Rather than hijack when I started in this thread, I’m starting a new one. And Mods, feel free to move it to the Pit.
What is your take on the Woody/Mia/Soon-Yi brewhaha?
I had always hated Woody long before the whole mess. He is just too much of a weasel for my tastes. Screwing around with your children’s sister is just nasty. And then to jump on Mia for castigating him about it.
I saw Woody in the street during the whole incident, and I had to resist the urge to start smacking him. I was amazed at my self-control.
I never saw the big deal. Farrow adopted her with a previous partner when Soon Yi was 8, Allen didn’t adopt her or live with her, and she didn’t even grow up around him, from what I read at the time. She was clearly an adult when she became involved with Allen, so I don’t feel outraged or icked.
And the only biological kid between Farrow and Allen was only 4 when all this happened - hardly an emotional sibling to her already grown and away at college adopted sister.
Besides, Farrow’s adopted half of Manhattan, hard *not *to date one of her kids.
I’d rather hijack this thread to talk about what an amazing movie *Manhattan *is. Seriously, we’re talking about a guy who has made at least one, maybe two, of the top ten best movies in history. That’s interesting. His private life isn’t, to anyone but himself. Just give the poor bastard a break already.
I’ve been a huge Woody Allen fan ever since high school, although I admit I haven’t seen any of his last few movies. Still, I can’t help but like the guy, no matter what. Since Soon-Yi was a consenting adult and he didn’t live with her or raise her, I never saw what the big deal was. Was it a little creepy? Sure, but it wasn’t evil or sick or criminal like the OP and others from the “Recreational Outrage Brigade” make out. If anything, Mia Farrow adopting a whole menagerie of children always seemed a lot weirder to me than Woody Allen falling for an attractive adult woman. As another nebbishy jazz-playing Jewish guy who digs Asian women, I have always been firmly in Woody’s corner, and I’ll always love and respect his work first and foremost.
Plus, it seems like Scarlett Johanssen has replaced Diane Keaton and awful awful Mia as his new muse, and I have no problem with that!
Adopting so many children is certainly unusual, which seems to somewhat justify perceiving it as “weird”. I don’t know why you would interpret it as some kind of disparaging of adoption in general.
In the words of Mia Farrow: Satchell (Woody & Mia’s biological son) was never molested and nobody ever claimed he was. However, in his original court papers Woody falsely accused Mia of falsely accusing him of molesting their biological son. How evil is that? (Any parent who falsely accuses their child of being sexually molested is unfit. Any parent who falsely accuses another parent of falsely accusing them of molesting a child is also unfit). Woody also stated that Satchell was born in September. Wrong, he was born in December. He couldn’t even get the facts right, never mind the accusations.
ETA: Most of the children Mia adopted were hard-to-place children: Physically impaired, sickly, older, crack babies. I guess some believe it would have been better to let them stay in orphanages all their lives. Soon-Yi’s biological mother was a Korean prostitute who abused her. Her only requirement was that her adopted children be able to live an independant life when they grew up, so not to be a burden on their siblings. When she went to adopt a child that was found to be physically burdened and retarded, rather than return him she found a couple that was looking for such a child but didn’t have the money to adopt one. She then paid for them to adopt him.
They were all raised with love and turned our fine. Rodan (originally Satchell) went to college at age 16.
What number is optimal in your opinion, for someone who had the money and love to give them? Would you tell those children that their mother was “weird” for giving them a loving home?
It wasn’t meant that way, and it would be obvious to just about anyone that I didn’t mean it that way. But I know you and I have seen differently on things in the past and I’m not your favorite person here. So think whatever you will of me, and Pit away if it makes your Friday happier.
Mia had never been involved with any member of Sinatra’s family. She had been living on her own for two years, and 21 is a lot more mature than Soon-Yi’s 16.
