In February 2014, Dylan Farrow wrote an op-ed about her father, Woody Allen, and how he molested her when she was a young child. It was actually the first time we heard from Dylan – who is now 32 years old – in any kind of direct way, in her words. Before that moment, when people talked about Woody and the accusations against him, we were mostly going from the old reporting from the 1990s, plus the claims that Mia Farrow and Ronan Farrow made on Dylan’s behalf. In that 2014 op-ed, Dylan called out Woody, and she also called out Woody’s enablers and – for lack of a better word – his collaborators. Specifically, she called out Cate Blanchett, who was just weeks away from picking up a Best Actress Oscar for Woody’s Blue Jasmine.

Well, we’re in another awards season and Woody has another “Oscar-bait” film, Wonder Wheel. Truly, I don’t think Woody cares if the film is nominated for anything, but his leading lady cares. Kate Winslet has been shilling for an Oscar nomination for months, and her defense of Woody grows worse and worse with each interview. It’s enough to make me want to write a strongly-worded op-ed calling Winslet an a–hole, but thankfully, Dylan Farrow saved me the time. Dylan wrote an op-ed for the LA Times, and she talks about how the time has come for Woody Allen to be shunned and disgraced, just like we’ve shunned Harvey Weinstein. You can read the full “Why Has the #MeToo Revolution Spared Woody Allen?” piece here.

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.

I have long maintained that when I was 7 years old, Woody Allen led me into an attic, away from the babysitters who had been instructed never to leave me alone with him. He then sexually assaulted me. I told the truth to the authorities then, and I have been telling it, unaltered, for more than 20 years. Why is it that Harvey Weinstein and other accused celebrities have been cast out by Hollywood, while Allen recently secured a multimillion-dollar distribution deal with Amazon, greenlit by former Amazon Studios executive Roy Price before he was suspended over sexual misconduct allegations? Allen’s latest feature, “Wonder Wheel,” was released theatrically on Dec. 1.

Allen denies my allegations. But this is not a “he said, child said” situation. Allen’s pattern of inappropriate behavior — putting his thumb in my mouth, climbing into bed with me in his underwear, constant grooming and touching — was witnessed by friends and family members. At the time of the alleged assault, he was in therapy for his conduct towards me. Three eyewitnesses substantiated my account, including a babysitter who saw Allen with his head buried in my lap after he had taken off my underwear. Allen refused to take a polygraph administered by the Connecticut state police.

In the final legal disposition of the matter, a judge denied him custody of me, writing that “measures must be taken to protect” me and that there was “no credible evidence” that my mother, Mia Farrow, coached me in any way. A prosecutor took the unusual step of announcing that he had probable cause to charge Allen but declined in order to spare me, a “child victim,” from an exhausting trial. It is a testament to Allen’s public relations team and his lawyers that few know these simple facts. 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.

Although the culture seems to be shifting rapidly, my allegation is apparently still just too complicated, too difficult, too “dangerous,” to use Blake 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. It meant the world to me when Ellen Page said she regretted working with Allen, and when actresses Jessica Chastain and Susan Sarandon told the world why they never would.

It isn’t just power that allows men accused of sexual abuse to keep their careers and their secrets. It is also our collective choice to see simple situations as complicated and obvious conclusions as a matter of “who can say”? The system worked for Harvey Weinstein for decades. It works for Woody Allen still.

[From the LA Times]

Dylan spends a chunk of her op-ed calling out Woody’s collaborators by name and quoting their defense of Allen directly – she name-checks Kate Winslet, Black Lively and Greta Gerwig (Gerwig described Allen as one of her heroes as a filmmaker). Dylan also details that Woody uses and used the same kind of “defense-through-intimidation techniques” which Harvey Weinstein used, mostly to discredit Dylan and Mia and Ronan, and to silence any further media scrutiny. I agree with Dylan that it would absolutely be worth a newspaper’s time and energy to really do a larger, Weinstein-style exposé on Woody.

But much like her last op-ed, I’m confused by why she’s so hellbent on name-checking ONLY the actresses who work with him or even the ones who just say that they admire him as a filmmaker. Kate Winslet is an a–hole, for sure, but we figured that out on our own. Blake Lively was widely mocked for her moronic comments on Woody a few years ago. Why doesn’t Dylan care about Joaquin Phoenix or Justin Timberlake or Alec Baldwin or any of the men who have starred in Woody’s recent films? I understand that she’s trying to make a point about “the sisterhood should have my back,” but I sometimes wonder if she’s just finding a way to blame women for Woody Allen’s behavior.

Photos courtesy of WENN.