Weighing in on Woody Allen: Gender roles shape judgement of victim

If the recently resurrected Woody Allen sexual assault accusations have taught me anything, it’s that the American public is generally more willing to accept that two women are manipulative and delusional than to even fathom that a male celebrity with a questionable history might be lying to preserve his image.

So it’s not all that surprising that Allen began the argument in his New York Times response column with an attack on the intelligence and rationality of Mia Farrow, Dylan Farrow and their sympathizers. By his account, the accusation Dylan Farrow made in her open letter published the week before in Nicholas Kristoff’s column is “ludicrous,” Mia Farrow’s influence is “obvious” and even the thought of Allen being sexually abusive is so “highly unlikely” that it wouldn’t add up even for “the most skeptical mind.” He called the allegations “illogic[al]” and “crazy,” arguing that, “Any rational person would see the ploy for what it was. Common sense would prevail.” If only we could all be as intelligent and level-headed as Allen. 

Though Allen essentially bullies readers into agreeing with him by attacking their rationality, are Dylan Farrow’s accusations really as outlandish as Allen insists? Was the timing of the alleged molestation really unbelievable?

As a side question for Mr. Allen: When is it a good time to molest a child?

So let’s pretend there aren’t official court documents proving that Allen was receiving regular counseling for his inappropriate relationship with Dylan Farrow. Let’s also pretend that every reputable study on the prevalence of rape hasn’t concluded that a maximum of 8 percent of accusations are false — with most reporting a figure of less than 5 percent. I’m even willing to temporarily suspend the fact that Allen wrote, directed and starred in a film entirely centered on the relationship between a 42-year-old man — played by Allen, of course — and a 17-year-old girl played by Mariel Hemingway. 

I don’t need these facts to make my point. Allen’s defense is perhaps the most elaborate and desperate excuse I’ve ever heard. But to credit Allen’s creativity, it probably takes a pretty good story to counter three witnesses and the harsh criticism of the judge who presided over the case. 

Thus, the fable was born: Mia Farrow, a woman known more for her philanthropy than her acting career, decided she would use her 7-year-old daughter Dylan to unleash her “festering anger” toward Allen for his affair with her 19-year-old adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. Farrow adopted Previn when she was 8 years old, rescuing her from a life of homelessness and literally eating out of trash cans in South Korea. Dylan Farrow was likewise born into a world void of love and support. 

Why would a woman — who is so compassionate about the plight of vulnerable, underprivileged children that she adopted 11 of them — take such extraordinary measures to traumatize the daughter she deeply cared for out of spite for her philandering partner? 

As the legend goes: Mia Farrow was a psychological genius of deception and manipulation who planted false memories in Dylan Farrow’s brain, and Dylan was the poor, traumatized, delusional little girl, conveniently incapable of thinking rationally and independently, even at 28 years old. With stereotypes as obvious as these, it’s impossible not to point out the role gender plays in shaping judgment. The mentally and emotionally unstable woman is Hollywood’s go-to caricature for female roles, but the theme is pervasive in all media and social constructs. 

It’s second-nature in our culture to see women as less rational and more emotional than men, but the blindness to male privilege leads to a disturbing result. Although some columnists have defended Dylan Farrow, not one questions Allen’s own mental stability, especially after he intentionally left out nude photographs of his girlfriend’s 19-year-old daughter (Previn) in his apartment for her to see.

The plausibility of Allen’s defense is only strike one. Strike two is Allen’s suspicious micromanagement of the case’s investigation. To the unfamiliar reader of Allen’s op-ed, evidence such as investigation reports from the Child Sexual Abuse Clinic of the Yale-New Haven Hospital and lie-detector test results sound pretty convincing. But Allen conveniently left out the fact that the investigation was deemed unreliable by Judge Elliott Wilk based on the fact that all the notes from the report were destroyed, the panel didn’t include a single psychologist or psychiatrist and its designated pediatrician, Dr. John Leventhal, endorsed the investigation report without ever seeing Mia or Dylan Farrow. 

Further, Allen hired his own lie-detector-test administrator and refused to submit to one administered by the Connecticut state police. Allen accuses Mia Farrow of failing to take a lie detector test, though records show that, unlike him, she was never asked to. All legal authorities on the case refused to accept Allen’s independently acquired lie-detector results as evidence, so why should we? 

Allen’s lawyer went as far as describing Dylan Farrow as a “pawn” in Mia Farrow’s revenge plan against Allen. Chez Pazienza from The Daily Banter even stooped low enough to defend his accusations of Dylan’s and Mia’s mental instability with psychologist Elizabeth Loftus’ research on the phenomenon of memory manipulation and “the power of suggestion.” And Pazienza is hardly the first member of the media to comment on the situation.

What’s bewildering about the countless op-eds that have been written in response to this case is that most writers seem to be under the impression that their defenses of Allen are somehow revolutionary. Anyone who pays attention to the news would know that journalistic solidarity is overwhelmingly skewed toward Allen: The New York Times, The Guardian, Time magazine, The Daily Beast, Vanity Fair, The New York Daily News, etc. The self-righteous tone in each creates a humiliating contrast to the article’s predictability. It’s one thing to ignore the influences of sexism and power dynamics, but it’s quite another to be so distant from reality that you mistake upholding the status quo for trailblazing.

The epitome of delusional op-eds defending Allen is easily awarded to Robert Weide’s “The Woody Allen Allegations: Not So Fast” — a piece so juvenile and crass it could have been drafted on the door of a bathroom stall. Published in The Daily Beast, the column features a sycophantic Weide excessively citing irrelevant quotes from personal interviews and anecdotes in a thinly-veiled attempt to establish credibility. To spare readers the burden of trudging through pages of snide remarks and blatant misogyny, here’s a quick translation: One time I talked to Woody Allen and he was cool. His movies are cool, too. Cool people don’t do bad things. Oh yeah, and all women are crazy sluts. 

Let’s have a round of applause for the genius who gave Weide a public platform for his thoughts. 

Earlier, I dismissed the most damning evidence for the sake of one central argument, but taking everything into consideration is crucial for an honest evaluation. So what should take precedence over defining “father figure” is the fact that Allen underwent extensive therapy for his inappropriate behavior toward Dylan Farrow well before the 1992 allegations. This fact, combined with testimonies and additional supporting evidence led to Wilk’s Supreme Court decision that Allen’s behavior toward Dylan was “grossly inappropriate” and “that measures must be taken to protect her.” Though the molestation case was never taken to criminal court, state’s attorney Frank Maco claimed (and continues to claim) he found “probable cause” to prosecute Allen, but dropped the case for the sake of Dylan’s well-being.

In what seems to be a failed attempt to balance out passive-aggressive accusations, columnists and bloggers often end their Allen advocations by quoting Judge Wilk’s closing remarks: “We will probably never know what occurred.” And it’s true. Within this nebulous logical framework, we can never be sure of anything unless we have personally witnessed it. So we’ll never know what occurred in the attic of the Farrow house on Aug. 4, 1992 — the same way we’ll never know if physical laws are truly fixed and the same way we’ll never know for sure that dinosaurs once roamed the earth. But given the evidence, the odds and objective reasoning skills, I’ll take my chances. 

Write to Natalie at natalie.russell8@gmail.com.

Correction: A previous version of this article deemed Mr. Allen’s previous relationships pedophiliac. While it was alleged, Mr. Allen has not been convicted of being a pedophile. Thus, the language was removed.