Ranting On...Ronan Farrow

Ronan Farrow

Ronan Farrow's recent interview in The Guardian is one of the more interesting things I've been able to read in recent weeks, and honestly it took me a bit after reading it to understand why.  Farrow is having a moment right now, coming off of a Pulitzer Prize win for his work in The New Yorker looking into the allegations of Harvey Weinstein, and more recently for his piece on former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.  Exceedingly polished in interviews, poised and almost constantly unflappable and witty, Farrow has become a poster boy for progressive millennials.  With the face of a movie star (though exactly which movie stars, it's still a question mark), and an impossibly pedigreed Ivy League education, Farrow is smart, capable, and consistently comes across as a crusader for those exploited by men in positions of power.  But the Guardian piece points to a problem in Farrow's journalism, one that no one seems to want to talk about because of the good that it's doing, but is there just the same.

Farrow's fame, while obviously blossoming from his journalism and career at MSNBC, admittedly still resides from who his parents are: film legends Woody Allen and Mia Farrow.  The only biological child from the couple's long romantic relationship, Farrow's celebrity was likely cemented the second the couple split up in one of Hollywood's biggest scandals from the past thirty years.  Allen had been involved with Farrow's daughter Soon-Yi Previn, and while Allen & Farrow were not married at the time (and Previn/Allen were not biologically or legally related), pretty much everyone involved (including yours truly), thinks it was a disgusting move.  The facts of this have never been denied-Allen & Previn clearly had a romantic relationship that eventually turned into a marriage in 1997.  This is not, for the most part, the scandal that the #MeToo movement focuses on when it comes to discussing Woody Allen, though.  That is the allegations made by Mia's daughter Dylan, that Allen molested her when she was 7-years-old.

I'm not a judge, jury, or legal expert here, and I'm also smart enough not to re-litigate this case, mostly because it's near impossible to do so on the internet anymore without it erupting in a screaming match.  I attempted to find genuine facts on the case by only sticking to news sources that I trust, and in perhaps the first time this has happened to me in researching an article, I ran into a "fake news" situation.  Literally conflicting, recent reports from Vox and Vanity Fair (both news sources I trust) make it difficult to point out the facts in this case.  Based on the evidence, one of the few things that can be confirmed from the case is that Allen lost custody of his children as a result of the allegations, and that no criminal charges were ultimately filed against Allen.  However, it's worth noting this is one of the few cases where the courts actually saw the situation in real-time.  Most of the allegations against other people (such as Bill Cosby), the statute of limitations had expired at the time of the case so the court of public opinion was the only option available to consumers of his work.

As I said, I don't want to necessarily discuss opinions on Woody Allen or Mia Farrow here.  Honestly, the evidence and messages surrounding the case are horrifying.  Either Dylan Farrow's stories are true, in which case Woody Allen should have gone to jail, or they weren't, and Mia Farrow coached her daughter to destroy her ex-lover's reputation.  Either way, Dylan Farrow is a victim in this situation and deserves our sympathy.  But what is true is that Ronan Farrow cannot be considered an objective reporter in this case.  Covering a father he clearly despises (with admittedly good reason), it frequently feels like he's trying to vindicate his mother through his reporting, oftentimes lumping Allen with Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby.  This isn't entirely accurate, though.  Allen's sole allegation of abuse actually saw the light-of-day in court, and charges were never filed despite there being ample opportunity to do so.  In many ways, it's difficult to imagine Farrow including Allen in his typical name check of sexual abusers in Hollywood without him, in fact, being his father.  As a result, it does create a bit of a gap in his credibility which is unfortunate, because he's doing such important work here.

It also makes me raise an eyebrow when a journalist actually calls him out on this, because in many ways Farrow's been having his cake and eating it too when it comes to including his father in the #MeToo movement.  He says that he hasn't called for a boycott of his father's films, which may be the case, but he has publicly criticized people celebrating his father's work, and members of his family have called for a public boycott of Allen's work, something he doesn't repudiate.  It feels to me that a journalist of his integrity should probably say that he can't be objective in this case considering his relationships with all of the figures involved, but Farrow doesn't feel capable of doing so.  In not acknowledging his clear bias, Farrow risks the larger merits of his work being sullied.  Woody Allen's day in the court of public opinion may well be deserved (and in many ways, has already been dealt), but Ronan Farrow is an inappropriate choice for its byline.