Woody Allen is one of the most-lauded film directors in American (and global) cinema. He’s also been accused of sexually abusing his daughter. Allen isn't the only artist to have been in the spotlight for the wrong reasons – R. Kelly, Phil Spector and even Sean Penn, all critically-acclaimed celebrities, have also committed heinous crimes.
When public figures are accused of or commit terrible things, what should the public do? As consumers, can we separate the art from the artist, or are the two intrinsically intertwined?
Separation by Chandler Dutton
Consider this hypothetical: You're having a bad day, so you decide to listen to a new album by one of your favorite artists. The album helps bring you out of your funk and inspires you to feel happy and accept yourself. Three months down the road, a quote surfaces that shows that the artist is, for lack of a better term, an intolerant asshole. Does this invalidate the feelings you experienced because of his or her work? No, because once a piece of art is created and takes on its own form, it is its own entity. It is able to be experienced and interpreted so many different ways that the artist's involvement no longer matters. It has a life of its own.
This idea does not sound wholly controversial in theory. However, it becomes more difficult to accept when applied to some of the more controversial cases in the entertainment world – like that of Woody Allen.
Woody Allen is considered one of the greatest, most influential thinkers in the history of film. He has been nominated for (and won) numerous awards, placed on countless "greatest comedian" and "best writer" lists, and been called "a treasure of the cinema." However, Allen's private life has won him several other, less favorable titles, including "pedophile" and "sexual predator." The battle between those who praise Allen's artistic accomplishments and those who are shocked and appalled by his private actions recently came to a head at the Golden Globes, where many questioned whether a lifetime achievement award should be given to a man who allegedly sexually assaulted a 7-year-old girl and married his ex-girlfriend's adoptive child.
Woody Allen's situation is not a particularly rare one. His crimes are certainly more reprehensible than most, but he is merely one of many artists whose achievements are invalidated to some because of their private, or public, actions and beliefs. In fact, such a case arose late last month, when calls for a boycott of One Direction arose after Liam Payne posted a tweet expressing respect and admiration for Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson. (Payne later went on to say he was merely a fan of the show and how they kept their family together, not that he supported all of their views.)
The list of critically-acclaimed artists with less than acceptable private lives goes on: R. Kelly, Roman Polanski, Arthur Freed (who produced such classics as Singin' in the Rain and An American in Paris) and many others – with personal issues ranging from misogyny to sexual abuse.
The idea of art existing as a separate entity from the person who created it can be difficult to accept when considering cases as extreme as those of Woody Allen and Roman Polanski. Art is the product of a thought or emotion of an artist; therefore, people tend to closely associate pieces of art and their creators. However, that is the exact reason why I believe a piece of art, whether that be a film or a painting, can be accepted separately from the artist: it is a product.
A work of art may be the result of something within an artist, but it is not actually the artist, and the views espoused by a piece of art do not typically reflect every view held by the artist (this is admittedly more difficult for films like Woody Allen's Manhattan, in which Allen's protagonist falls in love with a 17-year-old student). No matter the intent an artist may have had while creating a specific work, art has the power to be interpreted in many different ways by many different people, and that interpretation process creates an even bigger gap between art and its creator.
When a piece of art is created, its meaning falls into the hands of its consumers. Every person has the ability to take something different from a film, picture or painting, no matter who the creator was or what their intentions were. A Woody Allen film does not mean the same thing to a viewer as it does to Woody Allen. An R. Kelly song chronicling Kelly's personal struggles and indiscretions can be interpreted entirely separate from Kelly's own thoughts. Once art has left the mind of its creator and been placed on a distributable medium, it is, ideologically, public domain – free to be seen, heard, processed and interpreted however the consumers feel appropriate. Their own ideas come into play and shape what the art means, and distance the piece of art from its creator and their intentions.
That is not to excuse the horrible acts committed by the likes of Woody Allen and others like him. This is not a statement saying that we, as a society, can overlook the pain and suffering caused by artists who have hurt or offended innocent people. On the contrary, these people deserve to be barred from award shows and treated like the pariahs they are. However, doing this should not preclude members of society from taking their art and using it to gain knowledge, insight or even happiness from their interpretations of that art. There is something to be gained from experiencing all art, and we should not let artists' actions interfere with our ability to gain our own meaning from their creations.
So feel free to enjoy art without experiencing moral dissonance. As long as the message you receive is not one of intolerance, hate, abuse or anything similar, you should not feel that you're supporting those views.
Consideration by Taylor Thomas
Awards season is upon us, and it’s among the reasons why Woody Allen is at the forefront of public cultural discourse once again. From his Golden Globes Cecil B. DeMille award to his Best Original Screenplay nomination for Blue Jasmine, he’s having a moment in the sun. On the other hand, coverage of these retrospectives and awards also acknowledge the fact that he’s been accused of committing child abuse. Dylan Farrow, the woman he and former lover Mia Farrow adopted together, wrote a New York Times column this February in which she substantiated the accusations of sexual abuse that she leveled at Allen in the 1990s.
Given the evidence, I think that the facts show that Dylan Farrow’s claims are true (such accusations are rarely false) and that Allen did commit child abuse. It is my opinion that the second these claims were brought to light and given credence in a court of law, Allen should have lost his public standing and never found work again. However, since these accusations were made more than 20 years ago, Allen has since been involved in more than 30 films.
This is endemic of a disturbing trend in American pop culture: 1) Celebrity X does a bad thing, 2) the public either forgets about or deliberately overlooks the bad thing, and 3) Celebrity X remains a celebrity.
For example, we have artists like John Lennon, remembered more for his career as a Beatle and for his anthem “Imagine” than for the fact that he wrote “Getting Better” about how he was a violent person; and Sean Penn, who won two Oscars two decades after he beat Madonna with a baseball bat. More recently we have #freebieber trending on Twitter after Justin Bieber was arrested for driving drunk.
Instead of glossing over these acts, we should recognize that artists’ work is informed by their actions, and their actions – which would be pretty damning if anyone else copied them – are made permissible by their work. Especially in Allen’s case, the time has come for us to make this connection, and then cut these celebrities out of the public eye.
First, in considering how artists’ lives affect their work, let’s examine Woody Allen’s career. Consider how Allen’s relationship with Diane Keaton affected Annie Hall. While Allen has stated the movie isn’t autobiographical, he dated Diane Keaton during filming, and Allen’s biographical details litter the backstory of his character, Alvy. Public perception is that the movie is autobiographical. I don’t want to conflate artistic intent with public reception, but it is important to consider what the audience thinks of Woody Allen when they watch his films.
In Manhattan, Allen plays a 42-year old dating a 17-year old high school girl. This may have been based on his relationship three years prior with Stacey Nelkin, who dated Allen when she was 17 and he was 41. Regardless of the Nelkin connection, the film practically prophesied a later event in Allen’s life, when he left Mia Farrow for her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. It is believed Previn was 19 when their relationship began.
I could continue writing comparisons to Allen’s films and his own life, but they would boil down to a few salient details: neurotic, vain men whose narcissism is justified by the number of women attracted to them; young, impressionable women in unbalanced or unhealthy romantic relationships; and morally questionable behavior that usually ends poorly for the woman. I’ll mention one additional film by name, Deconstructing Harry, which is about an author who is estranged from many of his friends because his work is autobiographical. Allen plays the author.
It’s not usually bad when art imitates life. As an art history major, I enjoy learning about how artists’ lives affect their work. However, when the work of someone who is accused of abusing his daughter, and who has preyed on underage women, reflects their life, that’s a problem. If we sympathize with Allen’s narratives on film, we are likely to sympathize with similar figures in real life. In Annie Hall, we sympathize with Alvy, who tries throughout the movie to control Annie, and so we normalize overbearing relationships. Manhattan certainly could inform how we view Allen and Previn’s relationship. Ultimately, because Allen stars in so many of his films as a generally likeable person, we think of Allen as a good person in real life. Allen’s life informs his art; his filmography is his chief apologist. We can’t watch Allen’s work without implicitly condoning his behavior.
Our fascination with Allen should have ended when his pattern of interacting with underage women indicated that he may have molested his own daughter. We should trust the account of the daughter who has accused him of abuse, her mother and brother who very publicly defend her and speak out against Allen. His movies should have corroborated these reports as proof of a guilty conscience. Certainly, Allen has made popular films, but his body of work is neither unique nor avant-garde. Just take a look at “The Definitive Guide to Never Watching Woody Allen Again,” which offers films to watch in lieu of specific Allen films.
When we ignore Allen’s actions in order to give him awards and accolades, we’re not just diminishing and discrediting Dylan Farrow. We’re telling millions of victims of sexual assault that they, too, will be silenced, discredited, and ruined, for the sake of two hours in a movie theater. This is why we can’t separate artists from their work: it exacerbates the victim’s harm. It’s not about Woody Allen, or R Kelly, or Chris Brown, or Sean Penn: it’s about every person like Dylan Farrow, Aaliyah, Rihanna and Madonna.