Here we go again. Moses Farrow, the first adopted son of Mia Farrow gave his first newspaper interview to The Guardian, so I figured I would start the inevitable thread.
In summary. He’s now a therapist who specializes in adoption trauma therapy. He’s professionally involved in understanding and identifying abuse.
And he denies absolutely that Woody ever abused Dylan. He says that Woody doesn’t fit the profile and that the facts given by Dylan are impossible. He says she was coached by Mia to give the “proper” answers after she failed to do so in an earlier interview. He insists that Mia was an abusive parent who favored her blonde, blue-eyed children. His picture of the family dynamic is identical to that of Soon-Yi’s, who also called Mia the abusive parent who coached Dylan to lie. Both say that Mia was seeking revenge for Woody’s affair with Soon-Yi.
It’s as absolute a vindication of Woody as any non-participant can give. I wonder how many minds it will change, though.
I don’t think it will change any minds. What he is doing is actually unethical in his profession. None of the people involved are his patient, and he has a personal connection that would prevent him from being able to take them as patients. He is a biased observer who is defending his father.
No one legitimate would try the “doesn’t fit the profile” gambit, anyways.
For me, I made up my mind due simply to him having sexual relations with his own stepdaughter. And it wasn’t like he broke up with the mom and then later fell for the daughter. He was just that immoral to do such a thing.
That fact is enough for me to accept that he’s a sexual predator. And I’m someone who still is unsure about Michael Jackson being a sexual predator.
My mind is unchanged and I never believed Mia Farrow’s accounts in the first place. Her messed up life is no excuse for Woody Allen’s relationship with her daughter. Moses Farrow is apparently just another victim of this fucked up couple.
There was a long discussion earlier this year in this thread.
After doing a lot of reading about this case, I came to the conclusion that while Woody Allen is a weirdo and definitely into late teen girls, he is not a pedophile. The accusation about molesting Dylan is almost certainly false. Mia Farrow is more than just a weirdo, she’s a psycho.
I am no fan of Woody Allen, but I am reluctant to condemn anyone when the evidence is so ambiguous. My instinct says he’s innocent, but all I can say for sure is the case against him is questionable at best.
This “cancel culture” of demanding anyone who is no longer as perfect as we once believed should be completely condemned by all right-thinking people is getting so very exhausting.
This isn’t the first time that Moses has denied that Allen abused any of Mia’s children. You might want to read Allen’s autobiography (Apropos of Nothing) that came out earlier this year to see what Allen’s claims about this are. It’s hard to precisely define Allen’s relation to Soon-yi. He was never married to Mia, nor did he ever live with her. He didn’t adopt Soon-yi. She wasn’t his stepdaughter in the usual sense. He says he didn’t have sex with her until she was legally an adult. Yeah, it’s kind of weird for him to marry the daughter of a former girlfriend, but where precisely is the line where it becomes wrong for a man to marry the daughter of a former girlfriend? Suppose that a man (X) dated a woman (Y) for two years. Suppose that she (Y) had a four-year-old daughter (Z) by a former boyfriend (W) when he (X) began dating that woman (Y). Suppose that twenty years later X meets and marries Z, after not having seen her (Z) for some years. Where’s the line between kind of weird and definitely wrong? I have no idea.
From all the different accounts I’ve read, my instinct is that Woody is a bit skeevy - getting into a relationship with Soon Yi didn’t exactly demonstrate good judgment - but also entirely innocent of the molestation charges.
Ronan Farrow is an interesting character in all of this. AFAICT, he’s drunk Mia’s koolaid and firmly believes the charges against Woody. Hard to blame him exactly; it’s unfair to ask him to be an unbiased observer. Still, Mia’s coyness over his parentage surely should have rung some alarm bells for him. He seems to be a cool guy and a marvelous journalist, but I don’t consider him a credible voice for events and characterizations within his family.
A relationship between a 56yo and a 22yo is always going to cause discussion.
But let’s not forget that Soon-yi was old enough and intelligent enough to make her own decisions. She was at Drew University at the time, and went on to get a Master’s degree from Columbia. From all accounts she has a strong character.
She is a person, not an object. Let’s not rob her of agency.
It’s notable that her relationship with Woody Allen has been stable, and has now lasted for 28 years. They have adopted and brought up two children.
Soon-Yi is just as bad as the rest of them. They are all messed up. Each one of them wants you to believe they are innocent because of the bad acts of others when none of them are.
Engaging in an incestuous relationship, just like her husband and one time father figure. They were members of the same family, the legal niceties are irrelevant. And as you stated, she was an adult, she had agency. So she has no excuse for her behavior.
It’s a controversial relationship because Allen was her stepmother’s boyfriend.
There was no blood relationship, no legal relationship, and no personal relationship growing up - but it’s controversial because of the age difference, and because Allen had a relationship with her stepmother. (Allen and Farrow never married).
Yes, they are all messed up. Soon-yi has more excuse for being messed up than most. But I for one am not inclined to judge, condemn, moralize, or throw stones.
She doesn’t need an excuse for a consensual relationship she’s had as an adult. That’s puritanical bullshit. The only reason that relationship may be wrong is because of the vast power differential inherent in the relationship; and exactly what would make it wrong in that case is what would make her the victim. To the extent that she has the agency in that relationship to make responsible decisions, it’s not a wrong relationship.
Just what do you think it means? You’re wrong whatever it is. What’s your excuse for a man marrying someone who is both the daughter of his lover and the sister of his own children? Are you going to say it would be just fine if this happened in your family? Maybe you’re better off not answering that.