Woody Allen is facing a rough start to the Cannes Film Festival. The Hollywood Reporter informed readers it was banned Thursday's from lunch event by Allen's longtime publicist, Leslee Dart.
Woody Allen is facing a rough start to the Cannes Film Festival. The Hollywood Reporter Why? THR published an article by former Allen’s son Ronan Farrow, the former MSNBC host, lamenting the media’s failure to promote the charges that Allen had molested his sister Dylan Farrow.
Tonight, the Cannes Film Festival kicks off with a new Woody Allen film. There will be press conferences and a red-carpet walk by my father and his wife (my sister). He'll have his stars at his side ....They can trust that the press won't ask them the tough questions. It's not the time, it's not the place, it's just not done.
Farrow’s column about his sister’s allegations of sexual abuse comes at the same time Allen’s latest movie Café Society debuts at Cannes. Farrow condemned the oftentimes hidden agendas media outlets have to not burn any bridges or have access revoked to some high profile Hollywood names...as is happening now.
THR reported Allen said he wasn't upset when French comedian Laurent Lafitte joked at the film festival's opening ceremony that Allen was not yet like child-abusing director Roman Polanski: "You've shot so many of your films here in Europe, and yet in the U.S. you haven't even been convicted of rape."
When his sister spoke out about the allegations – soon after many allegations surfaced from women at the hands of actor Bill Cosby – Ronan Farrow wrote:
Being in the media as my sister's story made headlines, and Woody Allen's PR engine revved into action, gave me a window into just how potent the pressure can be to take the easy way out. Every day, colleagues at news organizations forwarded me the emails blasted out by Allen's powerful publicist, who had years earlier orchestrated a robust publicity campaign to validate my father's sexual relationship with another one of my siblings. Those emails featured talking points ready-made to be converted into stories, complete with validators on offer — therapists, lawyers, friends, anyone willing to label a young woman confronting a powerful man as crazy, coached, vindictive. At first, they linked to blogs, then to high-profile outlets repeating the talking points — a self-perpetuating spin machine.
The open CC list on those emails revealed reporters at every major outlet with whom that publicist shared relationships — and mutual benefit, given her firm's starry client list, from Will Smith to Meryl Streep. Reporters on the receiving end of this kind of PR blitz have to wonder if deviating from the talking points might jeopardize their access to all the other A-list clients.
Drawing a stark comparison over the treatment given to Farrow’s sister and that of her alleged accuser, he calls out The New York Times, “When The New York Times ultimately ran my sister's story… it gave her 936 words online, embedded in an article with careful caveats…Soon afterward, the Times gave her alleged attacker twice the space — and prime position in the print edition, with no caveats or surrounding context.”
Farrow even admits that he “worked hard to distance myself from my painfully public family history" and would often avoid commenting on his sister’s allegations. Instead of reporting the news, he found himself becoming part of it, often pleading with his sister not to go public again because he was concerned for his own reputation, and admits he is also ashamed of doing, but there he was – a reporter begging for a source not to come forward.
Noting the difficulties of covering touchy issues such as sexual allegations with no real official or credible evidence to back those claims, Farrow tells his readers that “reporter's role isn't to carry water for those women. But it is our obligation to include the facts, and to take them seriously. Sometimes, we're the only ones who can play that role.”
Farrow’s column should also be a reminder to all reporters – that every story should be treated with just as much scrutiny and seriousness.
