Woody allen trial by media

The details are nauseating. But that's to be expected -- child abuse is dark and disquieting. But it's that first line that is surprisingly vexing because it turns watching and liking a Woody Allen film into an ethical consumption choice. And it has polarized his audience completely.

One side says it's all about the art and not about the artist behind it. The importance of being Milan Kundera, or at least the importance of his books, should not be affected by allegations he ratted on a dissident to the Czech secret police back in Enid Blyton's beloved children's books about Five Find-Outers and Toyland should not be matched up against her personal failings as a mother.

That purge ruined the careers of many of his peers but the Academy still gave him an honorary Oscar in The other side insists the artist cannot duck moral culpability. Nicholas Kristof who has used his friendship with Mia Farrow and her son Ronan to give Dylan's allegations a bully pulpit in The New York Times has accused the Golden Globes of taking sides in the debate by choosing to honor him with a lifetime achievement award. The standard to send someone to prison is guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but shouldn't the standard to honor someone be that they are unimpeachably, well, honorable?

Yet the Golden Globes sided with Allen, in effect accusing Dylan either of lying or of not mattering. That's the message that celebrities in film, music and sports too often send to abuse victims. Both stances are problematic in their black-and-white rigidity. As Kristof admits, Woody Allen has never been convicted and should be presumed innocent.

The presumption of innocence is critical even if we instinctively believe the victim is not lying. So is Kristof justified in lending his New York Times megaphone to launch what is effectively Dylan's call for a sort of cultural blacklisting of Woody Allen -- a trial by media because it's too late for a trial by court?

What if it had been your child, Cate Blanchett? None of which is ever mentioned by American media. But many chastised Baldwin for defending Allen.

She has every right for her truth to be heard. Things To Do Entertainment. While many celebrities have come out in support of Dylan, vowing to never work with Woody again, others have taken this opportunity to double down in their support of the director — and many have continued to work with him, despite the continued allegations against him.

Some of these stars, like Diane Keaton , Emma Stone , and Miley Cyrus , have praised their experiences working with Woody, and have even defended him as a father. Keep scrolling for all of the celebrities who have refused to condemn Woody in light of all that has happened — and who have publicly supported him in interviews and on social media. After Dylan's op-ed in The New York Times was first published in , the topic came up on The View, and journalist Barbara Walters took the opportunity to defend Woody and who he is as a father.

I can only tell you what I have seen now. Actor Wallace Shawn felt so strongly about the situation that he wrote an entire op-ed of his own in the Los Angeles Times in defense of Woody — someone he admitted he has never spent much time with.

Roosevelt or Doris Lessing had sexually abused a child. In a interview with Variety, Miley Cyrus defended her decision to work with Woody , saying that from her own experiences she'd had with him, she had nothing negative to say. Talking to the UK's i News in , actor Jeff Goldblum said he enjoyed working with Woody and was open to doing so again.

When asked how she feels about Woody in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in , Scarlett Johansson said she loved him and would work with him anytime. Allen's contention that Ms. Farrow coached Dylan. The Yale New Haven study report is "sanitized and, therefore, less credible" owing to a variety of factors. Mia Farrow was "not faultless as a parent," but, "ironically," her "principal shortcoming with respect to responsible parenting appears to have been her continued relationship with Mr.

Allen's "self-absorption" and "lack of judgment and his commitment to the continuation of his divisive assault Ultimately, "we will probably never know what occurred on August 4,