Woody Allen with Dylan Farrow, when she was a child. A family friend has said he was obsessed with the child.

CATHY YOUNG in Time magazine, of all places, has a good piece on the accusations of child abuse by Dylan Farrow against Woody Allen. Mr. Allen strikes me as an intensely creepy and sick man. His relationship with the adopted daughter of the mother of his son and his taking of pornographic pictures of her when she was probably still a teenager makes me inclined to believe that he was capable of molesting a girl and likely did molest her — and the now-28-year-old Dylan’s account was compelling. But the truth will never be known and Young’s points about the feminist witch hunt are sound.

— Comments —

Mary writes:

Women with children who date or marry after divorce must do so with extreme care. Horror stories abound about boyfriends and stepfathers abusing boys and girls alike. This situation says as much about Mia Farrow as it does about Woody Allen. She married a man who had made a celebrated movie one year prior to their union in which a 42-year-old man (played by Allen) had an affair with a 17-year-old high school girl. The movie is said to be based on a real-life relationship of Allen’s; in the movie there is palpable longing on the part of Allen’s character for this young girl. He also made a piece of filth called “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex…”. Many of his movies revolve around sex and promiscuity, affairs and various perversions, all wrapped in a pretty package with beautiful cinematography, gorgeous music and witty banter, ready to be digested uncritically by his sophisticated viewers. Sex, in all its variety and without limits of any kind, is obviously his muse. Allen may as well have had a sign on his head saying “I’m a pervert and I make you laugh.” This is the man Farrow allowed to have access to her own children and with whom she adopted/produced more children. This is pure, unadulterated womanly stupidity, with a good dose of blind selfishness thrown in, as Allen used her in at least 10 of his lauded works during their marriage. So it is hard to believe she was shocked when Allen turned out badly. Disappointed, maybe, but shocked? Really?

“Writing for The Nation, Jessica Valenti argues that if we believe Dylan Farrow’s account leaves any room for doubt, it’s because ‘patriarchy pushes us to put aside our good judgment.’ After all, says Valenti, we know that sexual violence against women and girls is pervasive and vastly underreported, and victims come forward at great personal cost.”

It seems to me the opposite: good judgement is put aside by these mothers when they let boyfriends and stepfathers into their homes and give them access to their kids. It is a huge problem and one that feminists should be ranting about to all women: after all, girls are often the victims. Yet the “patriarchy” is blamed. Can the patriarchy truly be blamed for Farrow’s lack of good discernment about the welfare of her children? Of course not, and Valenti’s claims do nothing whatsoever to help the girls that are abused. She offers too little, too late. Feminists, if they really cared about the welfare of these victims, would be admonishing all women to be exquisitely careful about whom they allow into their family circle, into their homes. The truth is, it’s a matter of priorities to them, and sexual “freedom” and the “right” to pleasure trump the hard work of making sacrifices and saying no to attraction for the sake of one’s children. Valenti is too blind to see that she helps create many more victims by promoting sexual freedom above not just virtue but even simple common sense.

Laura writes:

Both Mia Farrow and Woody Allen used children for their own purposes. Farrow’s promiscuous maternal drive  involved creating a high-class orphanage that had to have been a disorienting experience for the children who came from thousands of miles away and alien cultures. Farrow was at the forefront of the Adopt-a-Third-World Child fad. Soon-Yi Previn was adopted in Korea and brought to live with the children of Farrow and Andre Previn. Judging from her photos, I am inclined to believe the reports that Soon Yi is of below-average intelligence. According to one report:

She’s a very typical L.D. kid, very socially inappropriate, very, very naïve,” says [a woman who tutored Soon-Yi]. “She has trouble processing information, trouble understanding language on an inferential level. She’s very, very literal and flat in how she interprets what she sees and how she interprets things socially. She misinterprets situations.”

Allen’s claims of falling in love with her are highly suspicious. One wonders whether he married her to make what was a highly inappropriate sexual relationship with a teenager look right.

Laura writes:

In this article, a family friend of Farrow’s talks about Allen’s obsession with Dylan Farrow. As I said, I found Dylan Farrow’s account believable.

Sue G. writes:

Whatever the right or wrongs of the Dylan Farrow affair, Robert Weide in The Daily Beast  notes  that Mia Farrow was not entirely a blameless victim of Woody’s infidelity. The fact that she now admits that Ronan Farrow may be the child of Frank Sinatra (whom he resembles far more than he does Allen) shows that she was cuckolding her lover in 1987 and possibly passing off another man’s son as his. Weide speculates whether Woody is owed reimbursement for years of child support. Moreover, he reminds us, “if Sinatra was indeed Ronan’s biological father, it’s not the first time Mia had a child by a married man. In 1969, at the age of 24, she became pregnant by musician/composer André Previn, 40, who was still married to singer/songwriter Dory Previn. The betrayal is said to have led to Dory Previn’s mental breakdown and institutionalization, during which she received electroconvulsive therapy. She would later write a song called, “Beware of Young Girls” about Mia.”

Andre Previn went on to marry and divorce two other women after Mia (who was Previn’s wife #3). If she was a “home-wrecker”–to use the archaic term–it was a pretty easy job. That’s Hollywood for you.

One last thought: Your description of the Farrow household as a “high-class orphanage” is right on target. But why should a single woman be adopting children at all? Does the advantage of having a rich celebrity for an adoptive mother outweigh the disadvantage to the children of having no father?

 Laura writes:

Children would be better in a group home than with a single woman who is having relationships with multiple men. It’s just so wrong.

As for this kind of international adoption, it’s exploitation of children.

Paul writes:

No doubt Mia has been one mixed up woman since at least her fine performance in Rosemary’s Baby.  That is the creepiest, scariest movie I have ever seen.  The movie starts with her being beautiful and having long hair.  And as a result of her being eccentric (for example, having married the awfully old-for-her Frank Sinatra), she cut her hair as shown below.  At the time, it was big news, if not scandalous.  I thought it was a typically stupid 60s counterculture act.

Only later did I appreciate how lovely she still was.  During the movie, I thought it made her look awful, which the twisted director cleverly used to great effect.  Poor eccentric Mia.  She was attracted to ugly, inappropriate men.

I don’t see Sinatra or the evil Allen in Dylan. I see the lovely Mia.  But then, I am a man. [Laura writes: There would be none of them in her. She was adopted too.]

Mary writes:

Interestingly, Rosemary’s Baby was directed by another pervert, Roman Polanski.

According to Vanity Fair’s complimentary piece on Mia Farrow in 2013 Allen was in therapy for “inappropriate behavior toward Dylan” – before he was allowed to adopt her. Obviously through Farrow he had continued contact with her. I write this not to eviscerate Farrow, deserving though she may be, but to point to a deeper issue. This thinking – that these kinds of impulses are controllable with the right “intervention” – was the conventional handling of these sorts of problems at that time promoted by the fields of psychology and psychiatry. Starting in 1973, when homosexuality was removed from the list of abnormalities (under tremendous pressure from activists), these fields slowly changed the way sexual perversion was viewed and handled, and their treatment and handling of the patient changed as well. I’m guessing Farrow received professional advice prescribing therapy for Allen and the course of action she followed; she may even have been told there was no danger at all anymore once he had been “treated.” I’m sure her legal advice all also supports her course of action. Out of the public eye many others followed the same course.

What fascinates me is that to this day there is no media outrage at her blind stupidity, her lack of motherly common sense; no call for her to publicly allocute or apologize. Farrow is treated gently, as a sort of co-victim; it is assumed that she did nothing deserving punishment. No Scarlet Letter, no condemnation. For her profoundly poor decisions she has gotten a pass from the media, Hollywood, liberals and feminists alike. Others haven’t been so lucky.

Laura writes:

I agree entirely.

The fallout will continue unabated until we lift the veil from our eyes and see the catastrophic consequences of the sexual revolution for what they are: not a time of freedom and pleasure but a time of a new form of slavery and of a hidden desolation, in which the most educated and privileged have caused the most damage: a lost understanding of the natural order, of evil, and a separation from truth.

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