Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Of all the crappy films in all the world BBC are showing woody Allen on a Saturday night.

27 replies

Meercatsarecats · 28/09/2019 23:38

Just that really. Annie Hall on BBC 2.
Why?
We're paying for this. It's not even funny, great art, or special in any way.
I guess the BBC just have a thing for creepy men.

OP posts:
Beamur · 29/09/2019 08:39

DH and I were watching TV last night and this came on. Watched about 5 minutes up to the point he (as a child) kissed a girl in class (no consent obviously) and the character then goes on to say he was sexually attracted to girls from the age of 6.
That alone was creepy enough, and not funny.
DH commented that he used to like Woody Allen but now finds he can't watch him.
Turned off the TV.

nitgel · 29/09/2019 08:41

Its brill ! I watched a bit

Tbh you could say that about lots of films bbc show

CaptainKirksSpikeyGhost · 29/09/2019 09:18

you could say that about lots of films bbc show

Yes, I think that was the point of the OP.

MockersthefeMANist · 29/09/2019 09:32

The 70s vibe doesn't age well. I've just go the Blu-Ray of 'Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger,' and I never realsied before how racist it is: "I never saw a black man turn white before, you were so frightened."

My own pet hate is from the 50s vibe. The Cockleshell Heroes features a scene where one Marine goes AWOL because he hears his wife is being unfaithful. His CO races to intercept him, finds him at home, defenstrating the fancy man, and then turning on his wife. A policeman arrives, but the CO reassures him this is just a domestic and the Marine can get on with his marital rights.

nitgel · 29/09/2019 10:11

i think i was trying to say that there are lots of films/tv shown that i don't find funny etc. but i guess this is more about woody allen's past history rather than his films, which to say they aren't funny is just a bit strange. as they are

RoyalCorgi · 29/09/2019 14:06

One of my favourite films. I rewatched it a couple of years ago, and it still stands up, in my opinion. Just because you don't like it, or don't approve of Woody Allen, doesn't give you the right to act as censor for the rest of us.

Ringdonna · 29/09/2019 14:08

I agree Royal.

Beamur · 29/09/2019 14:12

We can self censor though.
I think once you know something unsavoury about an actor or a writer for example, even if you still like their work, I find my response is changed.
Like with Woody Allen, given some of the allegations about him and the fact that he went into an adult relationship with a very young woman he'd known since childhood - I found the scene I described above a bit uncomfortable in a way I wouldn't have before.

cheezy · 29/09/2019 14:12

I absolutely love Annie Hall.

MockersthefeMANist · 29/09/2019 14:46

You want uncomfortable, Try Manhattan, which was based on a real relationship WA had with a schoolgirl.

The 'Immoral Artist' argument is very old. Unless you are going to burn the Gaugins, I'd leave it alone.

Regards WA, the most powerful and eloquent condemnation of his I have seen comes from Ronan Farrow, a very impressive young man who is, ironically, a credit to the father who helped raise him.

HandsOffMyRights · 29/09/2019 15:07

We can self censor though.

This is what I do with Woody Allen, Roman Polanski etc.
Reading about Molly Ringwald's and Corey Feldman's experiences in the 80s on certain films for example, has definitely impacted on how I view those films.

I think the list could be massive if you, for example, brought Harvey Weinstein films into the mix.

So yes, self censorship is a sensible solution.

VickyEadieofThigh · 29/09/2019 15:10

You want uncomfortable, Try Manhattan, which was based on a real relationship WA had with a schoolgirl.

Was about to post something similar when I saw this comment. Manhattan is seriously creepy.

Fraggling · 29/09/2019 15:16

Yeah I was a bit ffs when looking for something to watch last night as well op

MockersthefeMANist · 29/09/2019 15:16

..Uncomfortable but it works dramatically, especially in the climax where the girl who looked up to these witty, sophisticated older types has the blinds ripped from her eyes and she finally sees them for the vain, selfish, callous creatures they really are.

And I also think Chinatown is one of the Great Films, and is all the more powerful for the way its director embodies its themes of power and corruption in a world where the wealthy and connected can get away with anything.

yellowallpaper · 29/09/2019 21:01

I'm please to say I never liked woody Allen or his films long before any of the dubious activity emerged. Now totally loathe him.

I often have a sixth sense about people in the media, and years later it turns out they were wife beaters and sleaze balls. Jimmy Saville obviously but several others too. Not so clever in real life sadly.

Yeahnahyeah · 29/09/2019 21:15

I've never taken to his films, apart from Blue Jasmine which I think is brilliant.

I'll no doubt watch it again even though I think he is a creep.

RoyalCorgi · 30/09/2019 09:06

Blue Jasmine is good. I also have a soft spot for Hannah and her Sisters which, apart from anything else, has four terrific roles for women.

That aside, I'd recommend people read Moses Farrow's blogpost about what it was like growing up as Mia Farrow's adopted son, and how abusive she was as a parent. Strangely, Mia Farrow doesn't seem to have received the same public vilification as Woody Allen.

mosesfarrow.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-son-speaks-out-by-moses-farrow.html

BilboBercow · 30/09/2019 09:09

I don't watch films made by paedophiles

TheAlternativeTentacle · 30/09/2019 09:11

Strangely, Mia Farrow doesn't seem to have received the same public vilification as Woody Allen

Well, she didn't actually rape him did she? As that's what it is when you have sex with a child.

I've always detested Woody Allen. Always have, always will. Never seen any of his films. Not one.

deydododatdodontdeydo · 30/09/2019 10:05

Thought Annie Hall (and Diane Keaton in particular) were brilliant when I last saw it, probably 25+ years ago.
Same with Manhattan.
Now I know details about Woody Allen, I would have viewed them differently (probably not at all!).
Shame, because stand alone, it's a great film.

RoyalCorgi · 30/09/2019 10:09

Well, she didn't actually rape him did she? As that's what it is when you have sex with a child.

How astonishing. You're saying that whatever Mia Farrow did was OK because at least it wasn't rape?

I'm guessing you didn't read the article. Moses Farrow describes repeated abuse by his adoptive mother against both him and her other children, to the extent of driving two of the children to suicide.

Even Dylan Farrow hasn't accused Allen of raping her. Moses Farrow provides fairly compelling reasons as to why her accusations against Allen can't be true. Of course, you don't have to believe them. But I would ask you to reflect on why you are so eager to believe one of Farrow's children while refusing to believe another.

TheAlternativeTentacle · 30/09/2019 10:18

You're saying that whatever Mia Farrow did was OK because at least it wasn't rape?

This is about the paedophilia of Woody Allen.

It's not a competition.

If you want to start a thread about Mia Farrow then you are welcome to do so.

MockersthefeMANist · 30/09/2019 10:38

Values change. Charlie Chaplin was sent into exile by the UK because he did not enlist in the army as a private soldier and go off to the Western Front to get shot. The Americans then sent him into exile for alleged Communist sympathies. Nobody was in the least bothered about his hebephilia, execpt possibly Eugene O'Neill.

RoyalCorgi · 30/09/2019 12:49

If you want to start a thread about Mia Farrow then you are welcome to do so.

You're really not understanding the point. Once again, I'm fairly sure you haven't read Moses Farrow's blogpost. So let me summarise it for you.

Moses Farrow says that his adoptive mother, Mia Farrow, physically and emotionally abused him and his siblings over very many years, to the extent that two of his siblings killed themselves. He describes how pleased he was when Woody Allen was allowed to co-adopt him and two of his siblings:

"I was thrilled when Woody officially became my father, since he had already taken on that role in my life. We played catch and chess, fished, and shot hoops. As the years went by, Satchel, Dylan and I were frequent visitors to his movie sets and his editing room. In the evenings, he’d come over to Mia’s apartment and spend time with us. I never once saw anything that indicated inappropriate behavior at any time."

He then goes on to explain, in detail, what happened on the day that Allen was alleged to have abused Dylan:

'As the “man of the house” that day, I had promised to keep an eye out for any trouble, and I was doing just that. I remember where Woody sat in the TV room, and I can picture where Dylan and Satchel were. Not that everybody stayed glued to the same spot, but I deliberately made sure to note everyone’s coming and going. I do remember that Woody would leave the room on occasion, but never with Dylan. He would wander into another room to make a phone call, read the paper, use the bathroom, or step outside to get some air and walk around the large pond on the property.

'Along with five kids, there were three adults in the house, all of whom had been told for months what a monster Woody was. None of us would have allowed Dylan to step away with Woody, even if he tried. Casey’s nanny, Alison, would later claim that she walked into the TV room and saw Woody kneeling on the floor with his head in Dylan’s lap on the couch. Really? With all of us in there? And if she had witnessed that, why wouldn’t she have said something immediately to our nanny Kristi? (I also remember some discussion of this act perhaps taking place on the staircase that led to Mia’s room. Again, this would have been in full view of anyone who entered the living room, assuming Woody managed to walk off with Dylan in the first place.) The narrative had to be changed since the only place for anyone to commit an act of depravity in private would have been in a small crawl space off my mother’s upstairs bedroom. By default, the attic became the scene of the alleged assault.

'In her widely-circulated 2014 open letter in The New York Times, the adult Dylan suddenly seemed to remember every moment of the alleged assault, writing, “He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother’s electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me. He talked to me while he did it, whispering that I was a good girl, that this was our secret, promising that we’d go to Paris and I’d be a star in his movies. I remember staring at that toy train, focusing on it as it traveled in its circle around the attic. To this day, I find it difficult to look at toy trains.”

'It’s a precise and compelling narrative, but there’s a major problem: there was no electric train set in that attic. There was, in fact, no way for kids to play up there, even if we had wanted to. It was an unfinished crawl space, under a steeply-angled gabled roof, with exposed nails and floorboards, billows of fiberglass insulation, filled with mousetraps and droppings and stinking of mothballs, and crammed with trunks full of hand-me-down clothes and my mother’s old wardrobes.'

In other words, according to Moses's account, Woody Allen did not abuse Dylan and could not have done so. In his account, Mia Farrow did, however, abuse her children in a sustained manner over a period of years. Mia, in Moses's view, had a vested interest in painting Allen as an abuser.

Of course believing that Woody Allen is an abuser is easy, isn't it? It fits our narrative about rich, powerful men sexually abusing children. But what if it isn't true? Has it occurred to you what a serious thing it is to accuse someone of child abuse? Did you miss the recent trial of Carl Beech, convicted of wrongfully accusing people of child abuse, and jailed for 18 years? Did you miss the testimony of people who said how devastating it was to be wrongfully accused of child abuse and investigated by the police?

When you glibly, on the internet, accuse people of being "paedophiles" without any attempt to check on the facts, you are adding, publicly, to the harm done to that person. You don't think about the consequences because you don't think it matters. But it does matter. Think about what you're doing and reflect on it.

SirVixofVixHall · 30/09/2019 13:56

I thought Ronan Farrow had a very different take on this though, and is close to his mother. He has also supported his sister in her statement of sexual abuse by Woody.

I loved Sweet and Lowdown, It is a great film, but I haven’t watched anything of his since then.
Can we separate the art from the artist ? I don’t know the answer to that really. So many talented men have been pretty monstrous in other ways.