge him, or even refuse the Oscar altogether.
What is the matter with our society? We are that far broken? We are going to try and convict Woody Allen in the newspapers because the courts couldn’t? We’re going to besmirch a lifetime of his work because suddenly it isn’t good anymore?
We are a bunch of hypocrits. If he had slaughtered someone by running over them with a car, we would have welcomed him back into society with open arms after he served whatever sentence he got. But, because someone dared to mention the possibility of child abuse, we are all up in arms and demanding that he be wiped from the face of the earth.
Please.
Get him into court, convict him with evidence, and sentence him to whatever reasonable punishment is possible for his crime (certainly something far less than he would get for murder), and then we can decide rather or not we want to watch his movies or turn down awards for his literary work.
Otherwise, under our American system of justice, he is an innocent man and we are simply persecuting him and should be ashamed.