Should you ban Woody Allen’s films?

The resurfacing of Woody Allen’s past is sad from many perspectives, amplified by how a daughter and a family are still struggling, very publicly, to deal with events that took place decades ago. I’ll leave the conclusions for you to draw, as my question in this post is a practical one. Should you ban an artist’s work based on their personality or unethical behavior? Assume for the moment that the worst, however you define it in The Allen/Farrow case, is true – what does that mean about Allen’s work?

Animal New York recently published the definitive guide to never watching Woody Allen again, and it offers film suggestions based on each film in the Allen canon. The suggestions are thoughtful (but come with a heavy dose of snark).

But what of the hundreds of other artists and creators who were criminals or ethically challenged?

The list includes: Michael Jackson (accused of child abuse), Norman Mailer (stabbed his wife), Picasso (womanizer),  Henry Ford (anti-semite), Steve Jobs (abandoned his first child), Coco Channel (links to Nazi party), Thomas Edison (electrocuted animals to death for marketing), Volkswagen Beetle (designed by Nazi party), BMW (used slave labor), Thomas Jefferson (slave owner), Satellites and rockets (major innovations by (former) Nazi party members), James Watson (co-discoverer of DNA and quoted racist), Mark Wahlberg (assault/attempted murder), Dick Cheney (DUI), Gus Van Sant (DUI), Tim Allen (DUI, Cocaine trafficking), and the list goes on. I’m not equating any of these acts with each other or with child molestation, but merely establishing a landscape of works made by people with dubious ethical histories.

If you ban art because of the artist, it follows you’d ban engineering because of the engineer. So turn that electricity off. Stop driving that BMW or Volkswagen you love. Drop that iPhone. Ban the use of genetics in science. Oh, and if you’re a designer, stop using Gill Sans, as Eric Gill, the font’s designer, admitted to sexually abusing his own children (and a dog).

Banning the work of someone you despise is far easier to do while in ignorance of the hundreds of created works you used every day with no knowledge about their origin. Scratch the surface and you’ll find multitudes of dubious characters behind the things you love and depend on.

Banning things is a negative act. It’s intended to hurt someone, or prevent something, but it does little to help other people who may have been, or will become, victims of the actions you despise. Banning things often gives ideas and their creators more power, not less, than simply ignoring them or, more progressively, taking actions for positive change against the thing you think is wrong. Banning Chick-A-Flick because the owner is a jerk does far less to help equal rights than volunteering your time or money to help one of the many groups actively working for positive change.

Instead of banning Woody Allen, or whatever creator you have issues with, do something to support organizations working for progress on the issue you care so much about. In the case of Dylan Farrow, you should support groups like RAINN, a charity that helps children and families victimized by abuse. This will do far more good for the world, and for you, than banning hundreds of works ever could. The act of banning is stuck in the past, instead take actions that help the future.

 

21 Responses to “Should you ban Woody Allen’s films?”

  1. MJ Davis

    I absolutely believe that one should follow their own convictions and do what is best for them. For me, that means banning Woody Allen’s works. I have never been a fan, but the questions about his past relative to child abuse poses too much of a problem for me to simply ignore it. Notwithstanding these allegations, is the very provable reality that he is currently married to someone who was in a position of “child” when they met. It’s irrelevant if she was adopted by Allen’s ex only or if Allen helped to raise her. The facts are simply that someone who should have been viewed as “off limits” was not considered off-limits by whatever rationalizations he chooses to use.

    Until we, as a society, start holding celebrities to certain standards, we are going to continue to see the decline of civilization. Why is it okay for Joe Schmo to beat his wife to a pulp just because he plays a professional sport? Since when is it okay for a man to walk out on his wife and children to shack up with another woman? Why do we turn a blind eye and pretend that immoral and/or unethical behavior is okay simply because the person happens to have a talent in something? They had moral clauses in early Hollywood contracts for a reason and a person could not get on television just by orchestrating a “wardrobe malfunction.” It’s disgusting, deplorable behavior and it teaches our children that being obnoxious, selfish and idiotic is the ticket to fame. Until we, as a society, say “No, this is NOT okay” it’s going to continue going downhill.

    Reply
    1. Scott

      Hi MJ. I only have one question for you. Did you read anything more than just the headline of this post?

      Reply
  2. mwgrigs

    Great post! The idea is not to downplay or dismiss any dubious act, rather to place emphasis on empowering individuals to take ownership in their own actions and strive to do those things which are productive and positive. Banning is a negative act bent on righting a past wrong; no amount of banning will undo the former act. However, individuals can act from a place of power and from their present station ask, “What can I do right now that is constructive and positive?” Act with present power and purpose, rather than past regret and resentment.

    Reply
    1. Scott

      Of course these things aren’t mutually exclusive – we could ban something AND do something positive towards progress. Part of my point is we assume the former accomplishes the later, but it rarely does.

      Reply
  3. L Bishop

    Intriguing post. For me, the delineation is usually whether or not the act of banning (or boycotting or the like) has the potential to change the behavior. Often, it doesn’t because it’s something that has already happened, as you note. That said, I do believe that every day we make choices about what information, media, people we follow and support, even in small ways, and those decisions should not be taken lightly. It’s easy to convince ourselves that devoting some of our time, money, or attention to support our ideals is enough, while we spend equal time, money, or attention on things that aren’t necessarily aligned with our ideals. I’m straying here from your argument a bit and going broader, I know. Generally I agree with what you’ve said, but I also think we need to be careful not to let ourselves off the hook too easily, not to say, “Oh, this one small decision won’t really have any affect on whether company X does Y or not, or person A does B or not.” There’s a lot of power in every choice we make, even the small ones.

    Reply
    1. Scott

      I agree choices matter. What I’m trying to say is certain kinds of choices have far more impact in support of a belief than others for the same amount of effort.

      I suppose I’m applying logic to what is largely an emotional decision. People ban things (or other people) based out outrage. If they logically thought through what effect they wanted to have on the world, in many cases they’d do what I’m suggesting (find a cause for the thing you care about and find a way to support it) but I know full well we are not primarily logical creatures.

      It’s also interesting to note that to be outraged or to ban something is a personal act. It’s about ME. I’m not saying it’s selfish exactly, but it’s not about the world, or about victims, or preventing crimes, or anything with direct impact on other people.

      Reply
  4. Stephen Lead

    I loved your post Scott – and hated the Animal New York post! It’s like he’s achieved nothing in 50 years of film-making

    Reply
    1. Scott

      On second look I don’t appreciate the snark in that post either, but the choices he offers are interesting.

      Reply
  5. Steve Portigal

    I’d love for you to check out my post from 2012 where I wrote about the idea of offsets – something that the Chick-fil-A issues brought to the surface. I took a satirical approach which didn’t go over so well with some people!

    Reply
        1. Steve Portigal

          I hadn’t heard of that but nice. If you have money (power, influence) you can buy your way out of legal or moral obligations. But with offsets, you don’t need much money at all and you can address a wide range of concerns.

          In the positive sense, I do like the idea of framing our money as having social values or at least as being an actor for our own social values. Kickstarter is a form of that – for those of us that have, we can easily shape the world in small ways

          Reply
  6. Steve Gayes

    Show me a person who has never made mistakes and I will show you a liar. Now, not admitting to your mistakes shows a problem with an inflated ego…that’s the person you have to look out for as they are not genuine and they will lie and cheat to protect their image of themselves.

    Reply
    1. Scott

      There is probably a term in ethics for the specific difference between someone who admits to their transgressions and is remorseful vs. someone who actively denies.

      And of course actively admitting to a mistake is one thing, but it may have no bearing on the effort put into avoiding it again, much less succeeding.

      Reply
  7. Daniel Szuc

    Nice post and reminded me of boundaries and connections.

    Where do they start and end?

    We may be hard pressed to find anything we use today that does not have some connection to bad.

    Perhaps we should look at increased transparency and evidence to better understand the choices we make.

    History has shown its all to easy to lynch the wrong people.

    Reply
  8. Susan

    I think you touched the heart of the matter when you said (in a comment):

    It’s also interesting to note that to be outraged or to ban something is a personal act. It’s about ME. I’m not saying it’s selfish exactly, but it’s not about the world, or about victims, or preventing crimes, or anything with direct impact on other people.

    It’s one thing, and an important thing, to recognize an act as wrong, but when you start beating your breast and condemning, the point seems to be to elevate yourself, to underscore that YOU wouldn’t do what THAT person did. From that underlying and often unrecognized motivation, it’s a short step to the conviction that THAT person should therefore be excoriated, imprisoned, banned. To the demand for punishment, in other words, instead of resolution or reparation.

    Reply
  9. Adam

    Were everyone to stop watching Woody Allen flicks, that would unfortunately not simply punish Woody Allen, and that’s the catch-22. Hundreds of people worked on those films and rely (or relied) on their sales for the livelihood. In my hometown we have an owner of a restaurant here with a similar shady history. The problem? It’s a really good restaurant, there is a co-owner who is a decent guy, and a lot of staff. Some people don’t go because of the bad-egg owner, but what of all the other staff?

    Reply
  10. Cr

    How are you going to ban all Allen s films?. Enforce the ban in every country in the world? Ban them from all cinemas, call in and destroy all dvds, burn all master copies, remove all copies legal or illegal from the internet? Also remove all wikipedia etc plot summaries? Call in all books on cinema that mention him? Imprison anyone who puts samizdat copies online?

    I m sorry, only if Isis take over the world can this be done.

    If you have a rational proposal that can be effected I will listen to you. But even in the US could
    , say, banning all movie house showings – is that a federal, state, county or city issue? Federal surely not?

    As usual in these cases I will listen to you when you say what you mean by “ban” and have real concrete proposals. Not till then.

    Reply

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