About a year ago, I raised the question: Can we admire talented abusers?
I mentioned, among others, Woody Allen, who had been accused of molesting his adoptive daughter Dylan when she was seven years old.
The controversy about Allen was recently reignited when he received the Golden Globe lifetime achievement award.
Now New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has published on his blog an open letter from Dylan restating the accusations in some detail.
It’s possible, as some claim, that Dylan, now 28, has been manipulated or brainwashed by her mother Mia Farrow into doing this. But commenters who have experienced sexual abuse as children say her account has the ring of truth.
I was a fan of Allen’s early, funny movies, but I began to get uncomfortable when I saw “Manhattan” and its depiction of his character’s relationship with the high school girl played by Mariel Hemingway.
I’ve also laughed at some of his standup routines and quoted from his humorous essays.
Not anymore. And how should we feel about actors who continue to work with him in his films?
Kristof writes:
Look, none of us can be certain what happened. The standard to send someone to prison is guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but shouldn’t the standard to honor someone be that they are unimpeachably, well, honorable?