Woody Allen has a #MeToo problem, but only when it’s bad for optics.
Allen reached a settlement with Amazon Studios last fall after the streaming platform decided it suddenly cared about a sexual abuse allegation against Allen that was lodged in 1992. The claim that he molested his daughter, Dylan Farrow, was ultimately dismissed by investigators at the time, and Allen has not been accused of sexual misconduct since.
That is unless you count the entertainment world relitigating the past when Allen’s murky history suddenly reflects badly on it. The latest development in this exercise in hypocrisy is drama at Hachette Book Group, a U.S. publisher that backed out of its decision to publish Allen’s memoir, Apropos of Nothing, following outrage that Hachette would associate with an alleged sexual predator.
Its swift backpedal makes sense, considering a Hachette imprint also published Ronan Farrow’s Catch and Kill. Yep, Ronan Farrow: the brother of Dylan and the instigator, through his reporting on Harvey Weinstein, of the #MeToo movement.
Whether or not Allen is guilty of his alleged crimes, Hachette’s backtrack reflects badly on the publishing industry. And it’s also a problem for us, the readers.
Of course, there is the issue of censorship, as Stephen King pointed out, much to the dismay of the culture warriors. “The Hachette decision to drop the Woody Allen book makes me very uneasy,” he tweeted last week. “It’s not him; I don’t give a damn about Mr. Allen. It’s who gets muzzled next that worries me.”
But another less talked about problem is this: When we censor views or people with whom we disagree, we make ourselves dumber. Really.
We’re losing the ability to grapple with opposing ideologies, or with people who’ve committed wrongdoings. Letting the other side speak can do wonders for our own argument. As author Hadley Freeman wrote for the Guardian this week:
Freeman argues that for the Hachette employees who walked out in protest of Allen’s book, “If they really are so convinced of Allen’s guilt, they ought to let him speak.”
This is what happens when the literati haven’t read Areopagitica.
When John Milton wrote Areopagitica in 1644, he meant to oppose censorship in pre-Enlightenment England. He ended up writing a free speech treatise that anyone interested in the meaning of words ought to read. Milton begins, with some confusing 17th century spelling, by arguing that publishers should print the good and the bad:
In other words, expect to hear of problems. It’s easier to reform if you have some idea of what’s going on. Milton’s best case for free speech comes not from the argument that we need to read the right words, but that we need to read the wrong ones. He writes:
Translation: Even with so much information spreading around, the truth will still prove to be more forceful than lies. The best way to suppress fake news and misinformation, whether that comes from Twitter or from a controversial filmmaker’s memoir, is to listen to them. If we never encounter the wrong opinions or the opinions of the wrong people, we’ll never learn quite how wrong they are.
Now that Hachette has backed down, we may never be able to criticize Allen’s book. And that’s a shame since we won’t get any closer to the truth.
