General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRonan Farrow on Golden Globes Woody Allen tribute: Where was the part about Woody molesting a girl?
This tweet by diplomat and MSNBC host Ronan Farrow is getting a lot of buzz:Farrow is referring to the Golden Globe Awards that took place Sunday night.
What Farrow is referring to is described in this March 26, 1993 New York Times article Farrow Testifies That Daughter Accused Allen of Molestation:
In a grueling day of questioning by Mr. Allen's lawyer, Elkan Abramowitz, Ms. Farrow testified that she had feared for years that Mr. Allen's attachment to Dylan O. Farrow was sexual. She also admitted attacking another of her adopted daughters, Soon-Yi Farrow Previn, after learning of her affair with Mr. Allen.
Ms. Farrow said she had begun to videotape the girl because "I wanted this documented, because it had happened before." She said that Dylan then told her of the incident in the attic, which Mr. Allen said never took place.
Mr. Allen and his lawyers have suggested that the video, which has many stops and starts, reflects Ms. Farrow's efforts to cajole false answers from the girl. Ms. Farrow said she simply turned the machine on each time Dylan began to talk about the incident.
Last fall, Dylan spoke publicly for the first time about being abused in a Vanity Fair profile of Mia Farrow and Mia's family.
In 1997, Mia Farrow won sole custody of all her children including Dylan, and the family court judge called Woody Allen "self-absorbed, untrustworthy and insensitive."
It's tough to say whether Ronan was right to do this. On one hand, this could be seen as a family feud as the police investigated but decided not to charge Woody Allen and Ronan hasn't had a good relationship with Woody. On the other, most people believe Woody Allen is a creep because of his relationship with Soon-Yi, if not for Dylan's abuse allegations.
Ronan retweeted this message: "As far as I'm concerned, @RonanFarrow is standing up for all sexual abuse survivors tonight. Thank you."
MADem
(135,425 posts)not the molester on the birth certificate.
He might know who his daddy is via DNA by now.
And he's closer to Dylan than any of us are.
I'd believe my sibling if they told me something like that--I can't imagine who wouldn't, absent a history of prevarication.
Cha
(297,049 posts)Her mother certainly believed her and WA did not get custody.
Back then I read Mia found out about Soon Yi and Woody by finding photos of her in a drawer that were sans clothing. wth.
Ronan looks so much like Frank and Mia.. wow, what a beautiful child.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Years ago, before this scandal, I saw a number of them, and he came across as a frigging whiner to me. I just don't think he's "all that and a bag o'chips" as they used to say back before it was revealed he was messing with his daughters, the sick shit.
SunSeeker
(51,550 posts)I will never go to see a Woody Allen film.
Response to MADem (Reply #5)
Name removed Message auto-removed
redqueen
(115,103 posts)Incest is an enormous problem and most don't ever say a word. Many who do aren't believed. Also, adopted daughters and step-daughters are prime targets for this kind of abuse.
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)El_Johns
(1,805 posts)I'm not so sure I believe Farrow about the molestation at 7 years though. Teenagers seem to be his MO.
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)And as the OP said, the 7 year old is an adult now who has begun to speak out on this herself. I can remember things that happened to me at that age. Especially sad or stressful things. Can't you? Why wouldn't anyone believe her, given the whole situation?
El_Johns
(1,805 posts)typically have some history of molesting children.
Allen has a history of being involved with young women in their teens and twenties.
The film Manhattan is said by the Los Angeles Times[108] to be widely known to have been based on his romantic relationship with actress Stacey Nelkin. Her bit part in Annie Hall ended up on the cutting room floor, and their relationship, though never publicly acknowledged by Allen, reportedly began when she was 17, and a student at New York's Stuyvesant High School
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Allen
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)Don't you remember things that happened to you when you were 7?
Plus, all her siblings believe her, and they were there.
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/10/mia-farrow-children-family-scandal
According to Dylan, Theres a lot I dont remember, but what happened in the attic I remember. I remember what I was wearing and what I wasnt wearing. She tells Orth, The things making me uncomfortable were making me think I was a bad kid, because I didnt want to do what my elder told me to do. The attic, she says, pushed her over the edge. I was cracking. I had to say something. I was seven. I was doing it because I was scared. I wanted it to stop. For all she knew, she tells Orth, this was how fathers treated their daughters. This was normal interaction, and I was not normal for feeling uncomfortable about it. Woody Allens lawyer Elkan Abramowitz says that Allen still denies the allegations of sexual abuse.
El_Johns
(1,805 posts)Just saying, molestors have MOs & histories. Had Allen had a history with really young kids, I expect there would have been rumors -- he was about 50 when he got involved with Farrow.
Also, the timing of the molestation charge:
Allen and Farrow separated in 1992, after Farrow discovered nude photographs that Allen had taken of Soon-Yi, who was around 20 years old then.[114][115] In her autobiography, What Falls Away (New York: Doubleday, 1997), Farrow says that Allen admitted to a relationship with Soon-Yi.[116]
After Allen and Farrow separated, a long public legal battle for the custody of their three children began. During the proceedings, Farrow alleged that Allen had sexually molested their adopted daughter Dylan, who was then seven years old.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Allen
Mia Farrow had young children around during her entire relationship with Allen, but after they separate she discovers molestation? Just seems unlikely.
Not saying it couldn't have happened, just that Allen's history plus the timing make it seem unlikely.
To me, Allen's violation of the boundaries of a father-child relationship is creepy enough for several lifetimes, but I remain highly skeptical that he is interested in toddlers.
And no, I don't remember everything that happened when I was 7. Very little in fact, and most of what I remember from my childhood I couldn't assign a year to. I understand people are different in their ability to remember things that happen in childhood.
But I remain skeptical.
As an aside about Dory Previn, Andre Previn's wife who got dumped when the 23-year-old Farrow got pregnant by Previn:
"Beware of Young Girls" is a scathing attack on Mia Farrow and her motives for befriending the Previns (Farrow belatedly apologized to Dory in her memoir What Falls Away).
The track "With My Daddy in the Attic" is a chilling piece dealing with Stockholm Syndrome and fantasies of incest. The album's lyrics were published in book form in 1971.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dory_Previn
Lyrics of song include:
Upon our attic
Past the stair
Where well live on
Peanut butter
Spread across assorted crackers
And hell play
His clarinet
When I despair
http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858661061/
Weird anti-serendipity.
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)were the woman's own words. She's now 28, and told her story to Vanity Fair this fall.
(Seven year olds aren't toddlers, so I'm not sure where you're getting that.)
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2013/11/mia-farrow-frank-sinatra-ronan-farrow
To this day its hard for me to listen to jazz, Dylan told me. He [Allen] would take me with him [when he practiced the clarinet with his band]. Id be in between his legs, facing out. I felt like a dog or something. I was just told to sit there. I did what I was told. He used to sing to me the famous song Heaven [Cheek to Cheek, by Irving Berlin]. It really sends shivers up and down my spine and makes me want to throw up, because its a throwback.
SNIP
From the time she was able to register Allens obsessiveness toward her, Dylan said, she could never shake the feeling that she was disappointing one parent or the other. After I told my mom what happened to me in the attic, I felt it was my fault, she said. Individuals outside the family who were there at the time remarked to me how Dylan would shut down when Allen came around. She would complain of stomachaches and lock herself in the bathroom to avoid him. A babysitter testified that on the day of the alleged attic incident, while Mia was out shopping, she had come upon Allen in the TV room, kneeling, face forward, with his head in Dylans lap.
I didnt know anything formally wrong was going on, Dylan said. The things making me uncomfortable were making me think I was a bad kid, because I didnt want to do what my elder told me to do. The attic, she said, pushed her over the edge. I was cracking. I had to say something. I was seven. I was doing it because I was scared. I wanted it to stop. For all she knew, Dylan said, this was how fathers treated their daughters. This was normal interaction, and I was not normal for feeling uncomfortable about it. (Allen initially denied having gone into the attic. When hairs of his were found there, he said he might have popped his head in once or twice. Because of where the hair was found, his presence could not be proved conclusively.)
Did he tell you it was a secret?, I asked.
Yes. He said, You cant tell anyone. I didnt realize how careful he wasthings that would happen when nobody was in the room. I was not feeling O.K. with him putting his thumb in my mouth, or how he hugged me. When she was told that such behavior wasnt normal, I felt more guilty. There was no way not to make me feel guilty. There was no way someone was not hurt, whether me, my father, or my mother, and my brothers and sisters having to cope. She thought she was to blame for all the tears and turmoil. I felt I was damaging the family structure; that was crushing, damning. Allen was already paying for a shrink for Dylan on the day she went missing with him. I remember the doctor coming over once a week, and it was so annoying, Dylan said. I didnt want to sit in a room and talk to grown-ups.
SNIP
One time, the sight of a boy at school wearing a Woody Allen T-shirt sent Dylan into a fit of vomiting. She still fears that he might phone her. Ive had physical breakdowns because I opened a magazine to the wrong page. Once I was at Madame Tussauds, and I got separated from my friend. There was a bench, and I sat down on it to look around for her. I noticed a wax replica next to me. Him! It was the only time I screamed in public. She called her fears crippling and said, Im scared of him, his image. Nobody wants to think this legendary filmmaker is my worst nightmare. Thats what scares me, when I picture things chasing me or happeningI think its him after me. Its hard to explain how terrifying that is. Her savior is her husband, whom she met through a classified ad in The Onion shortly before graduating from college.
El_Johns
(1,805 posts)I can understand how that could convince you, but it doesn't convince me. I'm not really clear about what is supposed to have happened in the attic -- he made her sit between his legs while he played jazz music?
It sounds a bit odd, but it seems to me the damage to that family is this:
Farrows son Fletcher Previn, who built his first computer at the age of 13, tells Orth that he has Photoshopped Allen out of every single family photo and edited him out of family videos so that none of them would ever have to see him again. We can look at them and be reminded of the good and not be reminded of the bad, Fletcher tells Orth. Of the familys reaction to the crisis with Soon-Yi, Fletcher says, To my siblings and me, you thought of (Allen) as another dad. It can disrupt your foundation in the world. It resets the parameters of what is possible. He also discusses the impact Allens actions had on the family, telling Orth, There were casualties, who were totally derailed. It had a different impact on everyone, but everyone had a reaction. Fletcher singles out Lark, who died at 35. I really do think hes got some blood on his hands, he says of Allen.
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/10/mia-farrow-children-family-scandal
The trauma of all that, the divorce, the betrayal and split in the family, is trauma, with or without molestation thrown into the mix.
What I added to my last post:
As an aside about Dory Previn, Andre Previn's wife who got dumped when the 23-year-old Farrow got pregnant by Previn:
"Beware of Young Girls" is a scathing attack on Mia Farrow and her motives for befriending the Previns (Farrow belatedly apologized to Dory in her memoir What Falls Away).
The track "With My Daddy in the Attic" is a chilling piece dealing with Stockholm Syndrome and fantasies of incest. The album's lyrics were published in book form in 1971.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dory_Previn
Lyrics of song include:
Upon our attic
Past the stair
Where well live on
Peanut butter
Spread across assorted crackers
And hell play
His clarinet
When I despair
http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858661061/
Weird anti-serendipity.
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)that went into more detail.
Also, it quoted a babysitter who encountered him with his head in Dylan's lap.
El_Johns
(1,805 posts)1992 story, it just doesn't ring true.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)age. Andre dumped Dory for the pregnant Mia. Mia is currently unsure if Ronan is Woody's son or Sinatra's, she'd been with Sinatra when she was really young, then apparently again when she was 'with' Woody.
Here's Dory's view of Mia
Beware Of Young Girls :
Beware Of young girls
Who come to the door
Wistful and pale
Of twenty and four
Delivering daisies
With delicate hands
Beware
Of young girls
Too often they crave
To cry
At a wedding
And dance
On a grave
She was my friend
My friend
My friend
She was invited to my house
Oh yes
She was
And though she knew
My love was true
And
No ordinary thing
She admired
My wedding ring
She admired
My wedding ring
She was my friend
My friend
My friend
She sent us little silver gifts
Oh yes
She did
Oh what a rare
And happy pair
She
Inevitably said
As she glanced
At my unmade bed
She admired
My unmade bed
My bed
Beware
Of young girls
Who come to the door
Wistful and pale
Of twenty and four
Delivering daisies
With delicate hands
Beware
Of young girls
To often they crave
To cry
At a wedding
And dance
On a grave
She was my friend
My friend
My friend
I thought her motives were sincere
Oh yes
I did
Ah but this lass
It came to pass
Had
A dark and different plan
She admired
My own sweet man
She admired
My own sweet man
We were friends
Oh yes
We were
And she just took him from my life
Oh yes
She did
So young and vain
She brought me pain
But
I'm wise enough to say
She will leave him
One thoughtless day
She'll just leave him
And go away
Oh yes
Beware
Of young girls
Who come to the door
Wistful and pale
Of twenty and four
Delivering daisies
With delicate hands
Beware
Of young girls
To often they crave
To cry
At a wedding
And dance
On a grave
Beware of young girls
Beware of young girls
Beware
So this is a family with no side to take, at least for me. I personally feel for Dory.
pnwmom
(108,973 posts)There were witnesses to inappropriate behavior with Dylan, including a psychologist.
But there was also an incident involving them alone in the attic.
http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/archive/1992/11/farrow199211
On August 4, Woody was in Connecticut to visit the children, and Mia and Casey went shopping, taking along Mias two most recently adopted childrena blind Vietnamese girl named Tam, 11, and Isaiah, a seven-month-old black baby born to a crack-addicted mother. While they were gone, there was a brief period, perhaps 15 minutes, when Woody and Dylan vanished from sight. The baby-sitter who was inside searched high and low for them through the cluttered old farmhouse, but she couldnt find them. The outside baby-sitter, after a look at the grounds around the house, concluded the two must be inside somewhere. When Mia got home a short time later, Dylan and Woody were outside, and Dylan didnt have any underpants on. (Allen later said that he had not been alone with Dylan. He refused to submit hair and fingerprint samples to the Connecticut state police or to cooperate unless he was assured that nothing he said would be used against him.) Woody, who hated the country and reportedly brought his own bath mat to avoid germs, spent the night in a guest room off the laundry next to the garage and left the next morning.
That day, August 5, Casey called Mia to report something the baby-sitter had told her. The day before, Caseys baby-sitter had been in the house looking for one of the three Pascal children and had been startled when she walked into the TV room. Dylan was on the sofa, wearing a dress, and Woody was kneeling on the floor holding her, with his face in her lap. The baby-sitter did not consider it a fatherly pose, but more like something youd say Oops, excuse me to if both had been adults. She told police later that she was shocked. It just seemed very intimate. He seemed very comfortable.
http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/archive/1992/11/farrow199211
As soon as Mia asked Dylan about it, Dylan began to tell a harrowing story, in dribs and drabs but in excruciating detail. According to her account, she and Daddy went to the attic (not really an attic, just a small crawl space off the closet of Mias bedroom where the children play), and Daddy told her that if she stayed very still he would put her in his movie and take her to Paris. He touched her private part. Dylan said she told him, It hurts. Im just a little kid. The she told Mia, Kids have to do what grown-ups say. Mia, who has a small Beta video camera and frequently records her large brood, made a tape of Dylan for Dylans psychologist, who was in France at the time. I dont want to be in a movie with my daddy, Dylan said, and asked, Did your daddy ever do that to you?
According to people close to the situation, Mia called her lawyer, who told her to take Dylan to her pediatrician in New Milford. When the doctor asked where her private part was, Dylan pointed to her shoulder. A few minutes later, over ice cream, she told Mia that she had been embarrassed to have to say anything about this to the doctor. Mia asked which story was true, because it was important that they know. They went back to the doctor the next day, and Dylan repeated her original storyone that has stayed consistent through many tellings to the authorities, who are in possession of the tape Mia made. The doctor examined Dylan and found that she was intact. He called his lawyer and then told Mia he was bound by law to report Dylans story to the police.
identify
(71 posts)This kind of tweet is akin to a shotgun blast to the face. Cue 'Mama Said Knock You Out'. He's Frank's kid, no doubt. Good job, Ronan! #isaidDAMN!
brettdale
(12,373 posts)The nude photos he took of his 12 year old step daughter and his excuse that "This will give her confidence" should be reason enough to hate the creppy pedofile.
BainsBane
(53,026 posts)but the guy did marry his own daughter.
JI7
(89,244 posts)Heidi
(58,237 posts)Given the status of the father, the home study was waived, and the court presumably knew nothing about Woodys sessions with Dr. Coates...
http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/archive/1992/11/farrow199211
countryjake
(8,554 posts)Ronan speaking up on his big sister's behalf was appropriate, as far as I'm concerned.
The guy lived thru the mess that his "father" made of their family, so I doubt that anyone could blame him for feeling a bit bitter as Hollywood chooses to celebrate such a person.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Ask Roman Polanski.
monmouth3
(3,871 posts)I had to turn her off. She has that nasal, pretentious authoritarian tone to her voice where you just want to slap her..
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)redqueen
(115,103 posts)Very meaningful issues and worthy of critique.
Response to monmouth3 (Reply #25)
Name removed Message auto-removed