A very thoughtful article by a woman on this subject.
Woody Allen is innocent,
until proven guilty. And that does not include being indicted by the media.
He may very well be guilty, but we have to be so careful about taking a public accusation and brandishing someone a child molester based on that accusation. These are serious charges that require legal intervention. I have heard of and known people who have been wrongly accused of serious crimes and it has had a drastic effect on their lives. One instance was a male teacher at my school who was accused of inappropriate touching. The entire school found out immediately and every parent and child instantly looked at him with fresh eyes~ eyes tainted by the accusation. The accuser soon admitted they had lied. Nothing had ever happened. And everything went back to normal… No, that is also a lie. It took much longer for word of his innocence to spread than his potential guilt and that teacher had to transfer to a new school.
There is a much more famous historical example; that of
Fatty Arbuckle. He was a top actor in silent films until he was accused of rape and manslaughter. The stories of what he did became more and more obscene. People lied both in hopes of extorting money from Arbuckle and to sell papers. His misfortune of hosting a party where a woman died became a pay check for others. He and his reputation were dragged through the mud for 3 years until he was cleared of all charges. He was absolutely innocent and yet it still took a decade for his career to begin to recuperate. At which point he died. Arbuckle was, in fact, described by many to be very mild mannered and kind.
So what of Woody Allen’s case? His is different, I admit. He is married to his
ex common-law wife’s daughter (virtually his step-daughter), who he has known since she was about 10. One of his
adoptive children has accused him of abuse, and the police were initially involved to investigate those claims. His own, very well educated biological, son (his biology is now up for debate) refuses to speak with him at all and publicly disdains Allen. It all sums up to
sound like he is a terrible person and is likely guilty of anything anyone accuses him.
But let us also add in a few more pieces of information:
- Soon-Yi was never his daughter. He never adopted her. He never lived with her. Their relationship started when she was of age, according to both of them.
She was 19 at the time.
- Soon-Yi and Allen are still together (15 years). They have remained a couple longer than he and Farrow were (12 years).
- Allen and Farrow did not share a house and many accounts say he did not ever stay over-night at Farrows’s, or was required to sleep in the guest house. No, I’m not saying abuse cannot occur during the day.
- The timing of the accusations are convenient. First accusation happens at the same time as custody proceedings between Farrow and Allen. The second wave is just as statute of limitations expires so a renewed investigation isn’t even possible. It also coincides with damaging Allen’s chances of winning a significant career award. (The flip side is that Dylan felt more able to talk about Allen in a negative way once she knew her mother did not love him any more, and that the public accolades pushed her to speak out once more.)
- There are some events that show Farrow is not entirely as innocent as she appears. After the separation Mia renamed the children she had/adopted with Allen (is this some vindictive way of using the children as pawns?) This, at the very least, seems like an excessive upheaval to add to the already tumultuous environment these kids were already living in.
Her son with Allen may actually be Sinatra’s because she was having an affair.
There is the possibility that she planted the abuse story to ensure she was given full custody of all the children (again, just as we should not assume Allen is guilty we should not assume Farrow committed this act either).
Farrow
definitely hated Allen for his actions with Soon-Yi (completely understandable) and made no attempts to hide her feelings from her children or limit her negative remarks about him thus colouring their view of him. They also got to endure the media’s view of Allen as well~ and we know how kind those words were in their description of him.
- The abuse allegations were investigated in 1992 and charges were not laid. ["The head doctor of the police-appointed medical team gave sworn testimony that Dylan "either invented the story under the stress of living in a volatile and unhealthy home or that it was planted in her mind by her mother" because of the inconsistent presentation of the story by Dylan.[SUP]
[39][/SUP] In September 1993, Connecticut State Attorney Frank Maco announced that, while he had “probable cause” to prosecute Allen on charges of sexual molestation of Dylan, he was dropping the case to spare her the trauma of appearing in court.[SUP]
[40][/SUP]] There was no physical evidence of abuse.
- There is a ton of accusations made by Mia Farrow about Allen’s behavior in the various court documents, articles and writings, but if he was so inappropriate and awful why did she stay with him for 12 years and continue to give him access to all of the children? This is a man whom she didn’t have an issue with cheating on, so why not kick him to the curb if you think he’s acting “oddly” with your daughter? Or if he’s a just plain mean guy? There is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect my child, and that includes getting to the truth immediately if I suspected abuse. I would never want to make assumptions but I certainly would address behaviors that I or anyone else felt were inappropriate, and there seems to be an awful lot of instances where Farrow and her supporters/family/staff claims made them uncomfortable.
- Every member of this family has been through an emotional roller-coaster since 1992. The break-up of their “parents” and the reasons behind that have scarred them all in different ways. Then add to this the allegations of abuse. Everyone is a mess. It does not sound like any of them have really dealt with the core issues. Some of the children talk only to Farrow, some only to Allen, some both. All of those divides must be hard.
- One side of this feud is making every attempt to try this in the media and not the courts.
In any instance, Dylan deserves our compassion because she was either abused by someone she trusted or she was tricked into thinking she was abused by her tumultuous environment or someone else she trusted. In either instance this girl is in pain and she has been betrayed.
All of the points I’ve brought up may seem like I’m trying to launch a defense of Woody Allen to prove his innocence, but it is actually just background information that is being over-shadowed by the “shocking” letter that is flying around the internet. We are all going to make judgements but we should at least look at more than one letter or one side of an argument. And in such a serious situation we really shouldn’t be condemning someone outside of a courtroom. I know that the courts can be blind and thus allow guilty to walk free, but this is not a clear case of a miscarriage of justice. This letter, if true, is shocking and abhorrent but Dylan’s words alone do not stand as proof of guilt. And the media’s role in all of this? It is not to bring the truth to light, but
to make as much money as they can on the scandal.
http://jillianschaos.com/2014/02/03/woody-allen-is-innocent/
