[Content Note: Sexual abuse.]
As more and more (and more and more and more) garbage articles continue to be written on the subject of "trying Woody Allen in the court of public opinion," I want to make the point (again) that Dylan Farrow's piece in the New York Times was essentially a request to the people who celebrate Woody Allen to not disappear her; to remember her.
It was not a request for further investigation of crimes for which the statute of limitations has already passed anyway. It was not a request for compensation or some other extrajudicial nod toward accountability. It was not even a request to deny Woody Allen work.
It was a request for acknowledgment that what happened to her matters.
It was a request to care about her, not a demand to hate Woody Allen. And all the noise about "trying Woody Allen in the court of public opinion" is trying to mask that, to drown it out. It's a clattering obfuscation to make sure we don't actually listen to what Dylan Farrow was really saying.
Woody Allen is 78 year old. He is fine. He has been fine, and he will always be fine. He doesn't need anyone to defend him against some fantasy that Dylan Farrow telling her story is going to ruin him.
Dylan Farrow, on the other hand, needs to be heard. She needs listeners.
And if all you have to say is some tired bullshit about the court of public opinion, you aren't listening.
UPDATE: Related and recommended reading: Jessica Luther's "The Court of Public Opinion."
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