When the child abuse allegations against Woody Allen first came out, we (Amy & Devi) lived in an illegal sublet on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, just around the corner from Elaine’s, long since defunct, but once Allen’s favorite restaurant. Both fans of the director, we were mortified and disgusted to learn he’d left his longtime romantic partner, Mia Farrow, of whom we were also devoted fans, for her 21-year old adopted daughter to whom Allen had been a father figure of sorts and who was legally father to three of her siblings. Shudder.

Nevertheless, we were also disgusted with Farrow. Why? Well, for one thing, we wrongly believed a dirty old man who ditches his girlfriend for her 21-year-old daughter wouldn’t also sexually violate a child. Pedophilia was a whole other brand of creepy and, according to the gospel (as taught to us from daytime talk shows and procedurals like Law & Order), mutually exclusive from more socially accepted perversions. Besides, the media made it abundantly clear that Farrow was unhinged with rabid jealousy, and she’d obviously coached her daughter to make these claims in retaliation against Allen. Clearly, the celebrity lifestyle just made both of them whack.

Or so we thought in that less information-abundant era before the Internet, when our only easy access to current events was in the New York Times or network TV news (too broke to afford cable). We formed opinions based on the information to which we had ready access, failing to take into account such outlets are run by profit-driven patriarchal gatekeepers who manipulate what we see, how we see it and what we don’t see.

Fast forward to 2014 when Dylan Farrow bravely wrote her Open Letter, reluctantly and belatedly published by the New York Times, and for the first time her story became, well, her story. Not Allen’s. Not Farrow’s. The story of the actual victim, now an adult woman still enduring the pain of her childhood trauma and subsequent injustice.

Was it possible we let ourselves be misled and had inadvertently become complicit in a sex crime?

Alas, not only possible, but probable.

Thanks to the #metoomovement and brave women everywhere who began sharing their stories, we finally began to recognize that sexual harassment and sexual abuse were running rampant thanks to a culture that enabled the perpetrators and blamed and/or discredited the victims. And it wasn’t just the men. Many of us women were complicit too. By not speaking up. By being blinded by damning PR. By not thinking for ourselves and demanding more information.

And now here we are in 2021, and we have just watched ALLEN V FARROW and feeling all the more ashamed for our blind complicity.

Revisiting this case with the benefit of more facts, more media savvy and an entirely different context has been a sobering and illuminating experience for us both.  Mind you, the docuseries is not without its own problematic biases, and as we are not watching it with the same naivete that shaped our original misguided perspectives, we take nothing at face value.

But it’s left enough of an impact we feel now compelled to take the next couple weeks to each share our personal experiences in watching it to add to the greater conversation happening now. Like the series or not, it’s making viewers question, converse and hopefully act in far more responsible, compassionate and accountable ways. And that’s a very good thing.

So, we’ll be back next week with Amy’s “A Reckoning (of sorts) for Woody Allen”

~Amy & Devi