Why I Won’t Be Watching Crisis in Six Scenes
I won’t be watching Woody Allen’s Amazon show, and I don’t think you should, either.
It isn’t that the show looks bad, as far as I can tell from the ads Amazon insists on playing before allowing me to proceed to the show I actually want to watch (Tig Notaro’s One Mississippi, in case you were wondering). Crisis, judging from the trailer, seems to follow the basic Woody Allen formula: lots of characters yammering past each other via overwrought articulation while providing “humor” to the audience through studied mannerisms, constructed idiosyncrasies, and some slapstick thrown in for good measure. Oh, and it’s set in the 1960s. I’m not going to go into any more detail about the plot or cast, because I’m not going to watch the show.
It’s not that I think Woody Allen isn’t talented. I used to adore Annie Hall (1977), even before I studied it as part of a film history course in college. I loved the film’s writing, its humor, its honesty. It was simply different from other movies I had been exposed to before. The film history course made me appreciate the way that Annie Hall simultaneously adheres to and subverts the conventions of the romantic comedy. The guy doesn’t, actually, get the girl. The girl (a loveably awkward, life-changing Diane Keaton) matures apart from the guy. They both move on. I admit that, sometimes, I still find myself pondering those eggs.
I was also a huge fan of Allen’s 1978 film Interiors, again starring Diane Keaton. As a poet whose mother suffered from mental illness, I recognized something of myself in Keaton’s portrayal of Renata. There is a quiet beauty and sadness to its scenes (Allen has said he was inspired by the works of Ingmar Bergman). I’ll never forget the image of Geraldine Page walking into the ocean. It haunts me.
But despite my affection for Allen’s work, I feel I have to grieve it. I feel my ability to appreciate his work has died.
I knew, growing up, watching the bulk of Allen’s comedies from the 60s and 70s, that he had done something not quite right by Mia Farrow, something involving her daughter. I was murky on the details, but I didn’t want to investigate. I was guided by a culture that prized the integrity of a man’s artistic ambition over the integrity of his behavior. Simply put, I grew up believing Woody Allen’s films were of such quality, such importance, that it did not matter what he did to the women and children in his life.
I grew up believing there could be a separation between the artist and his art. I had no moral impetus to examine that position, because if I did, I would have to admit the ugly truth, not only about Allen, but about myself: I would rather pretend Allen was acceptable, admirable even, than accept the validity of women’s (and children’s) pain. I mistakenly prioritized the status that “being into” his films afforded me; it allowed me to feel superior to those who “didn’t get” them. I remember even regarding someone else’s revulsion of Allen’s relationship with Soon-Yi Previn as being overly emotional, naive, tasteless, petty, and on some level, anti-intellectual.
I have since grown out of these beliefs (thank god). But the world I live in, the culture that shaped me, still works the same way it has always worked: believing and protecting men over the women and children they harm.
How can the world move on after Soon-Yi Previn? How can the world ignore Dylan Farrow?
Who is Allen talking about here, in an interview with NPR?
I was paternal. She responded to someone paternal. I liked her youth and energy. She deferred to me, and I was happy to give her an enormous amount of decision-making just as a gift and let her take charge of so many things. She flourished. It was just a good-luck thing.
He is referring to his wife, Soon-Yi Previn, but he could just as easily be talking about his predatory targeting of Dylan Farrow, his daughter.
Previn was “college aged” when they started “dating,” during Allen’s relationship with Previn’s adopted mother, Mia Farrow. Much has been written and discussed about Dylan Farrow’s abuse allegations. You can read her 2014 New York Times letter here, as well as her brother Ronan Farrow’s essay of support in The Hollywood Reporter here.
The truth is, I believe victims. I believe women and children who say they have been abused. I refuse to support the abuser in any way, emotionally or financially.
Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, Nate Parker. Countless more. Men who succeed in the entertainment industry, while the women and children they have sexually assaulted continue to suffer. While the world prefers to look away.
I prefer to look away from Crisis in Six Scenes. You should too.
I will also not be watching Parker’s Birth of a Nation (2016), and I will never again screen Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) nor any show involving Bill Cosby.
Because nothing will change if rapists and sexual abusers keep getting away with their crimes.
And just in case you are worried about missing out on quality comedy, check out Tig Notaro’s One Mississippi (Amazon) and/or Maria Bamford’s Lady Dynamite (Netflix) instead!
Because if you care about inclusivity and diversifying the media landscape, if you care about advancing the voices of women and people of color, anyone who breaks the mold(s) of “cis white” and “dude,” then you have to take seriously the conditions of labor.
You have to take seriously the fact that rapists are getting funded to express their creative visions, while so many others are effectively silenced.
Originally published October 2 2016 at lizmeley.tumblr.com.
