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"  Diane Keaton and Woody Allen in Annie Hall The first time I saw Annie Hall, I didn&amp;#039;t know anything about Woody Allen. All I knew was that the famous split-screen dinner scene, which contrasts the Hall&amp;#039;s Easter dinner with typical Singer family meals, perfectly captured what it&amp;#039;s like when my own extended family gets together on Passover. And that&amp;#039;s what makes it so hard to unpack the reemergence of Dylan Farrow&amp;#039;s allegations that Allen molested her at the age of 7 in the news. Woody Allen is a person who has tirelessly produced a new film every year since 1969, and so many of those movies closely echo our own formative experiences.  His reality is entirely different from that of characters like Alvy Singer, though. And since he&amp;#039;s a notoriously private person who allegedly does not even use email, what we know of Woody Allen&amp;#039;s life comes from narratives\u2014whether of the personal, secondhand, reported, opinion-based, or even his own fictionalized versions\u2014in the media.  Yesterday, my mom asked if I wanted to see the new Bullets Over Broadway musical, and my immediate reaction, having read Dylan Farrow&amp;#039;s open letter published in The New York Times this weekend, was that I didn&amp;#039;t want to do anything that supported Allen&amp;#039;s work. I quickly realized, however, that I was denying the hard-working cast, crew, and creative team (Allen adapted the musical&amp;#039;s book from his original screenplay, but he isn&amp;#039;t directing or producing the show) my support as a theater patron in rushing to judgment.  So, like any reporter, I set out on a fact-finding mission. Here are just a few of the pieces I read on the history of Farrow and Allen&amp;#039;s relationship, the abuse allegations and subsequent investigations, the resurgence of the case following Ronan Farrow&amp;#039;s tweet after Allen was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at this year&amp;#039;s Golden Globes, and responses to Dylan&amp;#039;s letter from Woody&amp;#039;s documentarian (The Daily Beast piece) and her brother Moses. A Look back at the Allegations Against Woody Allen, Washington Post Mia&amp;#039;s Story, Vanity Fair The Woody Allen Allegations: Not So Fast, The Daily Beast Don&amp;#039;t Listen to Woody Allen&amp;#039;s Biggest Defender, Slate What We Should Talk About When We Talk About the Dylan Farrow Case, Jezebel Dylan Farrow&amp;#039;s Brother Moses Defends Woody Allen, People You Can Believe Dylan Farrow and Still Like Annie Hall, Cosmopolitan After reading all of those accounts, I don&amp;#039;t feel comfortable making accusations towards anyone involved. What I do feel is grief over a family torn apart, and several children who grew up not being able to trust the adults in their lives. That&amp;#039;s never something a child should experience, and to have that distrust amplified and played out in the international media spotlight time and time again can only be a harrowing experience.  It took courage for Dylan Farrow to publish her letter. I&amp;#039;m nervous about the reaction people will have to this, an infinitesmally small contribution to the discourse surrounding it. Whether you believe her, or if she was &amp;quot;right&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;wrong&amp;quot; to do so is beside the point. The victims of childhood abuse\u2014be it physical, emotional, mental, and/or sexual\u2014should never be denied their journey to come to terms with what happened. It&amp;#039;s unfortunate when it has to play out in public, and, as we&amp;#039;ve seen in cases involving celebrities like Allen, Roman Polanski, and Michael Jackson, even more confusing when it involves someone who creates beloved and celebrated art.  I&amp;#039;m still not sure if I&amp;#039;ll see Bullets Over Broadway, and I miss the days when all I knew about Annie Hall was that it contained elements of my own formative experiences as part of an admittedly neurotic Jewish family. As for whether we can go forward, separating the art from the artist, and the allegations from Woody Allen, that&amp;#039;s something you have to decide on your own. Because just as the case disappeared from headlines 20 years ago, it will soon get buried again under the tidal wave of Olympic headlines. Woody Allen&amp;#039;s work, however, will live on forever. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/mom-kids/news/a16961/woody-allen-dylan-farrow-mia-ronan-moses/>