Tabloids and Taboos

It was a story that could have been wished into existence by little J. Danforth Quayle himself. It happened in the slow news days of August. The Republicans, gathered in convention, were calling for holy war in America. In the virtual reality of the Astrodome, it appeared that the convention might climax with the blood sacrifice of a lesbian feminist. Only then would the angry Republican god be placated, and the holy state of party unity secured.

Meanwhile on the outside, in much-maligned Manhattan, Woody Allen emerged as the living proof for Quayle's theory about a decadent American cultural elite. Whatever the legal status of Allen's various admitted and alleged actions with regard to Mia Farrow's children, the word "decadent" certainly begins to fill the moral bill. Even if the 56-year-old Allen's only offense is his flaunted sexual relationship with his former partner's young daughter, that's enough to qualify him for the status of a moral pariah.

And, of all American pop cultural figures, none is more self-consciously elitist than Allen. It's not just that he occasionally writes for The New Yorker; or that he's been known to issue social pronouncements on the op-ed page of The New York Times (the paper with no comics section). It's not even the snobby way that Allen keeps refusing, year in and year out, to attend the Academy Awards ceremony. These are all just symptoms of the smug elitism that lies at the heart of Allen's public persona.

Even Allen's most popular film work (and he is popular despite himself) represents a striving toward the highbrow prestige of European film artistes. Allen the filmmaker is always a little like Terry Malloy, Marlon Brando's character in On the Waterfront. Malloy was the washed-up prizefighter who, in one of U.S. cinema's most famous speeches, pleaded to his brother that he "coulda been a contender, instead of a bum, which is what I am."

Allen seems always to be complaining that, if his audience would allow it, he could have been a true film genius, instead of a comic, which is what he is. In fact, one of his movies, Stardust Memories, was devoted in large part to condemning his audience for being unworthy of his artistic vision.

Never ones to turn down an easy shot, the Republican hacks during convention week did have their go at what Newt Gingrich called the "non-incest" in Allen's and Farrow's "non-family." But soon the Republican wolves quieted. That's because they figured out that, scandal or no scandal, incest or non, Allen's box office numbers were still a lot better than George Bush's.

As autumn rolled in, Allen's latest film, Husbands and Wives, in which he philanders on Farrow with the teen-age Juliette Lewis, went into general release. Meanwhile the fight over the havoc Woody wreaked at home receded quietly into the courts, for now. And it is in the courts that the most heinous charges against Allen will be aired, and, we hope, justly resolved. There Allen is accused of sexually molesting his 7-year-old daughter, adopted with Farrow.

BUT WHATEVER the outcome of the legal proceedings, Woody is already guilty enough. His relationship with Soon Yi is the moral equivalent of incest. And, what's truly pathetic is that Allen seems to be the only person in America who doesn't realize it.

Oddly enough, it is this deliberate distance from ordinary human reality that has long irritated me in much of Allen's film work. I've always had a bit of a blind spot when it comes to Woody Allen. I never really "got" the whole Woody gestalt. My problems started with Annie Hall, which is of course where Woody's real, post-slapstick career as a film artist began.

Sure it was a brilliant film. But I never got beyond my irritation at the way Allen's character not only refused to enjoy life himself, but seemed to sneer at anyone who did. I was also bugged by the film's hostility toward the Diane Keaton character's middle-American family.

Then came Manhattan, the great neo-black-and-white masterpiece. But at the heart of the film was a truly disturbing love affair between Woody Allen's well-over-40 character and a teen-ager played by Mariel Hemingway. In the film, this relationship was depicted as healthy and natural, if misunderstood. And most audiences seemed to accept it as such.

At the time I was mystified that, a decade into the second wave of feminism, none of the film critics questioned the moral legitimacy, much less the political correctness, of such a plainly, and painfully, unequal relationship.

From then on I've avoided all of the Woody Allen movies that were real Woody Allen movies--Interiors, Stardust Memories, Hannah and Her Sisters. I did still enjoy the Allen films that didn't feature the "Woody" persona, especially Broadway Danny Rose, Purple Rose of Cairo (in which Allen did not act at all), and Zelig. But I just skipped the rest.

That seems like a major perceptual gap for someone who's been writing about popular culture frequently for a full decade. But there's no accounting for tastes. I didn't "get" Woody. I've met people--well-respected and intelligent people--who don't "get" Elvis. So go figure.

But now, in hindsight's naked glare, I can't help wondering if this might be more than just a matter of taste. I can't help wondering if the detachment from ordinary concerns and distance from mundane human values, which I perceived as the Achilles heel of Allen's art, may also have been the fatal flaw of his life.

Danny Duncan Collum is a contributing editor of Sojourners.