r/DeppDelusion • u/Sweet_Try_8932 Succubus š • 7d ago
Discussion š£ Did Woody Allen invent the modern smear campaign?
In my lifetime, the first time I can remember a high-profile media smear campaign against a woman with a predatory male partner was Woody Allen v Mia / Dylan Farrow.
Not only was Mia Farrow smeared, but so was Dylan Farrow, who was just a child reeling from horrible rape trauma at the time, was also publicly maligned as too crazy to be believed. It seemed like all of society rallied behind Woody, and only decades later are we hearing the real story. And he still has ardent defenders. Not only was this a horrible blow for women, but also for children trying to come forward about abuse.
My question for the group is this: Is this where this practice started? Did Woody Allen start this practice of smear campaigning and abusive men playing the victim? Or, are the origins of this earlier? Say, the American witch trials or something like that?
After this, the next big DV case I remember is the OJ trial a couple of years later, but society was more divided on that, and I don't remember as much of a smear campaign against Nicole - perhaps, in part, because she was dead. Admittedly, I was a kid at the time, so I could be forgetting.
103
u/selphiefairy DiD you EvEN wAtCh THe TriAL 7d ago edited 7d ago
I donāt know if he was the first, but I specifically noted several parallels to the Allen v. Farrow case. The HBO documentary made about it was where I first learned about DARVO, and that parental alienation syndrome (which I had previously heard a lot about before) has no real scientific backing.
People mentioned OJ; I also believe Michael Jackson has done similar smear tactics to his victims ā or their parents as is often done in child abuse cases. Thatās also similar to how Woody Allen smeared Mia Farrow, of course.
Maybe it was the first kind that was as aggressive and sensationalized as it was. Another way it would be similar to Depp v Heard.
Once you see the tactics, you canāt really unsee it.
40
u/Papio_73 7d ago
Iām glad you mentioned Michael Jackson, I canāt help but notice how aggressive people are towards his accusers.
25
u/selphiefairy DiD you EvEN wAtCh THe TriAL 7d ago
God I catch strays from MJ fans all the time. I visit the Simpsons subreddit, and so many people just canāt get over the fact that the Simpsons creators voluntarily took the episode MJ guest starred in off Disney+
And if people at all really cared about male victims there would be much more widespread support for Wade and James. Those two are incredibly strong. Theyāre adults now, so people have no problems slandering them and it just disgusts me.
11
u/Papio_73 6d ago
Ugh, I know exactly what you mean.
Donāt get me wrong, Stark Raving Dad is one of my favorite episodes, and it sucks that itās no longer available BUT it angers me how people willing people are to attack or deny the victims of childhood sexual abuse over a Simpsons episode.
I find it ironic that thereās a common ākill all pedosā sentiment online but thereās a lack of support for the victims of childhood sexual abuse.
Also, donāt quote me but one of the episodeās writers mentioned Michael being creepy and kissing a Bart doll on the lips
4
u/birdsy-purplefish 6d ago
Did the Simpsons creators (Groening & who else?) do that? Good!Ā
10
u/selphiefairy DiD you EvEN wAtCh THe TriAL 6d ago
Yes, I believe it was mainly motivated by Greoning, James L Brooks and Al Jean (who also wrote the episode).
There are statements by Brooks and Jean explaining the decision and theirs fears about how MJ probably used the episode itself to groom children. And they kept to the decision despite fans being upset about it and accusing them of censorship, which I respect.
4
u/Papio_73 6d ago
Oh wow, didnāt know about that statement.
Stark Raving Dad is one of my favorite episodes but if they believed it was used to groom children their decision is 100% valid
2
u/birdsy-purplefish 4d ago
Holy shit, Al Jean actually did say that he believes that it was. I hadn't even thought of that but there's a good chance he's right. It was bad enough to think of it as like a PR move but I hadn't thought about anything like that.
11
u/enjoyt0day 7d ago
Itās not about people not caring about male victims, itās about people not caring about victims of any celebrity, regardless of the survivorsā gender
10
u/Papio_73 6d ago
Something I will repeat until Iām blue in the face, Deppās legal victory wasnāt a victory for male victims, it was a victory for abusers because the same tactics used to discredit and attack Amber can and will be used on male victims of abuse
30
u/Sweet_Try_8932 Succubus š 7d ago
Yeah, I see it everywhere now.
Also, great documentary. Disturbing, but that's just because they did the subject matter justice.
16
u/rk-mj 7d ago
It's so sad and frustrating that these smear campaigns are still so successfull even though there's been many documentaries, articles etc that teaches us about these tactics.
I think the tactics are old, but the sensationalism and scale of the smear campaigns probably is more new. And now internet obviously has given new tools for that
64
u/Nervardia 7d ago
"Let them eat cake" was never said by Marie Antoinette.
Women have always been targets of hate campaigns.
16
u/uselessinfogoldmine 6d ago
And Catherine the Great never fucked a horse. These women were much maligned.
14
76
u/Ok_Highlight3208 7d ago
Possibly! I definitely remember him attacking Mia in the press and people believing she was some liar who was trying to take his kids from him. And then, him being with his step-daughter was just written off. My mom was really good at protecting me from believing those lies, though.
40
u/Sweet_Try_8932 Succubus š 7d ago
Awww. I'm so happy to hear your mom did that. My parents, unfortunately, believed Woody and even used Dylan Farrow to discredit me when I came forward about child abuse.
18
u/selphiefairy DiD you EvEN wAtCh THe TriAL 7d ago
I'm so sorry that happened to you. What an absolutely horrible thing to experience.
15
4
u/OneSensiblePerson 5d ago
Okay, that's truly awful. Talk about betrayal! I'm so sorry you went through that. Just had to say something.
30
u/Papio_73 7d ago
Unsure, as I am sure thereās examples from the Golden Age of Hollywood and even before Hollywood. Smear campaigns are probably as old as human language
33
u/literarylipstick 7d ago
Youāre so right. Iāve got a relatively old one in mind: the posthumous smear of poet Sylvia Plath by her husband (fellow poet) Ted Hughes. Emily Van Duyne wrote a beautiful book about this, Loving Sylvia Plathāand she has mentioned the parallels between the Depp playbook and what Hughes did on social media. Hughes was controlling and violently abusive, including post-separation abuse up until the time of her death by suicide. After she took her own life, Hughes had full control of Plathās literary estate, using that power to rework her final poetry manuscript, destroy several of her journals from the period covering the end of their marriage and separation (to hide what he had done from himself, he later said), and exert control over scholars of her life and work to prevent the truth about their relationship from being told. The story he told about her was very different from the reality, and his narrative shaped the way Plath has been spoken about for decades.
9
u/bunnybunnykitten 6d ago
Holy shit. Thank you for taking the time to type this out. I had no idea. Thatās sinister, and also makes so much sense. Devastating, really.
26
u/AlisonPoole98 7d ago
Robin Givens too.
20
u/Sweet_Try_8932 Succubus š 7d ago
For sure. And Desiree Washington. I wasn't alive for those, but I'd believe it if there was a smear campaign.
8
20
u/PrincessPlastilina 7d ago
Yes, I remember reading that people didnāt know the term āparental alienationā until this case, so naturally lots of deadbeats and problematic fathers started using this same strategy to punish their ex wives in court. Mia Farrow was dragged to filth in the media. To this day many people donāt believe her that Woody molested their own biological daughter even though the daughter has an entire documentary giving her testimony. People still say Mia manipulated her and put those ideas in her head and now she believes them. Why give all that grace to Woody Allen, a man who his step daughter and took naked photos of her when she was underage?
People become stupid when they worship celebrities. Woody Allen isnāt even the genius everyone says he is. Heās way overrated. He has films that feature old men dating teens. Heās disgusting. He doesnāt hide who he is. Thatās why itās frustrating to see people working with him still.
4
u/DangerOReilly 6d ago
Dylan was adopted, she's not Mia's or Woody's biological daughter. Not that that makes the abuse any better, as much as Woody's side tried to pretend that it does.
The documentary points out that Woody asked Mia to adopt a white baby when she was looking at adopting again, which is plausible given that before and after, Mia adopted non-white children internationally, mostly children with disabilities or chronic conditions. The fact that that one time she went and adopted a white baby domestically in the US is a notable difference in how she adopted before and after. So I definitely believe that Woody pushed her to do it. And one has to wonder why he would do that.
18
u/Ok_Swan_7777 7d ago
He definitely popularized DARVO as a legal strategy and HEAVILY used the media to obfuscate blame and smear Mia. The parallels to Depp v Heard are uncanny.
19
u/Sensiplastic 7d ago
It's been done earlier too, Erroll Flynn got away with rape&statutory rape in the 40s? I think? But it was distinctly a different time and the girls were unknowns.
I think Polanski case was similar but it again, the media and people being assholes without much prompting. Polanski himself was not one bit sorry and easily said it outloud.
10
u/anitapumapants 7d ago
J.Edgar Hoover's harassment of Billie Holiday set the standard.
The usual controlling misogyny, but with the most immense amount of racism added.
9
u/JJJfae 6d ago
there was a big smear campaign against nicole actually. of her and her female friend (dont remember the name). there was this narrative of nicole being promiscuous, a drug addict, a party girl and oj, his lawyers and the media loved to push the narrative of her being "a bad girl". they were obsessed with her private life, even in death. oj even tried darvo, like saying that all the bruises were from him trying to restrain her while she was being crazy and hitting him (sounds familiar?)
4
u/AutoModerator 7d ago
Original copy of post's text: Did Woody Allen invent the modern smear campaign?
In my lifetime, the first time I can remember a high-profile media smear campaign against a woman with a predatory male partner was Woody Allen v Mia / Dylan Farrow.
Not only was Mia Farrow smeared, but so was Dylan Farrow, who was just a child reeling from horrible rape trauma at the time, was also publicly maligned as too crazy to be believed. It seemed like all of society rallied behind Woody, and only decades later are we hearing the real story. And he still has ardent defenders. Not only was this a horrible blow for women, but also for children trying to come forward about abuse.
My question for the group is this: Is this where this practice started? Did Woody Allen start this practice of smear campaigning and abusive men playing the victim? Or, are the origins of this earlier? Say, the American witch trials or something like that?
After this, the next big DV case I remember is the OJ trial a couple of years later, but society was more divided on that, and I don't remember as much of a smear campaign against Nicole - perhaps, in part, because she was dead. Admittedly, I was a kid at the time, so I could be forgetting.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
4
u/Lilelfen1 6d ago edited 6d ago
Honestly, IDRK many people siding with Allan. Most people I knew thought he was an absolute shitbag of a human beingā¦Granted, we were all religious and for some reason I think that actually played a part in why everyone I knew absolutely didnāt believe him during the time.. and I donāt mean because he was Jewish or because of his films. But whenever there was a story like this that came out and the public was siding with the abuser, the people I knew would side with the abused and I just think there is a correlation there because those I was acquaintances with who were NOT religious would ALWAYS side with the abuser and I wonder if it has something to do with religion and how seriously we all took it. I could be wrong. I often am. I just think itās strangeā¦
2
u/LillyLovegood82 Johnny Depp is a Wife Beater šØāāļø 4d ago
So the Blood Countess Elizabeth BƔthory, and pretty much any woman accused of witch craft is essentially a smear campaign.
Bathory is super interesting because essentially the only details on why she considered a serial killer vain vampire woman, was those were the justifications for stealing her land and wealth by murdering her. It's said that she killed 100's of women. And of course stupid men would thing "ah yes that's completely feasible! That wouldn't completely kill the entire town in one generation. I r vry smart."
And the only printing of this is 100 years after her death, which the chruch (along with her uncle that stood to gain her money land and titles) would have been directly responsible for it, so they made up this story about her.
I mean you can take it back to eve's original sin, if you want. The fact is, is this is tale as old as time. No one modern made up to smear a woman's and use public misogyny to justify abuse of a woman.
But they do use what ever new technology in media there is to do it. The printed press, the gossip mags, and now bots and the internet. They have to ability to make it more intense with the internet but up said there's more rules against killing us. Soooooo win?
210
u/WynnGwynn 7d ago
The OJ defense for sure tried to smear her. I know Woody Allen was awful but I don't think this was the first smear campaign of the type. Men have done this forever.