Every HBO Documentary is good, so this is full of spoilers and it’s more “thoughts on the series” than it is bulletpoints about the quality of the production. So you can skip this Hot Takes entry if you don’t want spoilers.
1. I always believed Dylan from the first time I became aware of the story. However, I never actually went looking for much detail about what happened and I figured it was a He Said / She Said situation where his supporters simply believed him instead of her. I had NO IDEA there was SO MUCH corroboration of various parts of her story from so many people. I refuse to believe that all of the people who support Woody Allen actually know the details. I believe the misogynists and the basement babies and the members of the Woody Cult have the ability to read it all and still side with him, but I can’t wrap my head around so many people in the industry supporting him and knowing the details of what Dylan had to say and the statements by people around her.
2. Dylan isn’t super likeable. It is what it is. It’s much easier to disbelieve a victim you don’t like, and I think part of her uphill battle rests on that. We see it all the time. Likeable victims, The Perfect Victim — they’re more likely to see justice served.
3. Why does Mia have so many kids? And why are they all brown? Including the kids who have passed away, Mia has 14 children. The only white ones are the ones she gave birth to and Dylan. All of the children Mia Farrow adopted were brown, until Woody wanted a white girl baby.
4. Hindsight is 20/20, but sometimes flags are RED right in your face right in the present. When Woody told Mia he didn’t want any children and didn’t want to be a father to the gang of kids she already had, that should’ve told her he wasn’t fatherhood material. Since he didn’t want to have kids, she asked him if he’d be open to adopting a child, and he still said no. And then. He said he might be okay with it if she adopted a little blonde girl. Is that not a red flag???? The man you’re with, who has shown zero interest in any of your children and doesn’t want any children at all, says he’s fine if you adopt a child as long as it’s a blonde girl. WHAT!
5. If ten children say “Mia was a great mom” and two say “Mia beat us” which kids do you believe? What if one of those two kids was married to a child molester and the other was being financially supported by the child molester? I don’t know why people give Moses or Soon-Yi any airtime. They are clearly lying for Woody. Mia’s ten other children are not lying for her.
6. Woody Allen has 40 years of films that say “This old Manhattan twerp has a barely legal girlfriend” because he is an old Manhattan twerp who wanted a barely legal girlfriend. That movie where Mariel Hemmingway is 17? How do people watch that? And hold it up as a classic piece of great cinema?
7. I wholly support the prosecutor who declined to take the case to trial. I had this vague notion that he didn’t push forward because Woody was rich and powerful, but the fact that he didn’t want to put Dylan through a trial was the correct decision at the time. Sometimes all of the options suck, and in his case, he had no good ones. He could retraumatize her — likely to no effect — or he could let it go.
8. I’m glad people who worked with Woody are starting to come around and support Dylan. Unfortunately there aren’t enough of them, but some is better than none, and ten years ago it was none. Dylan’s determination to speak out is part of the reason there are more supporters now. She has contributed to a climate where we listen to women more and a climate where women are more likely to speak out against powerful men. Props to Dylan Farrow.
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