On February 4 2013, writer Teju Cole posted the following on Twitter: “I’m skeptical of an ethos that reduces justice to money, that admits of no firmer ground than money.” It is not altogether clear to what this was in reference. Cole uses Twitter in much the same way others mobilize bits of scrap paper, or jot down notes in magic marker on clenched fists and sweaty palms. Still, it is hard not to see a connection with his ongoing commentary on the sexual abuse allegations lodged at Woody Allen. “Not going anywhere with this”, he muses, “…just thinking we could have a more robust and less mechanical notion of what justice might look like” (@tejucole).

On the heels of Dylan Farrow’s open letter to The New York Times, a wave of criticism, counter-criticism and counter-counter criticism has swept across the American editorial landscape. First Robert Weide’s suggestive piece in The Daily Beast cast doubt on the facticity of Dylan’s story. Then Jessica Winter’s highly personal rebuttal in Slate attacked Weide’s credibility as an observer while highlighting the inequities of gendered violence. And then all hell broke loose. A veritable avalanche of increasingly abstract criticisms poured over everything from public opinion, to relatives of the victim, and even Nick Kristof, the Times editor whose crime seems to be giving a public forum to Dylan Farrow. By the following week even Woody Allen joined the fray, breaking decades of public silence with, fittingly, a slightly neurotic piece of amateur psychoanalysis.

If there is a common thread here, it is that none of this is really about Dylan Farrow. At least not primarily. The pieces are about media, or society, or mental illness, or violence, or sexuality, or money, or fame, or any number of things that purport to explain what happened (which, we are constantly reminded, no one really knows). And this is precisely why I find Cole’s take so refreshing: at least he seems to recognize how unconscionably trite this is. Faced with questions we can’t answer about people we don’t know, the conversation has shifted towards bland statements of preference. What do we think about all this? What ought we do? Since when is this about “us”? Boycott Woody Allen! Stick to the facts! Hit ‘em all where it hurts! Where is justice here? And what happened to Dylan Farrow?

Let’s not fool ourselves: Woody Allen winning a lifetime achievement award from the Golden Globes is not especially tragic. He already has two; they compete for mantle space with his four American and nine British Academy awards*. Nor is there any reason to feel bad for Mia Farrow, who was one of Time Magazine’s most influential people of 2008 and seems unlikely to suffer in any comparison to her ex-husband. Robert Weide missed the point. But at worst, the only thing he is guilty of is re-stating the position of Connecticut State Police. Does his article reiterate gender inequities by evoking manipulative feminine tropes? Yes. But rape “culture” does not emerge from conscious participation in subjugating practices, it is subjugation. No one is on the outside looking in**.

The only real tragedy is Dylan Farrow. Psychiatrists often say that children who experience trauma at a young age, never fully grow into adults. Sure they age, physically, mentally. But there is always some piece, some fragment that remains trapped in the moment. Dylan Farrow is 28-years old now — just two-years younger than her father on the day his very first film went public. Yet to hear her story, you would think she hadn’t aged a day. Everyone wants to talk about what to do for, or about her. They scramble to “tell her story” by uncovering who is really to blame: the two-faced father winding public opinion around his little finger, or her insatiable mother brainwashing children like some latter day Bond villain? Maybe this is why Dylan had to change her name — how else could “Malone” ever hope to grow up?

Of course, the irony here is that Dylan Farrow has actually been remarkably clear. What to do, what she wants; it’s all right there in her letter. She doesn’t ask for white knights or vengeance. And while she isn’t looking to forgive and forget, suffering is lodged firmly in the past tense — scenes of devastation viewed through the rear window of a moving car. “Last week”, she says, “Woody Allen was nominated for his latest Oscar. But this time, I refuse to fall apart”. What she wants to know, with her story in mind, is our favorite Woody Allen film. That in mind, I will go first: Annie Hall. Allen’s homage to love, neurosis and New York was released eight-years before Dylan Farrow was born.

* In fact, Allen has a well earned reputation for disinterest in awards. Despite 24 lifetime Academy nominations, he has attended only one ceremony: in 2002, when delivered a speech pleading with producers to continue making films in New York City.

** The scare quotes here are not meant to undermine the political claims made by opponents of rape culture. But I struggle with the term itself. Culture, in my understanding, demarcates difference. Victims of sexual violence are not silenced/shamed by shadowy groups of rape advocates, but the norms of political and social systems that are weighted against them. Robert Weide is not advocating rape. He does not have to. All he needs to do is re-iterate the findings of the 1993 investigation, and we are compelled to ask: why are Dylan and Mia Farrow lying? What is their end game? And how can we protect ourselves from manipulation by such deceitful women?