Mia Farrow's son -- Ronan Seamus Farrow -- really creeps me out!

Maureen Orth responds: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/02/woody-allen-sex-abuse-10-facts

did you see the joyce carol oates tweet

it's basically the worst thing in the world https://twitter.com/JoyceCarolOates/status/432162254406955008

Lol what a dope.

don't worry. i've responded to some of her tweets about nabokov.

one and only time i've seen joyce carol oates in person was at a screening of midnight in paris.

"woody is a moral adolescent and a total narcissist"

1) I think anyone who has seen a Woody Allen movie would probably not be surprised by this assessment.
2) I'm pretty sure most (or at least many) celebrities are both as well and I'm not sure it's relevant to the question of whether or not he's also a pedophile (except insofar as I guess it could explain why someone would go to a house filled with children and nannies and god knows who else and think that they could molest a seven year old and get away with it).

one and only time i've seen joyce carol oates in person was at a screening of midnight in paris.

― tɹi.ʃɪp (Treeship),

her first time at a movie since The Best Years of Our Lives

With JCO and Stephen King tweeting terrible shit because of all this, it's only a matter of time until Margaret Atwood fucks up as well.

lol

Glenn Kenny ‏@Glenn__Kenny Feb 8

@JoyceCarolOates Actually, they'll be coming after Nabokov and his work by spring I reckon

JCO, Stephen King, Woody Allen, Tom Perkins, et al=basically rich/famous people how have no idea how complete unhinged they sound to most people when they open their mouths.

first they came for the child molestors

Who the fuck reads Joyce Carol Oates anyway? I've been forced to read her a bunch of times in classes but I've never heard of anyone reading her voluntarily.

In the time it took you to type The New Yorker accepted a short story and she scribbled several Petrachan sonnets.

i've known some jco fans in my day xp

i think my ex-gf claimed to have read all of her novels but that might be impossible

jco in heavy damage-control/let-me-explain mode since tweeting that btw.

Andrea Pitzer ‏@andreapitzer Feb 8

.@JoyceCarolOates I'm not weighing in on Allen, but why is Lolita relevant here? No one ever accused Nabokov of abusing a child in real life

Ugh, the Nabokov analogy is despicable, repellent, and just plain moronic. All the stupidity she's projecting on others (e.g. the philistine's conflation of life and art), shines so brightly in that tweet.

Yeah, I'm sure Ronan and Dylan and those who believe them are just prudishly moralistically going after Woody Allen's ART. That's why they're upset: Woody Allen's movies.
Or is she saying that to create the character of Humbert and Humbert and to be Humbert Humbert is morally equivalent?

My god, can she really be saying that? Yeah, sure, go with that, Joyce.

Two things I have learned from this controversy:

1) A lot of people have no fucking clue about child molestation and child molestors and have some really ridiculous ideas about them and
2) A lot of people are completely incapable of following a statement to its logical conclusion and just blurt it out anyway

I kind of like how the tweet ends with "No contradiction?" like she might actually have an inkling that it's a stupid thing to say and is asking if it makes any sense

"woody is a moral adolescent and a total narcissist"

1) I think anyone who has seen a Woody Allen movie would probably not be surprised by this assessment.
2) I'm pretty sure most (or at least many) celebrities are both as well and I'm not sure it's relevant to the question of whether or not he's also a pedophile (except insofar as I guess it could explain why someone would go to a house filled with children and nannies and god knows who else and think that they could molest a seven year old and get away with it).

― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Sunday, February 9, 2014 7:53 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

did you read my post? i already suggested that (a) we knew this already and (b) this would fall short of convincing anyone that he was a child molester. so basically you are presenting a critique that already framed that phrase in my post.

reading competency LOL

maybe all this tells is something we already know: woody is a moral adolescent and a total narcissist

I love Joyce Carol Oates's writing (much of the time), but I wonder if she's not (1) senile or (2) a total fucking idiot.

a lot of great artists are total fucking idiots and/or infantile narcissists.

It's like one of the themes of this thread or something.

yeah but oates's writing seldom strikes me as narcissistic and foolish as, say, a certain woody allen's does

i'm surprised is all

i've heard rumors that she doesn't edit her tweets

I love Joyce Carol Oates's writing (much of the time), but I wonder if she's not (1) senile or (2) a total fucking idiot.

― espring (amateurist)

or (3) thinks artists get a pass for their behavior, no matter how despicable.

Not too much of a surprise from her writing, as far as empathizing with transgressive folks.

also given that she's a writer can she not imagine people appreciating lolita as literature and not identifying or excusing humbert humbert?

she's displating a level of literary savvy i would usually attribute to book-burning fundies

displaying

http://excrementalvirtue.com/2014/02/08/brainwashing-woody/

seldom strikes me as narcissistic and foolish as, say, a certain woody allen's does

ooh which one?

that was a great link, scott, thank you for posting it.

2nded

Was great, and posted earlier.

http://excrementalvirtue.com/2014/02/08/brainwashing-woody/

― sXe & the banshees (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, February 8, 2014 4:04 PM

ya nice try scott

it should be posted a million times! it's great read it everyone!

http://gawker.com/woody-allen-is-not-a-monster-he-is-a-person-like-my-f-1518291644

Most of us would sooner discard all parties who have been tainted by this event than we would look at how tenuous the sanctity of children really is, how commonplace abuse is, or see the capacity for the mostly good to do periodic evil. We live in the same universe as those who abuse kids. We walk among them. If we want to end the sexual abuse of children, it will begin with the recognition that we are simply not that different from them.

I think this is true - certainly up until the last line. It's probably a safe bet to say that we are all capable of dark things that we do not expect of ourselves, but with some things I feel such revulsion for the acts that I can't recognize that I am "not that different from them." Not just re abuse of children - was that officer in Syria who ate a human heart really not so different from you and me? It feels like they are - some distant expression of a humanity that most of us have left behind to history. But of course the capacity for evil lives within every individual. Still, I don't feel like I've chosen not to eat hearts, or commit genocide, or abuse a child. It feels like something beyond the pale.

If Woody Allen is now written into history as a monstrous child molester, child abuse is more likely to continue. Because if we are unable to stomach the fact that Woody is not a monster but a human being who did something monstrous, we will continue to stoke the fires of archetype, perpetuating the notion of the picture-perfect pedophile, the one whose evil shines through like a 100-watt black lightbulb.

Is this what's happening on a large scale? I don't see it.

Well, I have heard some people say stuff like "He doesn't seem like a child molestor, he seems like he was a loving father to her" or "child molestors usually leave a trail of victims in their wake, so where are the other victims'

I think most people probably just don't feel any strong sexual attraction or impulse toward young children, so it's seen as this "other" kind of thing. I do sort of wonder what percentage of people with some pedophilic tendencies act vs. don't act on them.

Forgive the glibness, but I think it's like that line in ratatouille - not everyone can be a great chef, but a great chef can come from anyone. The majority of people do not have these urges, but even the most innocent seeming person could be harboring dark impulses.

Right, I agree. I'm just saying I think that's why some people envision pedophiles as a child-eating troll monster instead of as a potentially ordinary or even respectable and admirable-seeming person.

What I meant was that I don't see Allen being widely branded an unforgivable monster. The general point is valid but it doesn't apply here, at least not yet.

yeah if anything Woody Allen is crystallizing the possibility of molestor as "human being who did something monstrous"

anger more at years of lies and poison than molestation even

Still, I don't feel like I've chosen not to eat hearts, or commit genocide, or abuse a child. It feels like something beyond the pale.

you haven't been given the opportunity for the first two (well maybe the first but there is a difference between going out of your way to eat a heart in a suburban context and taking the opportunity to eat one in a war while flooded with murder hormones) and i assume you have no sexual impulse urging the third

the last two articles in this thread are the best ones. this--

I can't count how many times I've seen the most strident liberal break character to loudly call for the prison rape of perpetrators.

--is otm and it's always funny in liberals cuz their whole bodies relax with the relief of abandoning empathy. anyway what felt rly true to me w my lack of experience was

Years later, my father broke down on the phone, crying, and acknowledged what he had done. That, the simplest truth, was all I ever wanted.

which helps illuminate why the reflexive refusal to believe dylan, the comfort in the impossibility of "knowing", is so much a part of the crime.