Should I boycott Woody Allen's films?

I have seen a lot of separating the art from person arguments. I simply can’t do it. I will in no way support a horrible person even if I think what they produce is good.

The Carmichael Show did a take on this when Jerrod got tickets to see Bill Cosby do Stand-up.

He also married his adopted daughter. His movies aggravate me.

One of my favourite authors was accused, posthumously, of contributing to serial molestation of family members and underage acquaintances, and occasionally molesting them as well.

I still read her books. Not only are the two people accused of wrongdoing both long dead and unable to speak in their own defense (enough reason for me to judge them not guilty, absent further evidence) but to be quite honest the person behind the book doesn’t matter much to me, on a personal level. I’m in it for the characters, the scenery, the fantasy. The author is an afterthought.

Likewise, some musicians I like are known to be absolute jerks in person. Don’t care. I like the music. I’m not going on a date with the guy, I’m rocking out.

In other cases, I wouldn’t be able to separate the two. @johnpowell brings up Bill Cosby. Since so much of his “art” is directly reflective of his personal life and upbringing, the accusations against him colour my opinion of him.

@ucme – Clint Eastwood could talk to an imaginary Barack Obama in an empty chair in front of the entire Republican National Convention and I’d still love the Man With No Name.

@Seek Exactly, nowt he does could dampen his spag western films

I have never cared for his work and when it came out about his propensities and actions it just solidified my disgust, I do not watch his movies. I also have nothing to do with anything Roman Polanski has touched. I feel that I would be silently condoning his actions. For me it is the same as any other social or moral wrong. Silence equals consent. That said, I do not expect others to feel as I do, and am not vociferous about my staying away. I just don’t go.

I am lucky that I don’t like Allen’s work, so I have no dilemma there. Cosby’s stuff is forever tainted for me now and that breaks my heart. Marion Zimmer Bradley, too. Her daughter recently became a part of a group that I belong to, so that became more personal for me as well. I hate it when the stuff hits close to home and I can’t step away. Ugh.

Separating the artist from the work is a shades-of-gray thing for me. The work is tainted if I can’t get past the bad deeds. However, if the artist is just a jerk, I have no problem with the work.

IMO there’s too much non-controversial work out there to see without dirtying your conscious. If I believed Woody Allen had molested a 7 year old girl (I haven’t read enough to have a firm opinion), even if I liked his work (I do not), I would never visit his work again.

Short answer, @janbb, my best advice is to skip the flick.

To add to my previous answer:

I have a painting hanging in my living room. My husband bought it in 1992. It is a copy of a Frank Frazetta work which was based on a Michael Moorcock story. Urlik Skarsol is the main character of The Silver Warrior.

The painting we have was purchased at a prison art show. It was painted by someone who was a long-term resident of a state penitentiary for – frankly – who knows what. Don’t care. It’s well done and I love that painting.

Just like @johnpowell, I can’t separate the art from the artist. I won’t watch anything with Mel Gibson, and I boycott Woody Allen in every way.

Did Allen molest his 7-year-old daughter? We really can’t know. The pro and con arguments are equally vehement, and each side is passionate about either condemning or defending the man.

My own evidence Allen’s very real relationship with his step-daughter. While it’s true that Allen wasn’t the girl’s biological or adopted parent, and that he and Mia Farrow never married, so he wasn’t legally a step-parent, he was nonetheless a father figure and adult male within that family. He pursued a sexual relationship with a young girl who was his own daughter, in reality if not legal fact.

@janbb I’m with you on avoiding Woody’s latest movie. Why watch something that might make you feel compromised? There are so many other entertainment and artistic choices available.

@Love_my_doggie Thanks for the info. I didn’t know the exact details. @Seek It reminds me of a voyager episode where the holodeck doctor was a Cardassian war criminal and had his file deleted instead of using his knowledge to help a crew member.

@Seek There is a line I draw somewhere and of course, it varies with individual cases. I would have no problem having art made by a prisoner but not if I knew he was Hannibal Lecter. I will go see Clint Eastwood’s movies even though I don’t agree with his politics but I won’t give any support to the anti-semitic hater Mel Gibson. And I won’t have anything to do with Bill Cosby any more although I did like and respect him in the past.

Using my own moral yardstick, I guess Woody’s gotta go unless I can see a bootlegged copy and screw him in the process.

If you’re going to draw these sort of lines, then you have to be fair about. Play it Again Sam and Everything You Wanted to Know. About Sex were made long before the Allen suspicions. Should I not watch his early stuff because of what he may or may not have done a dozen years later? I don’t think so.

But people are going to stake out their positions on this. There’s not one right answer.

@elbanditoroso Of course. I think it was quite clear in my original question that I wasn’t dictating anything to anyone or suggesting there was one right answer. I just wanted to explore the question. Everyone will make there own decisions but I agree with you that I can still appreciate the earlier movies. (And I do really love “Midnight in Paris.”)

link for answer above

He irritates me too @RedDeerGuy1.

I don’t boycott him, though a lot of my friends do. I think that we’ll never know what happened in that family; the lot of them have spent so much time in analysis that they probably can’t tell a memory from a lie anymore, and Mia hates Woody so much that I don’t think she’s at all above brainwashing her own children. Dylan and Ronin vilify him in the press, but no one ever brings charges? The only investigation that was ever done (on an unofficial basis, if I recall correctly) found nothing. We are never, ever going to figure out if anything happened there.

Mr Allen doesn’t believe in the afterlife (although, as he has written, he’s taking a change of underwear just in case). But if it turns out there IS one, that’s where Woody will be judged for whatever sins he may have committed.

Meanwhile, as I do with many other entertainers whose personal lives I may not respect—I will continue to enjoy his work.

Should opera fans avoid listening to Wagner because of his highly vocal antisemitism?

You have to separate the artist from the artists’s work. What I find upsetting about Allen is the many movies portraying relationships between an older man and a much younger woman. This makes the separation between artist and work much more difficult.

@LostInParadise – good point on Wagner. My late grandfather escaped Germany in 1938 – he was luck – and from then on would never listen to Wagner again (even through Wagner had died 55 years earlier). He also called VWs ‘nazimobiles’ but that’s another story.

So for years I didn’t listen to Wagner during my classical music years, based on my grandfather’s actions. Then I started, and I kind of liked it.

The way I look at it: the Israel Philharmonic now plays Wagner. That’s good enough for me.

But it is true that for many years and many people, Wagner was verboten. And Woody Allen is alive now.

By the way, this is an argument I can see making both ways which is why I raised the question. I see pros and cons on both sides.

It’s all too common an occurrence to discover some great work to have been created by this or that reprehensible individual. And this is true for every field or subject imaginable. I hope I am able to view a film free of any bias I might bear against those responsible for it.

@stanleybmanly But don’t you see a difference when both the alleged perpetrator and the alleged victims are still alive?

If Michelangelo sodomized small boys it wouldn’t make much different to anyone now but Woody Allen is alive and so are his allegedly victimized kids.

It’s necessary to separate the work from whatever sickness afflicts the film maker. It may be true that patronizing the film goes some way toward enriching a pedophile, and I would fully understand boycotting or even picketing the film. I would not however particpate in either, though I would probably honor the picket line. My own view is that people are flawed. And we are probably fortunate in not knowing just how many of our activities and preferences benefit people of vile and repulsive character. As it is, Allen will forever more carry the logo of monumental film maker and pedophile. The stain will accompany any memory of him. That’s good enough for me.

It seems to me that many artists seem to have something deep and dark inside of them, something that aches to come out, and they let it out in their art.

Nice observation Dutchess. The world does bend and distort us all. Those who can work it out through their art are probably lucky, but it’s terrifying to recount the numbers doomed to tragedy.

@janbb “But don’t you see a difference when both the alleged perpetrator and the alleged victims are still alive?”

I know this wasn’t addressed to me, but I wanted to respond – I don’t, personally see any difference whether the people involved are alive or dead. If I’m going to be appalled enough by Bill Cosby’s actions to stop watching his TV show, I should have exactly the same reaction to an artist who did the same two hundred years ago.

Still, it’s rare for me to refuse to engage with an artist’s work because of their personal behaviour. I just think it’s an unfair standard to set. I know and expect that many artists have troubled minds – this is sometimes what leads them to become artists in the first place. It’s hypocritical of my to say I care what a small handful of artists have done, while refusing to investigate the lives of any other artist whose work I’ve engaged with.

I think I would still enjoy The Cosby Show if I were watching it in rerun, but luckily for me, I’d lost interest long before the rape allegations. I have absolutely no interest in seeing him perform now, just as I don’t ever want to hear/see another Jian Ghomeshi interview, but I think this is because of what @Seek described – what they do is utterly entwined with their personal life experiences. For me, I think it comes down to not being able to trust what they say to be true anymore. So much of what they perform comes from talking about themselves; if they’re hiding a vast, dark part of themselves, what’s left is just not worth watching.

With Woody Allen, his films are always self portraits of one kind or another, so I expect him to fall into this category. However, he wouldn’t lie in the same kind of way. He cannot help but expose himself on screen, always. He cannot help but conceal himself on screen, always. That’s part of what makes his films so interesting, and whether or not he has done what he’s been accused of, these things will always be true. His crime would not be a betrayal of his art, in the ways that Cosby’s and Ghomeshi’s have.

I guess as a victim of sexual abuse, I see these accusations as a little more than someone just being a jerk and the pain of potentially not being validated while the perp gets accolades (which is similar to my situation) makes this personal. But I get the other way of looking at it.

And as much as Allen’s behavior was squicky in regards to Soon Yi, I do not in any way regard a 19 year old woman as being victimized in the same way a 7 year old might have been.

So how does everyone feel about potentially paying for the legal defense of Cosby?

^ Who is that addressed to?

everyone

I edited the response above to reflect that.

In that case, I think he should pay for it out of his own millions and I will no longer watch anything he is in.

I think Woody Allen is a creep and I wouldn’t want anything to do with him in real life. I have enjoyed his films however and wouldn’t necessarily boycott them because of how I feel about the man. I like Jesse Eisenberg and may see Allen’s latest film for that reason. It would seem unfair to boycott Eisenberg because of Allen’s behaviour. There are no clear cut rights and wrongs in this and it depends on how strongly you feel about Woody Allen’s conduct.

@flutherother Yes, clearly no one right or wrong answer; that’s what makes it interesting to discuss.

“Innocent until proven guilty” is a cornerstone of modern justice. Without it, we might as well just go find some witches and have a bonfire…

@Answerbagger, this isn’t court. This is about personal choices in art and entertainment.
And to go one step further, are you so very naive as to believe that a wealthy, well-known, and respected white man in America (Allen) doesn’t wield a considerable amount of power with the justice system?