The problem with talking about Farrow and Allen

I wasn’t going to really write about this because, who really knows, but then a labor journalist I really like decided to weigh in and I just wanted him to shut up. Let’s just go over the facts briefly, and then we’ll get into everything wrong with this.

• Dylan Farrow accused Woody Allen of molesting and raping her as a seven year old.
• Mia Farrow and Woody Allen had an awful divorce, and Allen married their adopted daughter.
• A criminal cause was never pursued, but according to my understanding that was the decision made to protect the alleged victim, not because there was no evidence.

 Allen is an excellent filmmaker, though I’m not a huge fan of his work. And because he’s super famous and talented, he gets to not have to take accusations like this seriously. In fact everyone just kind of ignores them. We’re never going to know. But we do know a little about history, child abuse, power, and the discrediting of witnesses.

First, the 80s was a different time. I don’t know much about it, but there was a rash of therapists convincing their patients that the patients’ fathers had molested them. Many of these accusations were untrue, lives were ruined, and the profession learned more about how to and how not to interview children. That said, some of these accusations were true.

Second, child abuse is an issue as is sexual abuse. One of the reasons children make such easy targets for preferential offenders is that they often don’t know what the relationship between themselves and the offender is supposed to look like. So a kid might not like the way the offender touches them, but without someone sitting the kid down and saying “don’t let anyone touch your genitalia” then the kid might not realize the problem is bigger than discomfort. We live in a puritanical society, and because of these we don’t talk to our children about sex or abuse.

Third, power, people with it exploit it over others. There are many studies documenting how normal, average people will abuse others when they have the authority to. No, all sexual predators aren’t in power, but often sexual assaults are about power. Additionally, the powerful don’t really have to pay for their crimes. When taken into account that most rapists never do either, we’re looking at a small group of people who actually are punished for the abuses they commit.

Fourth, it is amazing how you can never believe a sexual assault survivor. I noted this last week with the Oberst case. Apparently, all women (overwhelmingly) are hysterical nut jobs just trying to ruin famous men. I’m not even talking about Mia, who is regularly painted as a vindictive manipulative parent, but poor Dylan who has been brainwashed. We do all see that right? That the women in these cases are always painted as hysterical and the alleged perpetrators as victims.

Ok, so now let’s talk about the Tweet of issue by Mike Elk. See below. 

There is so much wrong with this. Elk is perfectly in his right to, well I’m not really sure. He isn’t exactly defending Allen, but he is definitely sympathetic to Allen due to personal experiences (see how I’m noting he has reasons and not calling him hysterical because of events in his childhood? Yeah, that’s how you do it because he isn’t hysterical this is just his perception and interpretation of the situation). However, this analogy between Emmett Till’s accuser, Carolyn Bryant, and Dylan Farrow is way out of line. For a lot of reasons.

First, Till wasn’t accused of rape. But I imagine Till’s specific case isn’t the point here, and maybe the Scottsboro Boys would have been a better example. I think Elk is trying to draw parallels between false rape accusations and the Farrow-Allen drama. Yes, false rape accusations happen (estimates are between 2 and 8 percent of all accusations with the majority of people never reporting). They were presumably more frequent when race was a factor because racists love few things more than protecting white women’s honor. There were many black men murdered for showing interest in white women…or more likely just because racists could. Allen is not a black man in the south during the Civil Rights Era. This offends me to my core. These situations are not the same.

Second, while the accused should get the benefit of doubt in court, this is never going to go to court. No one is arguing that Allen is locked up. I’m not going to watch his movies because as I said before I’m not really a fan, and I do think he has sexually abused children. I don’t think Dylan was the only one. I view his marriage as suspect. The accusers should also get the benefit of being believed. And that is what is missing here. See the phrasing here equates Bryant and Farrow, and that is unfair to Farrow. Sure there is no evidence Allen raped a seven year old, but there is no evidence that Dylan and Mia Farrow are making it up either. So equating her with a woman who stood by as a teenager was murdered is pretty extreme, but I suspect Elk was trying to compare Farrow to a liar who made false rape accusations against black me. 

In the end I trust women so I trust Dylan. Have an opinion, but let’s not pretend that opinion is unbiased. In what can only be described as white guy fashion, Elk apologized for confusing the facts surrounding Till's denial of due process and offending anyone. At no point that I've seen has Elk apologized for asserting Farrow to be a liar on par with those who fabricated sexual assaults rooted in racism.