I Believe Woody
This contribution first appeared March 19th 2021 in the weekly Danish newspaper Weekendavisen’s print and online edition. It appears here as a translation by the author.
Don’t believe everything you see on tv was the advice from the adults as I was growing up in the 1990s. At the time the breakup between the film director Woody Allen and actress Mia Farrow made the media feed on itself for years on end. At the center of the ensuing custody case was the allegation of sexual abuse by Woody Allen on his daughter Dylan Farrow. A new documentary on HBO Allen v. Farrow by Amy Ziering, Kirby Dick, and producer Amy Herdy reviews the case again using blatant manipulations.
The documentary attempts to hold Allen accountable for the only allegation made against him of abuse in his 85 years of existence. The accusation was completely denied by two separate authorities 28 years ago. Dylan Farrow can still take Allen to court in a civil case if she wanted to. But she, or her brother the lawyer and journalist Ronan Farrow, refuses to do so. Most likely because there is no case and we knew that more than a quarter of a century ago.
The first episode is dedicated to the relationship between Woody Allen and Mia Farrow. The documentary portrays Mia Farrow in a particularly glowing light as an almost saintly mother. This is established without mentioning that out of her 14 children of which 10 were adopted, two have committed suicide: her daughter Tam following an overdose of pills, according to the brother Moses Farrow, while her son Thaddeus shot himself 10 minutes from her house. Another daughter, Lark, died in poverty without any help from Mia Farrow. Another two of her children, Moses and Soon-Yi, have openly told of psychological and physical abuse by Mia Farrow while growing up. The babysitter in the Farrow household, Monica Thompson, testified to a clear division of the biological and adopted children in the family. So out of the six children, Mia Farrow had adopted by 1992, only one would agree to the description, which the documentary gives of her.
The first episode details how Dylan Farrow was in therapy at the age of five due to being introverted and overly shy. On two occasions, Dylan tells her therapist, according to the documentary, that she has a secret. The therapist does not relate this to Mia Farrow and it’s presented as if the secret is that she’s being molested by Allen. It’s purely circumstantial evidence, which is not founded on anything more than somber background music and the documentary’s trust in the viewer’s lack of capacity for independent thought.
The second episode makes use of the video recording, which Mia Farrow made of Dylan after the supposed molestation had taken place. In the recording, which has not been publicized before, Dylan describes what daddy did to her. However, we’re only allowed excerpts of the video, which has a total length of 15 minutes. But can we trust a recording performed solely by one party and not an official authority? Not according to Yale-New Haven Hospital, a nationally famous clinic on child abuse. The head of the clinic, Dr. John M. Leventhal, concluded that the video as well as the conversations with Dylan during the 7-month investigation in 1992–93 had a rehearsed quality. Furthermore, the content of the accusation changed several times and at one point Dylan even completely retracts it.
The clinical child psychologist, Dr. Stephen Herman, who was called as a witness to testify on Mia Farrow’s behalf in the custody case, said under oath that the videotape “set a tone for a child about how to answer. I think it could raise anxieties of a child.” Another expert in cases of child abuse, the former head of the Manhattan Sex Crimes Unit, Richard Marcus, testified that Farrow had asked leading questions and the answers did not convince him that the abuse had taken place. A third expert, Paul Ginsberg, found that the recording had been edited after the fact and one snippet had been replaced by another. The nanny in the Farrow household, Kristi Groteke, writes in her book that she saw Mia starting and stopping the recording as Dylan didn’t seem too worried and rather wanted to play.
The third episode attempts to discredit the investigation by Yale-New Haven. The conclusion was that no abuse by Woody Allen on Dylan Farrow had taken place. Ziering, Dick, and Herdy, however, believe this conclusion is worth nothing as the medical team destroyed their notes after writing the conclusion, which, according to them, is suspicious. However, somebody should have told them that it’s standard practice in sensitive cases due to the privacy of the parties involved.
It’s been a long time since someone has said to me: don’t believe everything you see on tv! I’m a grown man now and I can decide for myself what to believe. And I’m not in doubt: I believe Woody.
