Celebrity Creeps and Their Wonderful Movies: The Case of Woody Allen

“If you don’t like abortion, don’t have one.”

“Do not judge, lest you be judged.”

“I did not have sex with that girl.”

People, including liberals, love their sound bites.  I liked the way Ann Coulter put it when she said liberals claimed that their arguments were too sophisticated to fit on a bumper sticker.  She pointed out that “I ♥ Partial-Birth Abortions” fits just fine.

Politics is sticky business.  I was recently taken to task on my blog for judging celebrities, in this case Miley Cyrus for her now infamous twerking episode at the VMA awards last year.  This person applauded Miley for her “confidence”, saying that I should see that in her too and applaud her for it, and in the same breath, this anonymous person demonized Robin Thicke for his misogynistic song “Blurred Lines” that he sang next to a twerking Miley, writing about how the women in the video were nude and how he was objectifying them.  This person sat in judgment of me because I was sitting in judgment of Miley Cyrus and because I wasn’t, apparently, sitting in judgment of Robin Thicke (though I did judge him, and the lyrics to his song, and his R-rated video, in another blog post, and on Facebook).  I guess you just can’t win.  Some people will hate you no matter what you are, or what you do.  Take any kind of a stand, for anything, and people will hate you for it.  Don’t take a stand, and some people will hate you for that too!  Miley has a right to be an idiot, but that also means I have a right to think she’s an idiot for making the immoral choices she is making.  And maybe someday, when she looks back at her earlier choices, she'll think she was an idiot too.  But if you make any kind of a judgment call, people will judge you, even if their favorite bible quote happens to be “Do not judge”, which they pull out whenever you judge them or others, but which they happily forget when it’s time for them to dole out the judgment against judgmental Christians or misogynistic pop stars, while sticking up for the twerking idiot next to him.  Round and round and round it goes!

In light of all of this, what am I to make of the accusations of pedophilia against famed director Woody Allen by Mia Farrow’s now grown daughter Dylan?  She claims Woody molested her when she was seven, and, in an open letter to the New York Times, indicted Cate Blanchette and Alec Baldwin for working with him on his latest Oscar nominated film, Blue Jasmine.  Does she have the right to speak out against Woody?  If he really did what she claims he did, absolutely!  Indicting the actors who work in his films?  Um, not so much.  I can certainly understand her frustration, particularly with someone like Diane Keaton, who knew her when she was a little girl, and knows their family history.  But, as much as I’m not in love with Hollywood’s love affair with the left and all their liberal causes, you can’t fault an industry for applauding Woody for his work, or these actors for being in his movies – especially since most of them are so far left anyway.  If they had Christian morality, it might be a different story. 

If I was in her shoes and he had done that to me, and gotten away with it, I’d be so upset and angry, especially if he was enjoying career accolades and making good films.  Personally, I myself can name at least three Woody Allen films I really loved - Bullets of Broadway, Cassandra’s Dream, and Midnight in Paris – and a number of others I liked, such as Radio Days, The Purple Rose of Cairo, and going way back, Take the Money and Run. 

In truth, the fact that some of his movies are so darned good probably just makes the whole ordeal that much worse.  We might have to ask if his talent and career accolades might not be giving him a bit of carte blanche to get away with being a law-breaking, disgusting creep, and then lying about it.  If his movies stunk, might he already be in jail for fondling his stepdaughter so long ago? 

            
Of course, there are a few of his films I didn’t care for, and his famed and cherished Annie Hall is right there in the middle of all the Woody Allen films I didn’t like for their stream-of-conscience meanderings and pseudo-philosophical, bohemian pontificating.  It leaves me wondering, in light of these accusations from Dylan Farrow, should I feel guilty for liking Bullets Over Broadway and Midnight in Paris so much?  The answer, I think, is no.  The last time I checked, a movie is made by a lot of different people, helmed by a director, but it is not that director, or that actor, or that scriptwriter.  It is a combination of a lot of different minds, craftspeople, and artists, but first and foremost, it is there to simply tell a story, and hopefully tell it well, and, of course, turn a profit.  That’s show business, which is a show, and a business.  And if I was going to feel guilty over liking a movie based on the morality of some of the people involved in the making of the movie, I’d have to feel guilty for liking any movie I’ve ever seen.

            
Woody Allen should be behind bars if he did what Dylan Farrow claims he did, but it has apparently gone through the courts years ago, without enough evidence to convict.  Do I personally think he did it?  I don’t know, but I find it a distinct possibility.  We tend to put celebrities on a pedestal, but by the simple law of averages, some of them have got to be creeps.  Do I think Michael Jackson was a pedophile, and do I think he molested choreographer Wade Robson when he just a kid?  Yes, it’s very, very likely.  Does this make me second guess whether or not I should buy his music?  Absolutely.  You have to draw the line somewhere.  Whereas Woody Allen’s movies are so much more than just “directed by Woody Allen”, a musician’s music is a tad more individual.  If Woody Allen was a singer and produced a CD (now there’s a thought!), I wouldn’t buy it.  I did, however, buy the soundtrack to Midnight in Paris because I liked all the music from that movie.  Why should a person deprive him or herself of the pleasures of Sidney Bechet’s trombone or Stephane Wrembel’s excellent guitar just because the guy who directed the movie their music is in might be a disgusting creep?  Again, if that’s the case, I might as well throw away every secular movie, CD, and book I own, and maybe even some Christian product, and live in a bubble. 

Besides, there is a lot more going on in the world than just whether or not this or that celebrity is a creepy creep, or a tragic statistic, be it Dennis Rodman wooing North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and starting to sound like Ozzy Osborne on a bad day, or the horrid tragedy of famed and talented actor Philip Seymour Hoffman dying with a heroin needle sticking out of his arm.  There are certainly lessons to be learned here, I think, but as much as I might personally like dwelling on them sometimes, especially since I am such a film freak and TV watcher, I realize there is much more going on out in the world than celebrities and the movies, TV shows, books, and music they like to make, and that I sometimes like to enjoy and dissect.

And in my next blog post, I'll talk about just a few of them.