Last night, I fell asleep right after the third episode of Farrow vs Allen. That was pretty disturbing, not only because of the accusations of child sexual abuse but because of Woody Allen’s vicious retaliation concealed by his neurotic film persona.
Then I woke up in the middle of the night and just for the heck of it, I watched Oprah’s interview of Meghan and Harry, because why not?
I don’t know, guys, but I think we have hit a critical mass here. Think back to the last year and let’s review the sagas of defamed women.
For instance, why is it that whenever Hillary Clinton writes an op/Ed or gives a speech, there is a chorus of media types and political lefties and Uber alles righties that tell her to sit down and shut up. I don’t think we have to review what happened to her during 2016 AND 2008. (Maybe Obama’s campaign had nothing to do with the sickening sexism but it sure did capitalize on it, didn’t it?)
More recently, the last season of The Crown showed us what was going on behind the scenes of Charles and Diana’s marriage and how the palace insiders gaslighted her while changing the sheets on the bed that Charles and Camilla had just trysted on.
Then there was the Free Britany documentary where clip after clip showed how journalists brought her to tears for being a grown up in training or following her around when she was trying to see her kids and generally looking like she was clinically depressed. She’s lost control of her life because of that. It’s now in the hands of a pretty ruthless father and legal conservatorship system. I mean, no one wants to see Britany Spears end up as another Lindsay Lohan but she is almost 40 years old. It should be her choice what she does with her money and her life. Something a lot less drastic than conservatorship should have been done a long time ago.
Mia Farrow went through the public image grinder when Woody Allen decided to use his formidable wealth to trash her reputation as a mother. He did it to distract from the very credible accusations that he had molested his adopted daughter, Dylan. He lost his custody battle in court but not before doing irreparable harm to Farrow’s family.
And now Meghan Markle has become Diana Spencer 2.0 at the hands of a brutal British press that cast her as the villain against Kate “pink of perfection” Middleton.
Is it all racism? Not quite, though there’s a significant bit at the core. More sinister is the entertainment value of creating a narrative of villainy through which all Markle’s actions would be perceived. That’s the real cruelty of the bait ball frenzy smear campaign.
It just works so much better against women.
This weekend, the Bernie Bros type lefties started trashing Kirsten Sinema over the minimum wage bill defeat. Yes, she did herself no favors with her defiant John McCain thumbs down gesture. I’m assuming she did it for the folks at home. And yes, it would be no skin off the working class nose in Arizona because they are already well on their way to $15.00/hour. But Sinema was only one of eight senators who voted against the bill. If she had voted yes, we still would have had to change the minds of seven other people.
The quick reaction and vileness of the comments thrown at Sinema was shocking and unnecessary. I don’t see anyone going after the GOP state legislators in Pennsylvania who are keeping their knees on the necks of workers here who try to make ends meet on $7.25/hour. You can’t imagine how embarrassing it is to type that number. Pennsylvania is not a third world country. We just pay poor people like we are. Even West Virginia has a higher minimum wage. But we’re not hurling disgusting accusations at the state senate president or party chairmen here.
We probably don’t do that because it wouldn’t stick. But getting on a woman’s case works very well. She either becomes a pariah, has close to a nervous breakdown or is villainized. And once you get painted with that brush, no matter how little it resembles actual reality, it is almost impossible to change. It could give you a heart attack in your sleep or cause you to jump off a bridge or lose your ability to direct your own life indefinitely or ruin your political career or destroy your family.
Until you’ve been the target of a smear campaign personally, you won’t have any idea how harmful they are. You won’t know how to defend yourself because those that indulge in it for entertainment purposes look for behaviors that validate their preconceived notions and narratives. It feeds on itself as an entity unto itself, completely detached from any semblance to reality. Eventually, the target starts to see the thing for what it is- a separate ugliness, a bait ball frenzy. Then the only thing left to do is to leave that thing behind and stop feeding it.
It comes with a cost, as all of these women can attest. Mia Farrow is still a mother and humanitarian, Hillary Clinton still speaks her mind, Meghan Markle is still going to work for global causes but she had to leave the Queen and her new country behind. Britney has decided to go on strike. Good for her.
It’s a good thing that most of these women have a strong support system. Britney has a whole movement even if it’s remote.
But there’s no reason to keep doing this to women. It goes deeper than racism. It’s something primal, it’s like living with the Taliban. Don’t conform to the behavior predetermined for you and the weight of those cultural norms will be put upon you until your back breaks. Or you will be used as a cautionary example. Or you’ll be used to sell content in tabloids or media sources.
The question is, who benefits?
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Anyone want to take a guess who made the remark to Harry about his and Meghan’s children and their skin color? I’m guessing it wasn’t the Queen. They like her and see her as just doing her job. It’s pretty consistent with what we have seen in The Crown where she gives in to the state interests.
It doesn’t sound like it’s William and Kate. They’re just driving themselves crazy trying to be perfect.
Charles? I don’t know. He seemed so helpful during the wedding. His most recent behavior, however, shows a manipulative dark side. Harry has a very pained look when he’s asked about his father. There’s something very wrong there. But if you’ve been watching The Crown for the past five years, that should come as no surprise.
Camilla? I can kind of see it. She’s not the nicest lady and Harry doesn’t mention her once during the whole interview.
Prince Phillip? Maybe. But you can chalk a lot of that up to the fact that he’s in his late 90’s. And they both seemed concerned with his health.
Andrew? Edward? I don’t know them that well though there doesn’t seem to be any love lost between Meghan and Andrew. It sounds like The Firm has been covering up for him while chucking her to the wolves.
So, I’m going with Andrew. Consider the company he kept. He was with Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump and there were fascist sympathizers within the royal family before. And it sounds like he’s got a lot to answer for.
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Who’s ready to see SNL skit on Harry’s green card interview?
INS: What special skill do you possess that an American can’t do?
Harry: I’m a prince.
INS: Is that a skill?
Harry: I’m a refugee?
INS: I see you have one child and one on the way. Are you planning to have your second child born here in the states as an attempt to remain here? Is your daughter going to be an anchor baby?
Harry: a what?
INS: How good is your English? Because you seem to have an accent.
Harry: You mean, do I say “I go to hospital”?
INS: {{furiously scribbling on form}}
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Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
I will agree with much of this, but respectfully disagree on Woody Allen. I will not extensively recount this saga, but my personal view is that Mia made all of this up because she was so angry that Allen was having an affair with Soon-Yi Previn, whom he is still together with, with two children of their own. Two teams of psychologists did not believe that Dylan was molested.. Allen took a lie detector test and passed it. Moses Farrow, another adopted child,, wrote a horrifying piece a few years ago about Mia’s cruelty and attempts to brainwash the children she did not favor. Most of all, no one has accused Allen of anything in his entire life, other than this. And pedophiles are notorious serial repeaters. Also note that Mia’s brother went to jail for child molestation, which may well have suggested her narrative. i also just read that the nanny now says that Allen was the better parent. I could never say that I am certain of Allen’s innocence, because no one could, which is the problem with accusations and no charges and no trial. Trial by media is dreadful, and what i have read about this show is that it was a veritable hit piece, with no comments introduced by Allen, Soon-YI or Moses. I didn’t see it, though. I think a great wrong is being committed, but I cannot prove it, of course. Maybe I shouldn’t write this, but I feel compelled to stand up for Woody Allen, who I really do think is innocent. No charges, cleared by investigation, based on all verifiable reports, no trial, of course; but this endless media campaign waged against him, is not just, in my view.
I didn’t see the Oprah interview,either; I am always wary of one side of something being told,but I am sure that there is a good deal that is accurate there. I guess that Charles is not at all a caring person, if he did not take his son’s phone calls. And of course Diana was treated terribly by everyone, it is a tragedy. I was musing the other day that King Edward VIII abdicating the throne of England perhaps saved Britain and the world, because he and his girlfriend Wallis Warfield Simpson were Nazi sympathizers. I have seen enough of the history of Winston Churchill, to know that there were people high in the British government who wanted him to make a deal with Hitler, brokered by Mussolini, which would have taken England out of any war with Germany, thus allowing Hitler to conquer all of Europe, fight a one-front war against Russia, and then go after America. Edward would have pushed hard for that. When Edward abdicated,his brother Albert became king, known as George VI. He respected Churchill, and supported him, and of course Churchill would never make a deal with Hitler, and that may have saved the world.
Have you seen the series on HBO Max? You should probably go watch that and come back before you say something too sympathetic to woody Allen.
BTW, your siding with Allen demonstrates why a smear campaign is so effective especially when there is financial asymmetry between the parties. We’ve all seen what the Republican Party and Trump was able to accomplish against his critics. Do we really believe that Hillary was involved in a sex trafficking ring from a pizza shop? Of course not. We’re smart enough to know this isn’t true. And yet millions of people were ready to believe the worst about her.
How about that ambassador to Ukraine? Remember how she was “going to go through some things”?
There are examples too numerous to count.
For the longest time, we all thought Diana had borderline personality disorder. Turns out she was one of the well adjusted members of the royal family and knew exactly what was going on.
With Mia and Woody, you really need to see the series. My opinion before seeing it was it was a he said/she said thing and that the evidence was sketchy. That turns out not to be true. There were witnesses, case workers, strange things that happened with that Yale report. Even the Connecticut AG said he was blindsided. It was a carefully calculated hit job against a mother of nine whose reputation as a parent was exemplary before all this started. The custody suit that Allen filed was staged to take the focus off the child abuse allegations.
He lost and the judge in the case was scathing in his criticism of Allen.
But I knew none of this. I thought it fell into a nebulous evidence free zone. It was exactly the opposite. It just goes to show you how loudly money talks and that the only way Mia kept all her kids is because she was innocent and maligned.
Go watch it. I’ll wait.
I did just read the long article in the Guardian by Hadley Freeman, from March 3, which goes through the entire series in detail, and adds her thoughts on it. Would that suffice? I am sure, from what I read, that the series paints a very negative, to say the least, picture of Woody Allen. But I think it is important to read an intelligent review which points out significant flaws and biases in how it was written and dramatized. Maybe this is not an ideal comparison, but often a jury can listen to the prosecution case and think that the defendant is guilty, and then hear the defense case and think differently. My thought is that this show only presented one side. We are encouraged by anything labeled as a documentary to think that this is the product of a careful review of all facts, but it may well not be. The writer here believes that it was not, due to omission and/or agenda. People like Robert Weide, producer of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” who obviously knows Allen well, has written several essays to that effect, attempting to refute much of the show. The producers of this series sent him a list of questions about it, which he assiduously worked to answer, only to be told that they decided not to use it, because “it would complicate things”
But the end result is that Farrow wins, because most people believe the purported documentary. Allen cannot get his movies distributed in the United States, he barely got his autobiography published. He will go to his grave with most thinking that he molested his daughter, just like MIchael Jackson did with regard to a slightly different accusation, also made a documentary of by HBO Max.
Oh, I’m convinced. It sounds like a typical smear job. I get it that Woody Allen was some people’s favorite filmmaker but trust me on this, you need to see the series.
A review isn’t enough.
Is the documentary biased? I think so (and I *have* watched the series and read the Guardian piece, as well), but so was most of the news coverage when this all first erupted in the ’90s. If you’ll recall, back then a lot of the MSM coverage of the Farrow-Allen case portrayed Farrow as a deranged, vengeful harpy intent on ruining Allen out of sheer jealousy. Hearing the other side is, I think, worthwhile but you probably ought to crank your critical thinking skills up to 11 whenever anyone says anything about this case.
Just because it’s biased doesn’t mean it’s not a documentary. Even blatant propaganda pieces like “Olympia” and “Triumph of the Will” are referred to as “documentaries” (without the scare quotes, in fact).
Woody Allen is a talented director, writer, and performer. He’s been widely respected in the industry (and beloved by fans) for decades. Roman Polanski is an enormously talented director and widely respected in the industry. He allocuted to drugging and raping a 13 year-old girl and skipped out of the country before the judge in his case could reject his plea deal. Bill Cosby is enormously talented and beloved by generations of fans. He’s been convicted of indecent assault (currently under appeal, I believe) and admitted in court to drugging women with Quaaludes to gain their “cooperation”.
The fact that Whoopi Goldberg proclaimed (on national TV) that Polanski’s actions weren’t “rape rape” is irrelevant, just as the opinions of Allen’s professional associates are.
There’s nothing about being extremely talented that prevents a person from committing reprehensible acts. There’s nothing about being respected by one’s professional associates that prevents that either.
Do I think the series would have been better if Allen had been allowed to defend himself? Absolutely, but i believe he declined the opportunity to do so.
The recorded phone calls were what did it for me. It wasn’t so much the content. Mia comes off as bewildered more than angry. It’s the, well, you’ll see what I mean. Sometimes, you need to take a lot more care about what you say on a recorded call.
You wimminfolks should just Lysistrata the lot of us and be done with it.
Men benefit from it financially and mostly with their reputations intact.
But it is women who are the targeted consumers and they can be vicious. Women don’t get into fist fights (mostly). They destroy each other with malicious gossip and innuendo.
The thing is, you don’t have to play that game. In my own family, there was a collector of secrets who used them strategically to play relatives off one another. I can truthfully say that I refused to be a part of that even though some of those secrets were forced on me. I know stuff about every one of my cousins and siblings, aunts and uncles, that I’m sure they would rather keep quiet and in the wrong hands could be used to destroy relationships. I’ve seen it happen. But I refused to be a part of that malicious gossip clique and the flying monkeys that do the bidding of the secret holder. Everyone of us makes mistakes. I can’t approach people and live with them if I always thought about the one thing in their lives they would prefer to bury.
Of course, if you refuse to play the game, that leaves you open to becoming a perpetual target.
So, I’ve definitely been there and I understand exactly what Markle was dealing with. The British tabloids wanted a witch and they used race to construct one.
It’s despicable but then, no one is forcing any Brit to buy a tabloid. It’s a choice. And women make that choice a lot more frequently than men. It’s how they exercise a little power in a world that frequently denies them power.
Find a good person (I didn’t say perfect) and take her down.
“The British tabloids wanted a witch and they used race to construct one.”
Excellent point.
A certain percentage of Brits are surprisingly racist and the tabloids may have played for that audience. I would suggest Charles or his father for the skin color comment. I believe that one of the reasons they were angry with Princess Diana after the divorce was because she dated non-white men who were not members of the Church of England. They seemed terrified William and Harry might have a half sibling that was not completely white and might be raised outside of the church, perhaps as a non-Christian. Hard to understand but there were signs of that attitude at the time. I don’t think their national origin or skin color was ever a consideration for Diana — she just saw people as people.
To be fair, Harry’s apparently a pretty good helicopter pilot. I think that’s a reasonably high-demand skill.
The remark really sounds like something Phillip would say. If it came from Andrew I suspect it would have been even cruder.
I was kidding about his lack of skills. He’s good on camera. I suspect he’d be very good doing documentaries or interviews.
And as you say, he can fly helicopters.
They both said it wasn’t the Queen or Phillip. The bit about how damaging it would be if the speaker was identified suggests to me that it is someone in the line of succession. Either Charles or William. I can’t see it being William. He seems too enlightened. So, my guess is that it was Charles and/or Camilla. It would be just as bad if it were Camilla because some day she will be consort with a lot more responsibilities and public appearances.
It’s not the face you want to present to the rest of the world.
I am eternally grateful to Thomas Jefferson for making this all very much not my problem. Dr. Dr. Mrs Propertius, proud Canadian that she is, is not quite so lucky since the Queen is her Head of State and can override the acts of her elected legislature (with no recourse!) through the Governor-General. The phrase “barbaric anachronism” tends to come up whenever she discusses the monarchy.
I think Harry and Meghan seem like a nice young couple and I wish them well. As you point out, they’re both very telegenic and reasonably smart. I think the further they stay away from his family the better.