Dylan Farrow shares her side of the story in the HBO documentary television miniseries “Allen v Farrow.” Photo from radio.com.
“For the longest time I’ve been trying to set the record straight, because no matter what you think you know, it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Dylan Farrow said at the start of the HBO documentary television miniseries “Allen v. Farrow.”
As each minute ticked by and the story unfolded, her statement felt more and more true. I went into it with my mind made up: Woody Allen is guilty and I believe Dylan. I walked away with so much more.
In August 1992, seven-year-old Dylan accused her adoptive father, filmmaker and actor Woody Allen, of sexually molesting her in the Bridgewater, Connecticut home of her mother, actress Mia Farrow. Allen has repeatedly denied the allegation, claiming Mia “coached” Dylan to make up the “story” of the alleged molestation out of jealousy and rage at his affair with her 21-year-old adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. He was never prosecuted, but Frank Maco, Litchfield, Connecticut’s states attorney, said he had probable cause to create a case against him. As to why he didn’t, Maco claims he didn’t want to further traumatize a young Dylan through having to testify on the witness stand and with a highly-publicized case.
It wasn’t until over 20 years later in 2013 that Dylan made her first public comment in a Vanity Fair interview and through “Allen v. Farrow,” Dylan shared her story again, going into more depth than she ever has, along with her mother and many of her siblings and family friends. Allen declined to take part, but his perspective was given through taped phone calls from around the time of the incident and clips from the audiobook of his 2020 memoir “Apropos of Nothing,” which were very telling and damning to say the least.
Being born years after the abuse allegation came to light, I grew up knowing about the case and always believing Allen to be guilty. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I first knew of Woody Allen as a famous director who also molested his child and escaped justice. I simply can’t understand supporting him or his work, but everything I’ve already said has painted me as biased, and I won’t deny it.
So, instead of me getting into my own opinions about Allen, which I can go on-and-on about, I’ll let the series speak for itself. I stand firm in my belief in Dylan, and after watching the series, I simply don’t understand how anyone else couldn’t.
Many defend Allen for a few fairly simple reasons. The main one being that they really enjoy his films and don’t want to believe their favorite writer/director/actor could possibly do anything so heinous and that there is no way possible that he’s guilty.
“I think the public has a great deal of trouble believing someone they like could be a sex offender,” Anna Slater, a child abuse expert psychologist said. “The public is very harsh towards sex offenders as long as they are over there and unlikeable. If you are powerful — celebrities, rich men — people are more likely to believe your denials. You are nearly impossible to prosecute.”
We’ve seen this time and time again, and it makes sense in our “innocent until proven guilty” society, which seems to be brought with a force when it comes to famous and powerful people. Allen was never prosecuted, and while the evidence is there, there is no verdict, so you can choose to ignore it.
That’s the second biggest reason: no prosecution, no case, no verdict.
There wasn’t a case addressing the allegation, but there was a child custody case that shares its name with the documentary’s title. Shortly after the allegation went public, Allen filed for custody of Dylan, their other adopted child Moses (who was seven years older and Farrow’s adoptive child who was then adopted by Allen just a year before) and young biological son Satchel, who now goes by Ronan and is a journalist. It was a drawn-out case that garnered great media attention and after 10 months, New York State Judge Elliot Wilk awarded custody to Farrow. In his decision, he described Allen’s behavior as Dylan as “grossly inappropriate” and said there was “no credible evidence” that Mia had coached her into making the allegation. He barred Allen from seeing Dylan for six months, and when that period was up, she made the decision that she didn’t want to see him again.
Wilk also discredited the Yale-New Haven report due to the “unavailability of the notes, together with their unwillingness to testify at this trial,” which brings me to one of the most egregious defenses of Allen. Commissioned by Maco and the Connecticut State Police, the Yale-New Haven Child Sexual Abuse Clinic did an investigation which involved interviews by two social workers. The report was written by Dr. John Leventhal, the clinic’s medical director, who had never met Dylan. Leventhal’s report cited Dylan as untrustworthy in her claims and that it was possible Mia had coached her. The notes that the social workers took from their interviews were destroyed, which Leventhal claimed was a practice of the clinic. He then shared the results with Mia and Allen before consulting Maco and Allen gave a press conference on the steps of the clinic, proclaiming himself as innocent. Maco read articles that claimed Allen was cleared before he had even made the decision to prosecute.
The report is a main focus of the third episode, which is the one that goes into the case in the most depth and detail, with input given from multiple lawyers, psychiatrists and child abuse experts. One of whom was Dr. Stephen P. Herman, a forensic psychiatrist and expert witness for Mia, who she consulted to look over the report. He was horrified by it and testified during the custody battle (Leventhal was unwilling to testify).
Dylan had been interviewed a total of nine times, which is unheard of in such a case due to the potential of retraumatizing the child (which is exactly what happened in this case). Simultaneously, an investigation was underway by Paul Williams in New York City, the first recipient of the city’s award for case worker of the year. His notes still remain, including those from contact he had with Jennifer Sawyer, one of the Yale-New Haven social workers who actually said she believed Dylan and found her consistent. After he went public in his belief of Dylan, he was fired on grounds of insubordination. With support from activists like Gloria Steinhem, he was able to earn his position back, but never got to finish his investigation.
There are tons of sketchy details throughout the case and that’s what made the series so shocking. The evidence is all right there and yet people still defend him. If you’re holding onto any defense of Allen after reading this article, please watch the series. If after that you still don’t believe Dylan or support Allen, then I think you need to do some major examining as to why because as hard as it may be to let your idea of Allen as a person or your love of his films go, I’d imagine that it’s much harder for Dylan to live her life knowing people still support and believe him.