Note: This is not meant to be a criticism of the entirety of the Me Too movement, but one story of those who exploited it for opportunistic gain.
In 2003, I was interning in New York and got the opportunity to be a Production Assistant (glorified gopher) on a reading of a new play James Lapine was writing and directing for the Long Wharf Theatre called Fran’s Bed. It was not his best work, but the gig was an opportunity to work for a cast I truly admired and attending rehearsals at Lincoln Center in between running to delis and ordering Chinese food.
The star of the play was Mia Farrow, the actress famous for Rosemary’s Baby and a slew of Woody Allen movies in the 1980s. Ms. Farrow was an odd duck. Even the Dramaturg at Long Wharf admitted she was not a good actress in the traditional sense, but she definitely has something interesting about her. As a person, she was aloof, often seemed dazed, and not of this planet.
At the end of the first day of rehearsal, I was asked if I would ride shotgun in her car and help her get out of the parking deck. This is where I discovered how out-of-touch with reality celebrities are. She couldn’t follow the gigantic, large white arrows directing her out of a parking deck. I was amused, but coming from the South, also disappointed in how little walking-around sense this well-known actress had.
I was living in Connecticut with my girlfriend’s family and taking the train in every day. A few days after the parking lot debacle, the Stage Manager called and asked if I wouldn’t mind driving Ms. Farrow into the city as we were both residing in the same state. I outright refused—not just because I wouldn’t drive in New York if my life depended on it but because of an awkward, chilling incident I observed during rehearsals shortly beforehand.
I had walked into the rehearsal room and Ms. Farrow was talking about child sexual abuse to the other actors—one of her many pet projects of activism. At the time, I knew almost nothing about her claims against her former lover and their daughter Dylan, but I had read enough about false allegations in such cases to know what Mia was saying was utter nonsense.
She was in the middle of a sentence that ended, “You know, even if nothing happened, I still think it’s our responsibility to believe the children.” The rest of the actors—among them Harris Yulin, Kali Rocha, and Veanne Cox (fabulous actors)—looked at her with complete disbelief. Mia kept looking at them for a nod or any kind of recognition that she was right, but none came except a few muffled comments and shameless head-nods.
Then, I did some research into the “incident” with Dylan. When looking at the big picture, outside of and long before the Me Too movement, the case seemed pretty open and shut. Allen had appeared on television showing a card Mia had sent with rusty nails poking all through it and told stories of her saying to him, “I’ll do everything I can to ruin you” after she was jilted by Allen in favor of Mia and Andre Previn’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi.
Mia was pretty shrewd about how she went about trying to destroy Allen’s career. The early ‘90s saw the tail end of a rash of false allegations by coached children that began in Kern County, California, peaked with the McMartin trial in California, and finally fizzled out with Frank Fuster’s case, one of many Janet Reno botched in her pathetic legal career.
Dylan was interviewed by the top experts in the country and, while the judge tried to make a name for himself by saying unkind words about Mr. Allen, the experts walked away believing Dylan had trouble differentiating between fantasy and reality (as is the case with children) and that she was coached by Ms. Farrow into telling lies. Years later, when an HBO documentary favoring Mia’s side came out, the evidence of this was on display for everyone, though the activist filmmakers desperately tried to prove something happened when nothing did—except for the fact that Dylan was most certainly abused—but by Mia, not by Woody.
Mia’s parenting life—the number of adoptees matching only those of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s litter of international orphans—is full of abuse, leaving many of her adopted children dead from suicide or drug overdose. This was detailed by one of the children, Moses, in a revealing defense of Woody. In fact, many have defended Woody, but in this day and age, they have gone unheard. Allen’s career was finally ruined by Mia in the wake of #metoo along with help her attention-seeking “journalist” son Ronan and Dylan who now believes the lie (much like some of the children from the McMartin case). Allen’s 2020 memoir, Apropos of Nothing, was cancelled by its original publisher and his latest film, his 50th, Coup de Chance, was filmed in French and premiered in Europe, where he is still rightfully respected as one of the master filmmakers of our age.
The Me Too movement, for all the good it did, was a shit-show of Trial by Media—a method of persecution that never achieves true justice. To even criticize the “movement” in the early days meant you lost friends (I certainly did). Everything became black and white with no grey allowed. Plenty of celebrities whose careers shouldn’t have been derailed—including comedian Louis CK (whose misdeeds were technically consensual) and actors Timothy Hutton, Dustin Hoffman, and Kevin Spacey. But Allen’s derailment is the most egregious. It was an opportunistic moment for the Farrows, who consistently claim Allen has tons of industry power when, in fact, Allen’s movies are never blockbusters, and he has always worked outside of the Hollywood dream factory.
Allen is the maker of the masterpieces Love and Death, Interiors, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Zelig, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Hannah and Her Sisters, September, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Everyone Says I Love You, and Match Point. But it is possible now he will never be remembered for them. Instead, he will be remembered for a lie orchestrated by a miserable woman who was only ever good in the films he cast her in (in much the same way Uma Thurman tends to only shine in films by Quentin Tarantino). While he is still working, he lurks in the shadows. People will only remember his fondness for younger women and somehow tie that to the notion he must be a pedophile (a leap of cognitive dissonance if there ever was one). People will not remember how he has written some of the best roles for women in movie history and portrays them with the greatest of respect. They will remember a creep who doesn’t exist.
To me, Mia’s ridiculous words that day at Lincoln Center were an admission she had made it all up. I regret ever being in her presence and I will never stop watching Woody Allen movies. His books (including the brilliant Side Effects), films, and early stand-up comedy make up some of the best writing America has produced. A true genius and one of the most prolific filmmakers of our day, what he did with Soon-Yi may be distasteful to most of us but, for Mia, it was a reason to quash an innocent man and kill a distinguished career.
Her actions reveal the worst of Me Too, a noble experiment in thought, but tragically flawed in execution.
Dear Woody—keep working as long as you can. There are those of us who will never leave you.
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