Washington: Dylan Farrow, daughter of director Woody Allen, has blasted Hollywood for intentionally overlooking past sexual assault allegations levelled against her father amid the industry’s anti-harassment movement. In an op-ed published, Farrow called out Hollywood stars including Kate Winslet, Blake Lively, and Greta Gerwig for working with Allen amid her accusations that the 82-year-old filmmaker molested her as a child in 1992.
“We are in the midst of a revolution. From allegations against studio heads and journalists, to hotel maids recounting abuses on the job, women are exposing the truth and men are losing their jobs. But the revolution has been selective,” Farrow wrote in the piece, titled “Why has the #MeToo revolution spared Woody Allen?”
Farrow, who first alleged decades ago that Allen sexually assaulted her when she was seven-year-old, asserted that the details of the alleged incident, her family’s custody battle and the director’s ‘pattern of inappropriate behaviour’ have not been properly exposed to the public. “It is a testament to Allen’s public relations team and his lawyers that few know these simple facts,” she said. “It also speaks to the forces that have historically protected men like Allen: the money and power deployed to make the simple complicated, to massage the story.”
Farrow added, “In this deliberately created fog, A-list actors agree to appear in Allen’s films and journalists tend to avoid the subject.” She also called out at female actors who have collaborated with her father in the past and applauded women for speaking out against sexual misconduct, while declining to comment on allegations facing Allen.
“Although the culture seems to be shifting rapidly, my allegation is apparently still just too complicated, too difficult, too ‘dangerous,’ to use Lively’s term, to confront. … The truth is hard to deny but easy to ignore. It breaks my heart when women and men I admire work with Allen, then refuse to answer questions about it.”
“The system worked for Harvey Weinstein for decades. It works for Woody Allen still,” Farrow added. Allen did not comment on Farrow’s op-ed, but his representative Leslee Dart did release a statement,”Dylan Farrow’s allegations against Woody Allen, which she first made 25 years ago, have been thoroughly examined by law enforcement officials and child welfare investigators.”
“The investigators concluded unambiguously that Dylan Farrow was not sexually abused. No charges were ever filed, and the reason is simple: because Woody Allen is innocent.”
—PTI