How Creepy is Woody Allen?

So today there was another story in the news about Woody Allen denying he was a child molester. I happened to have time for a good long read, so I clicked through to some of the linked articles.

I never went to see a Woody Allen picture in the first place because his humor, based on what I knew of it, struck me as somewhat trite and obvious. After the abuse allegations surfaced, I forswore his movies on principle. (Well, to be honest, it probably wasn’t until after he married his step-daughter — which happened like almost immediately.)

The situation was very similar to events that were unfolding at the time with a family member of mine who had married someone with more money and status that had turned out to be an abusive, controlling psycho. In that instance, I was stunned and devastated to hear that psychospouse had actually tried to kill the family member and, having failed, was working hard to make them homeless and take their child away.

There was no doubt in my mind that if such incredible events were unfolding in my life (Ha, ha! back then I was so naïve!) there was no way in hell anyone who said the least little thing against someone like Woody Allen would have a snowball’s chance of being heard. There just wasn’t any question in my mind that this guy was getting away with molesting kids because he was a rich, well-connected celebrity.

Now, for the record I would like to say that, like everyone else, I have made a lot of assumptions throughout my life and have learned from experience that my assumptions are generally wrong. That is, if I am lucky. If I am unlucky, they are generally wrong, wrong, WRONG. I should have been wrong about Woody Allen. For decades, this guy has gone around shrugging off accusations of child sexual abuse; for decades, journalists have been asking him about it almost as if the question was pro-forma.

In my head, it was obvious this guy was guilty of probably much worse than had ever hit the news and was using his white boy privileges to buy his way out of accountability. In the news, it was just, like, “Hey, how about those child sexual abuse allegations!” like they're the Mets or something. I, on the other hand, with my powers of assumption (and not unlike people who have never been abducted by aliens yet can make up a believable story about that time they were abducted by aliens) could have told you exactly what happened in that weird celebrity family I actually knew nothing about.

Like I said up top, this morning I had time to indulge in a long read. I clicked a link in one of the pro forma questionings of Allen at some film festival somewhere and landed at one of Maureen Orth’s profiles of the Farrow family in Vanity Fair.

I fucking hate it when I’m right.

After reading a short while, I couldn’t leave the story alone, if only out of the sense that someone must stand as witness when this kind of thing goes on, even if that someone is a nobody. The full story, as reported, matched every single assumption I had ever made about the case, except my picture of Mia Farrow as a person. I’m not into movies and assumed she was just some rando starlet with one of those celebrity things for adopting enough kids for a rainbow. Mia Farrow actually comes across as a fucking hero.

And Woody Allen? How creepy is Woody Allen? Serial killer creepy?

“You can’t say his own therapy failed,” quips Mia’s lawyer Eleanor Alter. “He might have become a serial killer without it.” (from Orth’s 1992 Vanity Fair article)

And people say therapy doesn’t work! Assuming there is no one missing and no bodies waiting to be found, how creepy is Woody Allen? Pedophile sex cult creepy?

If you look at a pedophile ring like The Finders, after emptying the contents of your stomach you will undoubtedly notice that THEY TRIED VERY HARD TO HID WHAT THEY WERE DOING (and apparently succeeded, for the most part).

Allen didn't. Instead, he bought as much credibility as his wealth would allow in the courts of law and public opinion.  He has, I assume (!), bought people in his chosen profession by the bushel. What he has not tried to do is hide his actions, apart from a few see-through lies.

There are any number of ways you can get out of being punished for child sexual abuse if you are rich and famous. Adopt a disguise, move to another country, buy a fake passport, I don't know. It's not really my area of expertise. Or you pull an Allen and not even care enough to hide it, counting on your money and prestige to buy you the way out.

That's some kind of cold shit. It goes past creepy and into the land of actually dangerous. Dangerous as in, I don't care what effect my actions have on others and I don't have to because I'm rich. Said another way, I'm highly delusional and my wizarding powers are so great I can make my delusions real. So how creepy is Woody Allen? Is he Donald Trump creepy? Why or why not?

I leave it for you to consider.

Mia's Story (1992)
Mia Farrow's Story (2013)
10 Undeniable Facts (2014)
Open Letter from Dylan Farrow (2014)
My Father, Woody Allen and the Danger of Unasked Questions (2016)

Edit 9/6/2016: I remembered that my relative had said the lawyer hired by their spouse (named Alan) was also Woody Allen's lawyer. Which would explain why the issue  comes up on my emotional radar long after.

In terms of the How Creepy contest, though, I have to admit that Warren Jeffs and the whole FLDS (and Mormonism as well?) far, far outrank Allen. Which is not a good thing. 

Rh Negative Folkore

We all know the UFO field is intellectually crippled (present company excepted of course), and the rain of inanities that continues to fall from the lips of UFO pundits about the Rh negative blood factor as being somehow linked to manifestations of the phenomena is just more proof of this. I admit to getting exercised about this issue; the whole Rh neg thing gets my panties so twisted that I doubt even Dr. Jacobs could straighten them out into one of his books. It’s a sad statement about the intellectual desert that UFO/phenomena studies finds itself in that even the people I hold to be the most informed and interesting thinkers in the area make themselves sound like idiots when talking about the Rh blood factor. Possibly they feel forced to address the bizarre approach ufology takes to the topic because Nick Redfern recently published a craptastic book on the topic. If that’s the case, then Redfern has done a much greater disservice than bilking me out of ten dollars; he’s promoted complete bullshit to the top of the paranormal agenda.

In the age of Trump and Brexit, it may seem quaint to get upset about something like the Rh negative factor being used to resurrect racist and eugenic agendas. If America is about to leave behind even putatively mythical values like religious tolerance, freedom, democracy, etc., why fuss about long-ago bankrupted pseudoscience being used to prove that one race is somehow superior to another? Don’t worry; we’re not talking about intelligence this time—now it’s paranormal sensitivity. The compass needle has swung; it used to be that natives and savages were considered to be more sensitive and superstitious, but with the Rh factor mythology, whites (with a little admixture of Cherokee thrown in for good measure) are now reclaiming direct access to the gods and the privileged knowledge that entails.

Is the Rh factor mythology gaining popularity in ufology as a measure of ufology’s waning, as nativism is gaining in white national communities unable to adapt to changing economic and demographic circumstances? However, it’s pointless to ask that question until people recognize the Rh factor myth as a myth, or trope, or meme, or narrative – whatever term your generation uses. Which involves recognizing it as NOT FUCKING BASED IN ANY SCIENCE WHATSOEVER.

Sorry. Had to pause and unknot the knickers once again. How anyone can get through a college or even high school education and not have enough basic knowledge to see through the whole nativist Rh factor argument is just beyond me. Like I said, though, even the best and the brightest in the paranormal have swallowed it hook, line and sinker with only a couple nervous, giggling hiccups of references to “well, we don’t want to be racist now; we’re not being racist, are we?”

And yeah, they were all white guys. In a way, you can’t blame them; how would they even know? It’s like telling a fish about water. A fish obsessed with algae: “I can feel it all around me, and sometimes I can see it; I KNOW it’s out there!” and you’re like, “And there’s this matrix it travels in, it’s called water—” and the fish is like, “That was a blue one! Yesterday I saw a green one that was smaller.” “The thing about water is—” “Holy shit! Was that a purple, round one? Right over there by my nest? Holy fucking shit!”

Setting aside the subtexts, though, how anyone with a basic education in science can give the Rh negative mythology any time of day at all is just beyond me. Something like Project Core that collects self-perceptions of Rh status as data points isn’t a problem; the problem is people who don’t seem to have the intellectual equipment to think critically about applying a not very difficult idea from the world of science to ufology and ufology’s confreres.

Originally I got exercised about this topic after listening to an episode of Where Did the Road Go. I felt like writing something to express my opinion but didn’t want to be just another asshole on the internet. Later, going about my business while listening to an old time radio podcast, I heard a character protest to cop/hero Danny Clover (Broadway is My Beat), “I am from Rh negative blood, Lieutenant.” That was 1949, folks. Very, very close to the period when blood antigens were becoming better understood and in particular the all-important Rh factor which affected childbirth and blood transfusions. If this mention in an old radio show is any indication, inchoate claims of superiority due to possessing Rh negative blood factor appeared in popular culture almost as soon as the discovery of the factor did. If that’s true, than UFO pundits are just the latest in generations of dupes and we’ve got a very interesting case of scientific folklore to investigate.