Sometimes the internet offers uplifting, nice information. It's nice to flip open my laptop to the sight of cute cats, happy Youtubers and news that my favorite band is working on a new album. However, the internet isn't that different from anything else in this world in its inclusion of both good and terrible things.
Today I found this article on vice.com. It was impossible to just scroll past the headline "Is It Still OK to Like Alleged Child Molester Woody Allen?". I read the piece, then googled, and read another piece. In one hour, those two pieces crumpled the deep respect I've felt for Woody Allen for the last two years. He vehemently denies it, but Woody Allen is an alleged child molester and has allegedly taken advantage of two of his children. (Although technically they are only his ex-girlfriend's adopted children.) The first of the two is Dylan/Malone, who was only seven years old at the time. The second is Soon-Yi, who at 19 began an affair with Allen while he was still together with Soon-Yi's adoptive mother. Now Soon-Yi and Woody Allen are married.
The molestation of Malone hasn't been proved, but Woody Allen's relationship with Soon-Yi doesn't seem right. They are 35 years apart, Soon-Yi is financially completely dependent on him, and she has no other family except him since her mother and siblings have excluded her from the family after she got involved with Allen. To add to all this, Soon-Yi has a learning disability and an IQ below average. This is just what's circulating on the internet. Who knows how many other children Woody Allen has molested?
Everything in the case is a mess. There is the children's mother's Catholicism, the fact that Woody Allen admits long-term visits to the therapist, and the fact that all of the adoptive children come from deeply troubled backgrounds. The case has a lot of things that are similar to the plot in Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis - about a successful celebrity couple who struggle in creating a normal family for their children.
What frightens me even more is that the same crimes have been in the media before. Twenty-two years ago Dylan's story came out to the public. The scandal was swept off by Woody Allen and his lawyers, and today he is still respected enough to get a lifetime achievement award in Sunday's Golden Globe awards. It's sick.
Midnight in Paris doesn't become a worse movie because of Woody Allen's pedophilia. Still, I won't be watching it again anytime soon - at least before I learn to separate the art from the artist.
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