Woody REALLY?

Maybe a subject line based on a pun is not appropriate for a topic as devoid of humor as child sexual abuse, but I find it hard to fix any real sense of truth to this whole awful story.

In case you didn't hear, the whole issue of whether American filmmaker extraordinaire Woody Allen committed sexual abuse on his adoptive daughter Dylan has been brought back into the spotlight after more than a decade's hibernation with the publishing of an open letter by the supposed victim herself, Dylan Farrow, now a married 28 year old woman.

Not intending any prejudice for saying so, the letter is a masterpiece of persuasion that uses some pretty powerful rhetorical devices to make its point.

She begins by breezily posing the question, as one might at a dinner party, "What is your favorite Woody Allen movie?" She asks that the reader withhold their answer to give her a moment to make a comment.

In that comment she fairly graphically describes what she says is her memory of being sexually abused by Allen. It is more than a little disturbing and, if true, should really lead to Allen getting the full "Lance Armstrong" (ie: to be stripped of all awards and commendations of any kind, and a universal public loathing imposed) accompanied by a healthy prison sentence.

She ends the letter by writing, "Now, with all that in mind, tell me: What is your favorite Woody Allen movie?"

I don't want to say I doubt her word, but there is something about a letter so beautifully crafted for manipulation that sets off my "bullshit detector". This "detector" is not always right, I'm just saying that if someone was trying to gather public sympathy to condemn someone, this is a very good example of how to achieve this end, true or false. Something in me just wishes it weren't so cleverly expressed.

But then, if you really went through what she says she did, you would probably have written this letter about 10,000 different times in your head, and she's obviously an articulate and intelligent person, so why not write it for maximum impact?

The comments I read were all very supportive, but we cannot consider ourselves dispassionate seekers of the truth if we don't admit that memories like this have been shown before to be unreliable; sometimes true, and sometimes just not. Influencing memory is pretty well-known, and if this were shown to be a false, "induced" memory, then it wouldn't be the first one.

One the other hand, how can we turn a cold heart to a person revealing that she was sexually abused by her own father figure? Surely we cannot simply dismiss such a complaint insisting that she provide some sort of "proof" that could never be produced?

Allen, of course, flatly denies these allegations, which means very close to absolutely nothing. The only thing he has to keep him free is the Constitutional presumption of innocence. So it would seem that the only hope for resolution in this case is through the courts. She said he did wrong, he says he didn't; we can't go about deciding these things based on sympathy for the image of a child violated, when it's possible that he in fact didn't do it. To be honest, I don't think I can decide which is worse: to let a child see her abuser go free, or to falsely saddle someone with the horrendous, nearly unbearable stigma of being a child molester.

This is an extremely difficult problem. When I read the letter all I can think is "Kill the bastard!", but that's an emotional response. In our system of justice you are not supposed to find someone guilty merely on someone else's "say so".

That said, I must say that circumstantially Allen looks like nothing so much as a closet child abuser when judged merely by his own work. I vividly remember the genuinely sleazy way Allen made a sexual relationship between a middle-aged man and an under-aged schoolgirl seem "glamorous" in his movie "Manhattan", in which he showed himself in cosmopolitan scenes around Manhattan holding a decidedly "girlish" Mariel Hemingway by the hand. It was shot in arty black-and-white, and loved by critics, and though I was fairly young at the time (which would tend to make me see younger people as more "grown-up"), the whole thing made me feel downright creepy.

And a certain lascivious, even prurient, sexuality can be said to permeate much of Allen's work. I personally can't look at all the high-toned borderline soft-core porn he has produced without some wincing, and some sense that if anybody would be guilty of something like this, a pervo like Woody wouldn't be my last guess for perpetrator.

Of course, a lot of Allen's filmmaking is clearly meant to stroke his need to feel attractive to attractive women of various ages. I remember always feeling a little dubious watching movies like "Sleeper" and "Annie Hall", as good as they were, that a really attractive young woman like Diane Keaton was would actually choose to be with this goofy looking little clown is hard to swallow. It's just rare to see couples so hugely mismatched in terms of attractiveness, and even Woody would admit that he is no one's idea of a heart throb or matinee idol.

And yet it can't be denied that the self-admitted "schlemiel" Allen did indeed "score" some very attractive women in his day--including Diane Keaton! Suddenly you find yourself in a world where black is white, up is down, dogs and cats are sleeping together...how can anyone hope to gain true perspective in the face of these events?

I guess if it came time to declare a position bearing no true weight of a legal or any other kind, I would have to point back to "Manhattan", wherein Allen made a statement for all the world to see, that it's perfectly fine and natural for a middle-aged man to cavort sexually with an underage girl.

Woody, I'm trying to think of things to help you, but you sure didn't do yourself any favors by thrusting that into the ineradicable public memory. When it comes right down to it, I never would have let that "talented" creep anywhere near MY daughter.

Upon that realization I can't help but ask, "Hey Mia, where the hell were YOU when all this was supposedly happening?" Are we to believe that Mia Farrow can condemn him now, when she was actually on the scene when this stuff was happening? I mean, if I can look at the man and his work and decide that I wouldn't leave my daughter alone with him, why wasn't Mia thinking the exact same thing? Certainly she was close enough to know him much better than any of us? So why did she let this happen, why didn't she protect her daughter, and why isn't her daughter angry at her NOW for her part in this?

At a certain point it's hard to accept Dylan declaring Woody a "monster" without also hearing her say, "and Mom, just where the hell were you anyway? I was a little kid, I had no one to protect me! Am I supposed to believe that all this happened without you suspecting a single thing? Mom, I dearly wish I could hold you innocent in this mess, but circumstances just don't allow it."

I think I'm going to have to close this with a double guilty verdict: Woody, you are a sick bastard, please go to prison, AND, Mia, hitch a ride with Woody, because a mom as shitty at protecting her children as you deserves only barely more freedom than the perpetrator himself.