Writing about Amazon’s decision to engage Woody Allen to write and direct a series for its video on demand service, Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri said in a footnote that it would be “crass and insensitive” to consider how the show’s reception might be impacted by the decades-old allegations that Allen sexually assaulted his then-7-year-old adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow.
I respectfully disagree. It’s unrealistic to expect that anyone – Amazon executives, the journalists covering the story, or the series’ potential audience – can disregard the charges, which were resurfaced in spectacular fashion last year by Farrow in an essay she wrote in the New York Times. They were certainly on the mind of more than a few people today in light of the recent fall from public grace of another iconic male celebrity, Bill Cosby, accused by over a dozen women of drugging and raping them.
And it was no doubt considered by Amazon while in talks with Allen. Given that, according to the New York Times, Allen did not appear to be shopping a TV series (he did not approach Hulu or Netflix NFLX +1.53%), it seems quite likely that Amazon approached him.
“Amazon has a formula; they know what sells,” Brian Wieser, a media analyst with Pivotal Research, told the New York Times. “Presumably they are making a calculation in terms of not offending some of their customers while concurrently appealing to others.”
As I see it, there is no way this calculation ignored Allen’s notoriety. Wieser seems to suggest that Amazon saw the potential loss of subscribers as one it could afford to absorb, given, presumably, the ability to capture audiences who would not be alienated, and/or who might even be morbidly attracted to the project because of Allen’s reputation (we’re only human). While that’s a shrewd business strategy, it also feels a little crass to me.
The Amazon deal is just one illustration of how Allen’s career has suffered minimal apparent damage from the allegations. As the Atlantic pointed out, Allen had no trouble getting his latest film project greenlit, even though his first release since the Times gave the charges a fresh airing, Magic in the Moonlight, was a critical and box office failure. (The upcoming film is about a professor who has an affair with a student; Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone will star.)
“No matter what you think of Woody Allen, his name is iconic and his brand is iconic, and it’s a bold move by Amazon to associate with one of the most iconic filmmakers working today,” Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst at industry researcher Rentrak Corp, told Bloomberg.
His continued commercial backing stands in sharp contrast to Cosby, whose career has just about been destroyed.
(Forbes)
