Trigger Warning: Referring to Blog
February 6, 2014 - If I wanted to, I could probably do a blog every day about the prevalence of sexual assault. It's a huge societal problem, and a very difficult subject to address with the correct sensitivity, leaving many people acting either inappropriately by victim-blaming, turning a blind eye towards it, or taking other insensitive actions. With the Superbowl last week, I thought about discussing the idea of sexual trafficking (and related assault it entails) that some believe large sporting events attract. But the information I received was somewhat contradictory regarding whether sporting events attract more trafficking or more investigation into trafficking and it’s hard to find articles that make that distinction and acknowledge that trafficking in general is a pervasive ongoing problem. More prominently Dylan Farrow has recently brought attention to sexual abuse allegations against her adoptive father, Woody Allen, and that's mostly what I want to discuss now.
I have no idea how to react to Dylan Farrow's allegations. Almost everything she's said was reported over twenty years ago, and I already knew about it then. In the interim she's gotten older, which seems to have given her the courage to come forward and should be commended if this is part of her healing process. But what confuses me is that she says in her letter that she feels she does have a healthy support network, "today, I consider myself lucky," making me wonder if this is actually about healing when she challenges people to feel guilty than encourages people to be supportive. There have been many reactions to her letter across the internet, and one of the more interesting ones is this, wherein the author describes her own abuse and near the end of the response the author notes that Dylan Farrow's letter made her spend "the last few days trying desperately to distract myself from just about everything besides my closest friends and most beloved books and activities, because I could not bear to watch my friends and family members tear Dylan Farrow apart on Facebook or Twitter, call her a liar, call her a fool, call her an opportunist." If this is the response Dylan Farrow is eliciting how is she helping others heal? Allen is unlikely to be brought to justice whether he did or didn't abuse his adopted daughter, so does the attention then just reinforce that criminals can and do get away with this? There's no real cry to change these policies from Dylan Farrow other than boycott and tarnish Allen's reputation.
I don't know Woody Allen or anyone else involved in this. My general belief in these matters is the simplest explanation is the most logical, which would probably side with Dylan Farrow, and while there are suspect actions in some of his films as well as his marriage to Soon-Yi, there have been no allegations against him but Dylan's (unlike Bill Cosby). It's also interesting to look at his body of work since the accusations against him. From roughly the time of the allegations until about a decade later his work suffered drastically, and it wasn't until 2005's Match Point that he received critical and commercial success again.
I think it's interesting to ask if it's possible to bring about reform. Certainly if someone commits a crime you keep them under closer watch, but to deny people have a capacity to change also provides a bleak view of humanity. This is an extremely difficult idea to consider, but it's an important piece of a discussion to find a solution that I don't see apparent in the chaotic arguments and emotions Dylan Farrow's letter have seemingly caused. Woody Allen's personal life doesn't affect how his work impacted my personal life. Maybe he meant Manhattan to promote his creepy ideas in subversive ways, that doesn't mean I find it any less of a colossal bore or other people took something positive from it. Once art is released into the public it takes on a life of its own despite its creator (regardless of what George Lucas seems to want to say about that forcing us to accept his changes to Star Wars), and ultimately we can only live our lives in a way that's respectful of other people. If Dylan Farrow needs or wants support, she's entitled to it, but not when it comes to engaging someone else with such hostility. If Allen's a danger, we need our justice system determining that, not enacting our own form of vigilante vengeance, though some reforms to our justice system may be in order.
There's an interesting story CNN ran this week about Alaska's high incidence of rape and the efforts to reform rapists. Though the program mentioned is too small to yet determine accurate data, so far they've found that programs encouraging monitored forgiveness rather than isolation have had greater effect preventing future crimes. I can't say this will work for everyone, but shouldn't we all be trying to find a solution rather than reacting with anger?
-D
I have no idea how to react to Dylan Farrow's allegations. Almost everything she's said was reported over twenty years ago, and I already knew about it then. In the interim she's gotten older, which seems to have given her the courage to come forward and should be commended if this is part of her healing process. But what confuses me is that she says in her letter that she feels she does have a healthy support network, "today, I consider myself lucky," making me wonder if this is actually about healing when she challenges people to feel guilty than encourages people to be supportive. There have been many reactions to her letter across the internet, and one of the more interesting ones is this, wherein the author describes her own abuse and near the end of the response the author notes that Dylan Farrow's letter made her spend "the last few days trying desperately to distract myself from just about everything besides my closest friends and most beloved books and activities, because I could not bear to watch my friends and family members tear Dylan Farrow apart on Facebook or Twitter, call her a liar, call her a fool, call her an opportunist." If this is the response Dylan Farrow is eliciting how is she helping others heal? Allen is unlikely to be brought to justice whether he did or didn't abuse his adopted daughter, so does the attention then just reinforce that criminals can and do get away with this? There's no real cry to change these policies from Dylan Farrow other than boycott and tarnish Allen's reputation.
I don't know Woody Allen or anyone else involved in this. My general belief in these matters is the simplest explanation is the most logical, which would probably side with Dylan Farrow, and while there are suspect actions in some of his films as well as his marriage to Soon-Yi, there have been no allegations against him but Dylan's (unlike Bill Cosby). It's also interesting to look at his body of work since the accusations against him. From roughly the time of the allegations until about a decade later his work suffered drastically, and it wasn't until 2005's Match Point that he received critical and commercial success again.
I think it's interesting to ask if it's possible to bring about reform. Certainly if someone commits a crime you keep them under closer watch, but to deny people have a capacity to change also provides a bleak view of humanity. This is an extremely difficult idea to consider, but it's an important piece of a discussion to find a solution that I don't see apparent in the chaotic arguments and emotions Dylan Farrow's letter have seemingly caused. Woody Allen's personal life doesn't affect how his work impacted my personal life. Maybe he meant Manhattan to promote his creepy ideas in subversive ways, that doesn't mean I find it any less of a colossal bore or other people took something positive from it. Once art is released into the public it takes on a life of its own despite its creator (regardless of what George Lucas seems to want to say about that forcing us to accept his changes to Star Wars), and ultimately we can only live our lives in a way that's respectful of other people. If Dylan Farrow needs or wants support, she's entitled to it, but not when it comes to engaging someone else with such hostility. If Allen's a danger, we need our justice system determining that, not enacting our own form of vigilante vengeance, though some reforms to our justice system may be in order.
There's an interesting story CNN ran this week about Alaska's high incidence of rape and the efforts to reform rapists. Though the program mentioned is too small to yet determine accurate data, so far they've found that programs encouraging monitored forgiveness rather than isolation have had greater effect preventing future crimes. I can't say this will work for everyone, but shouldn't we all be trying to find a solution rather than reacting with anger?
-D
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