An Open Letter from Dylan Farrow

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 2/1/14 at 5:10pm

What happened to that Woody Allen thread?

When I asked my mother if her dad did to her what Woody Allen did to me, I honestly did not know the answer. I also didn’t know the firestorm it would trigger. I didn’t know that my father would use his sexual relationship with my sister to cover up the abuse he inflicted on me. I didn’t know that he would accuse my mother of planting the abuse in my head and call her a liar for defending me. I didn’t know that I would be made to recount my story over and over again, to doctor after doctor, pushed to see if I’d admit I was lying as part of a legal battle I couldn’t possibly understand. At one point, my mother sat me down and told me that I wouldn’t be in trouble if I was lying – that I could take it all back. I couldn’t. It was all true. But sexual abuse claims against the powerful stall more easily. There were experts willing attack my credibility. There were doctors willing to gaslight an abused child.
An Open Letter from Dylan Farrow

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 2/1/14 at 6:30pm

It is a devastating letter. Bravo to Dylan for finding a way through this. She sounds pretty damn credible to me.

[best12bars]

Posted: 2/1/14 at 6:43pm

The Woody Allen thread disappeared because it turned completely disgusting. I was sickened by some of the responses from our regular posters here. Members I respect and admire.

It brought out the worst in many of them.

When I went to bed that night, the thread was still here. When I woke up the next morning, it was gone.

I'm glad, actually. That was seriously ugly stuff.

I applaud Dylan. It sounds like she's lived through so much hell and confusion. The damage (and I do mean DAMAGE) is done. She may never be able to fully come to terms with it. But all things considered, I'd say she's made a good attempt. Here's to the future for all concerned.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 2/1/14 at 7:01pm

Yeah, I am pretty sure I was the last comment and reading it made me regret I did not stay with my original plan of ignoring it. I'm glad it disappeared.

I applaud Dylan. It's devastating but brave. I know people who confronted abusers and an unfair system that let those people get off scot-free. So forgive me for finding a lot of the dialogue about this has felt too much in keeping with those very structures who denied victims, encouraged them to be silent, etc.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 2/1/14 at 7:43pm

That was pretty awful to read. Not knowing the facts, I suppose I did turn a blind eye, but I'll find it much harder to do that from now on.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 2/1/14 at 8:01pm

I didn’t know that my father would use his sexual relationship with my sister to cover up the abuse he inflicted on me.

What do we think she means by the sentence I quoted above?

If anything, it seems to me that Allen's relationship with his de facto stepdaughter (though technically not incest, perhaps) made Dylan's claims more credible, not less.

Is she just saying the Soon-Yi affair muddied the waters?

[Jane2]

Posted: 2/1/14 at 8:03pm

Maybe it means it was a diversion- something to switch the attention to the Soon yi situation.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 2/1/14 at 8:06pm

During the satanic ritual abuse witch hunts of the 80s, there was a family that ran a day care center in Massachusetts that had their lives ruined. Destroyed. Based on evidence that was coached out of kindergartners and younger kids. They reported tunnels under the house. Evil robots. Flying. Being tied naked to trees in the middle of the day in the front yard on a busy thoroughfare. Reviews of the tapes years later showed social workers and psychologists promising kids McDonald's if they told them what they wanted to hear. When the entire process was discredited, many of the parents and now teens went onTV and swore it all happened. There comes a point when we have been told and tell ourselves something happened that proof that it didn't happen is a personal affront.

It's a tough thing. Because abuse survivors have been historically silenced. It's also historically true that fabulist and people coached to get revenge against ex-spouses not only demean true abuse survivors, they necessarily make people wary of taking everything at face value.

PS. There were no tunnels. No robots. No flying.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 2/1/14 at 8:08pm

Edit, never mind, you were referring to Soon-Yi. Gotcha.

Updated On: 2/1/14 at 08:08 PM

[Jane2]

Posted: 2/1/14 at 8:13pm

Namo, I remember well that case you referenced. It IS a tough thing.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 2/1/14 at 8:24pm

Woody Allen adopted two other daughters with Soon-Yi. I'm just wondering - wouldn't he have had to go through some thorough vetting? Would these allegations have been taken into account or no?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 2/1/14 at 8:28pm

Well maybe tmz can get to the bottom of it to settle all of these completely non-prurient concerns.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 2/1/14 at 8:34pm

Y'know, prurient is the word I was thinking of when I was posting that, but, but...I dunno. I care. Should I go back to turning a blind eye?

Updated On: 2/2/14 at 08:34 PM

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 2/1/14 at 9:26pm

Dylan is no child speaking of robots, flying and tunnels. She's a grown woman. Why speak out now? Nicholas Kristof asked:

"I asked her why she’s speaking out now. She said she wants to set the record straight and give courage to victims: “I was thinking, if I don’t speak out, I’ll regret it on my death bed."

These are extremely tough issues, and certainty isn’t available. But hundreds of thousands of boys and girls are abused each year, and they deserve support and sensitivity. When evidence is ambiguous, do we really need to leap to our feet and lionize an alleged molester?"

I didn't see the worst of the Woody Allen thread, but much of what I've read in response to Dylan's letter has been pretty horrible.
NY Times

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 2/1/14 at 9:36pm

Which leads you to some sort of conclusion?

I was not drawing a parallel to robots. I was commenting on people who felt their veracity was unfairly questioned after it was demonstrated that they had been coached to give the answers they gave. And so, they reiterated their claims even more strongly.

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 2/1/14 at 10:32pm

No, I have not come to a conclusion, but I do draw a distinction between a person such as an adult Dylan Farrow coming forward after many years of staying silent and the people who made the bizarre and fantastic allegations you mention during the satanic child abuse hysteria that led to lawsuits in the 80s and 90s.

During that time, there was practically an industry of therapists and christian groups perpetrating that insanity. Children were obviously coached in some of these cases, encouraged to say ever more fantastic tales - plane rides, sacrificed babies, the ingesting of blood and bodily waste. Knives inserted into orifices, and so on.

Dylan's story has remained essentially the same throughout the years. Given Allen's clear proclivity for women far younger than himself, i am inclined to give her story far more weight than those who were caught up in that hysteria.

It's all rather a moot point, as I imagine the statute of limitations has long since run out, but if Dylan has gotten any peace from coming forward with this, I am glad for it.

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 2/2/14 at 12:28am

Very disturbing. And damning. I believe the girl. Can't help but think she's telling the truth.

Do you think this might hurt BULLETS OVER BROADWAY this season? If more leaks out, I might be boycotting it myself. Not sure I can ever see another one of his films again.

[givesmevoice]

Posted: 2/2/14 at 12:38am

Do you think this might hurt BULLETS OVER BROADWAY this season? If more leaks out, I might be boycotting it myself. Not sure I can ever see another one of his films again.

I was thinking today about skipping Bullets Over Broadway because of this, too.

[DAME]

Posted: 2/2/14 at 1:03am

I didn't get to read the original thread. But have you read this?


Woody Allen allegations- NOT SO FAST

Updated On: 2/2/14 at 01:03 AM

[Addison D.]

Posted: 2/2/14 at 1:19am

DAME--Thank you for posting that link.

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 2/2/14 at 1:31am

I have read that, DAME, and frankly, it makes me feel slightly ill. While I'm not prepared to get out the pitchforks for Allen, the writer is so obviously an Allen apologist. His bullet points are bizarre at best:

#6: Woody and Mia had a common-law marriage. False. New York State does not recognize common law marriage. Even in states that do, a couple has to cohabitate for a certain number of years.

Talk about splitting hairs - does anyone deny that Woody and Mia had a very serious, longstanding relationship of over a decade, involving adopting kids together and even (officially, anyway, despite recent doubts) having a biological child of their own? Ought it really matter that they weren't technically married?

#7: Soon-Yi viewed Woody as a father figure. False. Soon-Yi saw Woody as her mother’s boyfriend. Her father figure was her adoptive father, André Previn.

So Allen was a father (or father figure) to Soon-Yi's brothers and sisters, but not her, despite the fact that he was in her life from the age of 8? It beggars belief.

That article doesn't help Allen's case, in my opinion. Neither did Allen's interview in Time magazine back in '01. Here is one of his less charming exchanges from that:

Q. How could you get involved with someone who was almost a daughter?
A. I am not Soon-Yi's father or stepfather. I've never even lived with Mia. I've never in my entire life slept at Mia's apartment, and I never even used to go over there until my children came along seven years ago. I never had any family dinners over there. I was not a father to her adopted kids in any sense of the word.

Q. But wasn't it breaking many bonds of trust to become involved with your lover's daughter?

A. There's no downside to it. The only thing unusual is that she's Mia's daughter. But she's an adopted daughter and a grown woman. I could have met her at a party or something.
Time magazine

[theatreguy]

Posted: 2/2/14 at 1:44am

ghostlight, I can't speak to Soon-Yi's experience but I do know that my mother had a boyfriend for several years starting when I was 9. I always just thought of him as "mom's boyfriend" but my younger brother certainly considered him to be much more of a father figure. That part at least is believable to me.

[DAME]

Posted: 2/2/14 at 1:44am

We'll girl, don't get ill.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 2/2/14 at 1:57am

Farrow=Basinger?

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 2/2/14 at 2:12am

:) Thanks DAME. I needed that.

theatreguy, I hear what you're saying. This situation is a good deal more complicated, though. Allen was the adoptive father for two of Mia's children, the biological father of a third, and somehow he is "not a father to her [other] adopted kids in any sense of the word"? They are still brothers and sisters and they occupied the same house that he visited daily for over a ten year period. It just makes no sense to me. Allen may not have lived with Mia, but they took family trips to places like Russia together. Also, I think it is certainly possible to have more than one father figure.

As a bit of continuity regarding Dylan's letter, from the Vanity Fair article referred to in DAME's link:

To close the nightmare down, a few days before the Newsweek and Time cover stories came out, Mia told friends, Woody had agreed to drop the custody case and sign the original agreement if Mia would say she was dropping the abuse charges and the family would deal with the issue privately. “I think Woody’s big thrust is: You poisoned the atmosphere so much that Dylan’s making this thing up,” says Lynn Nesbit. Thus, an eyewitness who has given an affidavit to police says, Mia went to Dylan to see if she was willing to recant. Mia said, “Dylan, you know, we all make up stories. Everybody does that. Sometimes we know we made it up.” But the little girl would not back down. “If he says he didn’t,” Dylan answered, “he’s lying.”







'92 Vanity Fair article Updated On: 2/2/14 at 02:12 AM