If you don’t like Woody Allen, go watch some cartoons

If you don’t like Woody Allen, go watch some cartoons, by Antonia Tejeda Barros

I think that Woody Allen is one of the best filmmakers of all times. His movies are cool, poetic, funny, nostalgic, philosophical, hilarious, sad, stunning, and breathtaking. Woody is the greatest artist. He doesn’t create for selling tickets or buying a new swimming pool. He creates for himself. He needs to create. Art is as important to him as air. And that probably is what makes his art so honest and genuine.

Woody’s not only a great cinema director. He’s also a brilliant writer and a great clarinetist (even if he disagrees). At age 83 he continues creating (he’s writing an autobiography and will shoot his new film in 2019 in Spain). He’s directed more than 50 films, many of them masterpieces, all of them brilliant and great. Let’s not forget that he’s not only the director of his films, but also the writer (like his idol Bergman). Apart from the big screen, Woody has written lots of plays, short stories and articles. Woody’s prose is rich and imaginative, packed with jokes and philosophy. Getting Even (1971), Without Feathers (1975), Side Effects (1980), Mere Anarchy (2007) are all exquisite, brilliant and entertaining. Woody is an incredibly prolific writer. His brain is steaming with magnificent ideas and we are so lucky to receive his art.

But the question is: do we deserve Woody’s sublime art? The witch-hunt against Woody continues and it’s really effervescent. The aggressive mob is back, happy to denigrate and lynch. Twitter is exploding with horrible hatred Tweets against Woody and every moron on this planet feels happy to put a like and retweet. I’ve always known that the herd is stupid and pathetic but I never imagined it would sink so low.

Hating Woody is today’s sport. The latest explosive news? Some ex-model said recently that she met Woody when she was almost 17. She grew up in New Jersey. 16 years old is the age of consent in the state of New Jersey, but not in the state of New York. In New York the age of consent is 17. Wow. That’s great fuel for the mob! The puritan American masses are really obsessed with sex. It’s OK to make wars, but if your girlfriend is about to turn 17 they cut your head off. Ex-model Babi Christina Engelhardt (who was nobody until a week ago and became somebody thanks to that recent garbage article) is not a writer nor a poet nor a singer nor a painter nor a filmmaker. She had two big highlights in her life: one was to be Woody’s lover; the other one was to work for Fellini. Let’s also not forget that she’s a psychic, so her story and all the details in it must be completely true.

The puritan herd screams with pleasure thanks to this new discovery. Babi was almost 17 when she and Woody met! She approached him (let’s not forget that) and initiated a relationship with Woody that lasted for 8 years.

All those lynchers out there forget that we are talking about the 70s. The decade of free love, rock and drugs. If we have to condemn Woody because he had a relationship in 1976 with an almost 17 year-old girl who admired him and possibly loved him, then we must also condemn David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Iggy Pop, Steven Tyler, Anthony Kiedis, Cher, Bill Wyman, Randy California, Little Richard, Elvis and many others.

The 60s and the 70s were a crazy time. This was a pre-AIDS time. Everybody slept with everybody and nobody fainted hearing about it. The 60s and 70s were a different era. To all those moral bores: You cannot judge the sex of the 60s and the 70s with today’s standards. That was the time of the groupies and the time where many girls of 13, 14, 15 and 16 years old were happy to have sex with famous men. Sable Starr lost her virginity at 12 with Randy California in 1969 and was 13 when she had an affair with Iggy Pop in 1970. Corel Shields was 13 when she was involved with Iggy Pop in 1972. Lori Maddox was 14 when she slept with David Bowie in 1974 and had a relationship with Jimmy Page: “It was worth every minute”, she said many years later. Steven Tyler dated Julia Holcomb when she just turned 16. Bill Wyman (the bass player of The Rolling Stones) was 47 when he began dating 13-year-old Many Smith. Anthony Kiedis (the singer of Red Hot Chili Peppers) had sex with a 14-year-old. And Cher (16 years Kiedis’ senior) had sex with Kiedis when he was 13 years old in 1975 (she was 29).

A bit before the 60s and the 70s, Little Richard became involved with 16-year-old Audrey Robinson (in 1956). Elvis met Priscilla Presley in 1959, when she was 14 years old. They married in 1967.

(Priscilla and Elvis at their wedding in 1967)

So, are we going to burn the LPs and CDs of Elvis, Little Richard, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, and The Rolling Stones? Are we going to burn all the movies and TV series with Cher? The mob would scream: Yes! I say: Of course not! All these morons that are lynching Woody Allen have robbed us the pleasure and satisfaction of seeing Woody’s latest film which was scheduled to be released this year. This boycott against Woody’s art shows us how stupid the human species can get and how low it can fall. I personally will never forgive those morons (including the three monster Farrows) for denying me the opportunity of enjoying A Rainy Day in New York this year.

Woody was 41 when Babi Christina gave him her phone number (he never asked for it). She was almost 17. That’s a 25 year-gap difference. Oh, boy, such a sin! Such gaps in age must really mean some pathology, the herd argues. If the problem here is the age difference, then the mob is going to have problems with one third of the planet, since big gaps between people who fall in love every day are very common.

Picasso was 10 years older than his first wife Olga Khokhlova, 28 years older than his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter (they met when Marie-Thérèse was 17 and Picasso 45; their relationship lasted 8 years), 26 years older than his lover Dora Maar (their relationship lasted 7 years), 40 years older than his lover Françoise Gilot (their relationship lasted 10 years), and 46 years older than his second and last wife Jacqueline Roque (their marriage lasted 11 years until Picasso’s death).

(Jacqueline and Picasso)

Let’s have a look for a moment at the love lives of other two geniuses that Woody –and the rest of the world– admire: Charlie Chaplin & Groucho Marx.

Charlie Chaplin’s first wife Mildred Harris was 16 when they met and 17 when they married. Chaplin was 12 years her senior. Chaplin’s second wife Lita Grey was 15 when she and Chaplin started their relationship (they had first met when she was 8 years old and worked together when she was 12 years old) and married in Mexico (Chaplin and Lita had a 19-year age difference). Chaplin’s third wife Paulette Goddard was 21 years younger than him. Chaplin and his fourth and last wife Oona O’Neill fell in love when she was 17 years old. She was 36 years younger than him. They remained together 34 years, until Chaplin’s death.

(Paulette Goddard and Chaplin in The Great Dictator / Oona O’Neill and Chaplin)

Groucho Marx’s second wife Kay Marvis was 33 years his junior. And Groucho’s third and last wife Eden Hartford was 40 years his junior. Does this make him a monster? Of course not. Woody and the psychic ex-model had a 25 year gap difference. Apparently that’s a real horrible sin. Let’s cut his head off!

Some could argue that the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s were different than now. And they would be right. They were very different indeed. So were the 1960s and the 1970s. But the truth is that love and relationships care very little about age difference between men and women, men and men, and women and women. Miles Davis was 41 years old when he married Betty Mabry, 19 years his junior. Josh Brolin’s second wife Kathryn Boyd is 20 years younger than him. Annette Bening and Warren Beatty have a 21-year age gap and have been married for ages. Sylvester Stallone’s third wife Jennifer Flavin is 22 years his junior. Harrison Ford’s third wife Calista Flockhart is 22 years his junior. Leonardo DiCaprio’s current girlfriend Camila Morrone is 23 years younger than him. Bruce Willis’ second wife Emma Heming is 23 years his junior. Steven Tyler’s fiancée Erin Brady was 25 years his junior. Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones have a 25-year gap. Alec Baldwin’s second wife Hilaria Thomas is 26 years younger than him. Rod Stewart and his third wife Penny Lancaster have a 26-year age gap. Steve Martin’s second wife Anne Stringfield is 27 years his junior. Rowan Atkinson’s girlfriend Louise Ford is 28 years younger than him. Madonna dated Jesus Luz who is 28 years younger than her. Frank Sinatra and his third wife Mia Farrow had a 29-year gap. Vincent Cassel and his wife Tina Kunakey have a 30-year age difference. Stephen Fry’s husband Elliott Spencer is 30 years younger than him. Jeff Goldblum’s third wife Emilie Livingston is 30 years his junior. Sharon Stone dated Martin Mica who was 30 years her junior. Ellen Barkin dated Sam Levinson who is 31 years younger than her. Sean Penn’s girlfriend Leila George is 31 years younger than him. Sarah Paulson’s girlfriend Holland Taylor is 32 years her junior. Richard Gere and his wife Alejandra Silva have a 34-year age difference. Clint Eastwood and Dina Ruiz-Eastwood had a 35-year age gap. Mel Gibson’s girlfriend Rosalind Ross is 35 years his junior. Al Pacino’s new girlfriend Meital Dohan is 39 years his junior. Mick Jagger’s (100th?) girlfriend Melanie Hamrick is 44 years younger than him (he also had an affair with Carla Bruni when she was 24 and he was 48 and dated Sophie Dahl when she was 23 and he was 57). Dick Van Dyke’s second wife Arlene Silver is 46 years his junior. There are 1,000 more examples, but I will stop here.

So, apparently, love does not care about age.

Another point that seems to shock the herd is the ménages à trois that Woody, the psychic ex-model and Farrow allegedly had. The real question here is: Is there anybody in the 70s who didn’t have a ménage à trois? On the other hand, that’s completely private and shouldn’t be the concern of anyone apart from those involved. One could, of course, question the taste of the performers. I know that many women would dream of sleeping with Woody. But, for me at least, the solely thought of sleeping with Mia Farrow makes me puke. But everybody has their taste in sex and love, and it’s nobody’s concern to judge.

I’m sure Mia Farrow isn’t very comfortable with the fact that now everybody knows a part of her sex life that contradicts the persona that she carefully built. But since she seems to be pathologically vengeful I’m pretty sure she also feels happy with the article, even if it damages her Mother Theresa of Calcuta image. I’m sure she feels some satisfaction as long as the article gets Woody down (even if she goes down with him).

“I’m not attacking Woody. This is not ‘bring down this man.’ I’m talking about my love story. This made me who I am. I have no regrets”, says Babi Christina in that article. Yeah. But the timing is perfect, Babi. Congratulations. Just before publishing your “memoirs”. And the moron who wrote the article doesn’t miss the opportunity to attack Woody. You can really feel his hate for Woody over the whole crappy article. That’s not journalism. That’s sensationalism. No. Not even sensationalism. Just a piece of garbage. Throw the garbage in the garbage, please!

When a movement like Me Too mixes facts with fiction, equals innocent men and guilty men so easily, starts condemning men on social media and sending them to the guillotine for no reason and, more grave even, boycotting their art, that’s when we know this movement is dead. The Me Too drowned the moment it unjustly condemned Woody Allen.

I truly believe that the real motive of Woody’s unfair lynching is his love for Soon-Yi. Here, racism plays also a big part, believe it or not. Soon-Yi and Woody fell in love and there is nothing you nor I can do about it. Thanks to the courageous testimonies of Moses Farrow (May 23, 2018) and Soon-Yi (September 16, 2018) we can have an idea of the ambiance in Mia Farrow’s madhouse (Mia Farrow used to denigrate, humiliate and beat Moses and Soon-Yi). Woody and Mia Farrow were not dating any more when Woody and Soon-Yi fell in love. I don’t see Woody and Soon-Yi’s love like something weird, quite the contrary. I’m so happy for them that they found true love. Woody & Soon Yi are together for 27 years now and still are going strong. They have formed a beautiful family and don’t care about what we think about their love.

It’s amazing to see how many morons still write on Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and even in magazines and newspapers that Woody married his daughter, his stepdaughter or his adoptive daughter. Come on. Enough with this stupid lie. Soon-Yi is neither Woody’s daughter nor Woody’s stepdaughter. She is the adoptive daughter of André Previn and Mia Farrow. Woody and Farrow had a peculiar relationship for 12 years (Woody didn’t sleep even once at Farrow’s house) and never married. So, Woody was never a father figure to Soon-Yi. When Woody and Soon-Yi fell in love, Farrow and Woody had ended their relationship and were just friends. Farrow loved to collect children like stamps and adopted 10 children with different boyfriends and husbands. One of these 10 adopted children was Soon-Yi. Let’s not forget that Farrow physically and mentally abused Soon-Yi.

The prefabricated story of the pathetic and phoney Dylan Farrow (who is both an insult and a joke to real sexual victims) does not make any sense. Millions of us (including the two teams of experts who investigated Dylan’s case back in 1992 in two states) believe that 7-year-old Dylan Farrow was coached by her adoptive angry mother. Does the adult Dylan Farrow believe that she was actually molested by Woody? The truth is: I don’t care. If she believes that, she should get some therapy instead of tweeting garbage about Woody and insulting all the actors and people who love Woody’s work. I do feel pity for Dylan-the-child. But I really feel repugnance for Dylan-the-adult.

So, the mob wanted to hang Woody for so long because of his love for Soon-Yi but didn’t have any actual real reason to do it. Soon-Yi is not the daughter nor the stepdaughter of Woody and she was not underaged when their story began (she was 22 years old). The crocodile tears of Dylan Farrow did not quite work after all. That story was a fake one and it was already investigated and there is nothing, not a million tweets nor a million posts, that will change the truth about it. But now, boom! This psychic ex-model comes out of nowhere and claims that she slept with Woody when she was just about turning 17. Now the mob can hang Woody! But, come on, we are talking about an-almost-17-year-old sexual active girl who, willingly, initiated the relationship. And we are talking about the 70s.

In the USA, 16 years old is the age of consent in the majority of the states. In 31 states the age of consent is 16. In 7 states the age of consent is 17. And in 12 states the age of consent is 18. The age of consent in New York is 17 and in New Jersey 16.

In Canada, the age of consent is 16 years old.

In Europe, the vast majority of countries set their ages of consent in the range of 14 to 16 years old.

The age of consent in Albania, Andorra, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Montenegro, Portugal, San Marino, and Serbia is 14 years old.

The age of consent in Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Greece, Iceland, Monaco, Poland, Romania,  Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden is 15 years old.

The age of consent in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Finland, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, the Netherlands, Northern Cyprus, Norway, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the UK is 16 years old.

The age of consent in Cyprus, Ireland is 17 years old. And the age of consent in Turkey and Vatican City is 18 years old.

So, mob and herd: you’ve got nothing for hanging Woody Allen. Mia, Ronan and Dylan Farrow, bimbos and psychics, stupid mob: Step off the stage and get a life. Stop writing garbage about Woody and keep in mind that we’ll never forget that you were part of this disgraceful lynching.

If you don’t like Woody Allen, go watch some cartoons. If you don’t want to watch Woody’s films, don’t watch them. Believe me: nobody cares. Woody’s films will continue being powerful, amazing, stunning and wonderful for ever and ever. Cheers.

 Antonia Tejeda Barros, Madrid, December 26, 2018

More articles about Woody by Antonia Tejeda Barros 

Happy 83rd birthday, Woody!

Egon Schiele and Woody Allen: Two Geniuses Falsely Accused by the Puritan Herd

 

Woody & Soon-Yi: A True Love Story

Down with the mob! We love you, Woody

The resented vengeful, the tedious obsessive, and the genius artist. #IBelieveWoody

We Believe You, Woody! An Open Letter to Woody Allen

Woody’s innocence is all written down

www.ibelievewoody.com