Of the 3,600 posts on this blog I can count on one hand (maybe two) the number of posts I have taken down.
This subject, these subjects, have gotten under my skin in ways I can barely explain. One of those ways became a little clearer to me today. And away we go.
Dylan Farrow's letter and Nicholas D. Kristof's column were directed at me, and you, and you and you and you. It is directed at all of us. This is how it begins and ends:
"What's your favorite Woody Allen movie?"
See?
That gets under my skin because I had no thought I had ever wronged Dylan Farrow. But after I read her letter the first time I thought. "I may never watch a Woody Allen movie again." She made me feel I had wronged her because I had paid to see his movies. Oh Ben, don't be ridiculous, you're too sensitive, you didn't do anything wrong in going to see his movies. Hold on there, hoss. Didn't I though? Then why was my first reaction that I wouldn't see any more of his movies, huh? That is the reaction Farrow aimed at.
Nearly everyone...a lot of people reading this have refused to patronize a business on principal. Am I right? That's what boycotts are about. You believe in a principal--South African apartheid was wrong--a country or a corporation or a merchant violates your principal, and you don't give it your business. I bought tickets to Carnegie Hall once, bought them blind, didn't know what was on the program, turned out it was a performance of Wagner and was prepared to eat the cost and not go until my Jewish girlfriend talked me out of it. Wrote about that, too.
This is the bitch of the Farrow-Allen-Kristof thing: Farrow and Kristof are requiring me (us) to decide if Allen molested Farrow 20 years ago. Because if he did then that would kick in my principal that I will not pay to see movies made by a child molester. And if he didn't then, you know, reverse things.
I don't want to make that decision.
I don't think any of us want to make that decision and I may not make that decision but, it does follow on principal. It also follows because that is what Farrow told us we must do or we've wronged her! And Hollywood, too. Particularly Hollywood:
"Last week Woody Allen was nominated for his latest Oscar...It felt like a personal rebuke..."
See?
"Like the award and the accolades were a way to tell me to shut up and go away."
SEE!
"What if it had been your child, Cate Blanchett? Louis CK (Don't even know who "Louis CK" is (See, Dylan!))? Alec Baldwin? What if it had been you, Emma Stone?...Scarlett Johansson? You knew me when I was a little girl, Diane Keaton, have you forgotten me?"
She feels all of these people have wronged her by working with him.
Now, as I write this, and quote her words, I feel myself getting all...a little riled up. Defensive mechanism. Nicholas D. Kristof personalized this by publishing Farrow's letter on his New York Times blog. Kristof wrote a column on this in his New York Times column space too, you know. Kristof riles me up differently (and it's not a defensive mechanism) because he believes Allen molested Farrow...Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait and because he won't say directly, "ALLEN MOLESTED FARROW." He doesn't want to make that decision. So, Kristof just throws Farrow's letter out there "for all of us...to reflect on." :) (Kristof really gets under my skin.). Kristof employs the Socratic method of law school professors. He asks questions (of us) and never deigns a direct answer his own self:
"When evidence is ambiguous, do we really need to leap to our feet and lionize an alleged molester?"
He's asking us. What's our answer?
This subject, these subjects, have gotten under my skin in ways I can barely explain. One of those ways became a little clearer to me today. And away we go.
Dylan Farrow's letter and Nicholas D. Kristof's column were directed at me, and you, and you and you and you. It is directed at all of us. This is how it begins and ends:
"What's your favorite Woody Allen movie?"
See?
That gets under my skin because I had no thought I had ever wronged Dylan Farrow. But after I read her letter the first time I thought. "I may never watch a Woody Allen movie again." She made me feel I had wronged her because I had paid to see his movies. Oh Ben, don't be ridiculous, you're too sensitive, you didn't do anything wrong in going to see his movies. Hold on there, hoss. Didn't I though? Then why was my first reaction that I wouldn't see any more of his movies, huh? That is the reaction Farrow aimed at.
Nearly everyone...a lot of people reading this have refused to patronize a business on principal. Am I right? That's what boycotts are about. You believe in a principal--South African apartheid was wrong--a country or a corporation or a merchant violates your principal, and you don't give it your business. I bought tickets to Carnegie Hall once, bought them blind, didn't know what was on the program, turned out it was a performance of Wagner and was prepared to eat the cost and not go until my Jewish girlfriend talked me out of it. Wrote about that, too.
This is the bitch of the Farrow-Allen-Kristof thing: Farrow and Kristof are requiring me (us) to decide if Allen molested Farrow 20 years ago. Because if he did then that would kick in my principal that I will not pay to see movies made by a child molester. And if he didn't then, you know, reverse things.
I don't want to make that decision.
I don't think any of us want to make that decision and I may not make that decision but, it does follow on principal. It also follows because that is what Farrow told us we must do or we've wronged her! And Hollywood, too. Particularly Hollywood:
"Last week Woody Allen was nominated for his latest Oscar...It felt like a personal rebuke..."
See?
"Like the award and the accolades were a way to tell me to shut up and go away."
SEE!
"What if it had been your child, Cate Blanchett? Louis CK (Don't even know who "Louis CK" is (See, Dylan!))? Alec Baldwin? What if it had been you, Emma Stone?...Scarlett Johansson? You knew me when I was a little girl, Diane Keaton, have you forgotten me?"
She feels all of these people have wronged her by working with him.
Now, as I write this, and quote her words, I feel myself getting all...a little riled up. Defensive mechanism. Nicholas D. Kristof personalized this by publishing Farrow's letter on his New York Times blog. Kristof wrote a column on this in his New York Times column space too, you know. Kristof riles me up differently (and it's not a defensive mechanism) because he believes Allen molested Farrow...Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait and because he won't say directly, "ALLEN MOLESTED FARROW." He doesn't want to make that decision. So, Kristof just throws Farrow's letter out there "for all of us...to reflect on." :) (Kristof really gets under my skin.). Kristof employs the Socratic method of law school professors. He asks questions (of us) and never deigns a direct answer his own self:
"When evidence is ambiguous, do we really need to leap to our feet and lionize an alleged molester?"
He's asking us. What's our answer?
