The cultural change of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movement is palpable. It’s entirely possible we’re watching a major political and social movement unfold around us, as a legacy of silence and disbelief for victims falls to the wayside, allowing us to move forward. It’s a better world we’re walking into.
And yet.
Filmmaker Woody Allen is well known to have not only married his daughter, but raped his other daughter. Dylan Farrow has been remarkably brave as the public and Hollywood have chosen not to believe her. When she wrote an op-ed about the sexual abuse she faced at the hands of her father, asking why actors would still work with him, Scarlett Johansson called her “irresponsible.” So far, only a handful of actors have spoken up to apologize for working with notorious shitbag Woody Allen. Greta Gerwig, Mia Farrow, Ellen Page, Mira Sorvino, Rebecca Hall, Griffin Newman, and Timothee Chalamet. This is out of the many, many big names who have worked with him over the decades of his career.
It would certainly make sense that in the wake of the #MeToo movement, Hollywood celebrities would apologize for their involvement with Woody Allen. And yet.
Another example of Hollywood auteur gone unpunished is Roman Polanski. Polanski raped a thirteen year old girl. While in Switzerland in 2009 for a film festival, Polanski was arrested for the 30-year-old rape case. Hundreds of Hollywood actors, directors, and more signed a petition for his release, including Tilda Swinson and Natalie Portman.
So I’d like to specifically target Adrien Brody, a handsome god of a man who has worked with both Allen and Polanksi. And how he disappoints me.
Oh my lord. Is Adrien just a handsome, handsome man. Look at that frame, the nose, his sauntering demeanor. Adrien Brody has a face that seems to speak of the trials he’s undergone, etched in the lines and those dreamy, sad eyes. The way his brows are eternally tilted seems to suggest that as he looks in a camera’s lens (and thereby right into your eyes and by extension, your soul) that he understands your untold hardship, and he’s so ready to fix you.
Adrien starred in Roman Polanski’s The Pianist as the titular character. He won an Oscar for this portrayal and seems to still consider it the “role of a lifetime” or whatever, despite the fact that it was created by a big ol’ raping rapist.
Additionally, Brody was Salvador Dali in Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris. His role is brief, he’s on screen for maybe a couple of minutes, maximum. He’s actually fairly funny in a film that is mostly a barrel of misogynist bullshit. But whatever, right?
When Brody has been asked about his willingness to work with not one, but two of Hollywood’s most notorious rapist sacks of mayonnaise (seen below having a jolly old time being decaying bags of the patriarchy), he said that “people make mistakes in their lives.”
Maybe I’m only so bothered because I have a big crush on Adrien, but this stands out as such a pinnacle of the failings of our culture in this moment. How easy can it be, even as pressure rises, to dismiss criminal and cruel abuse as a “mistake”?
Brody recently posted a video to his Instagram of him cracking a joke that was a throwback to his role as Dali. How can this not be read as to be unconcerned with the wrongdoings of Allen, when the wrongdoings of men like him are the front story of every publication currently?
And so I say: goddammit, Adrien Brody. The time I have spent searching through Pinterest for pictures of you. The hours I have put into watching your interviews on YouTube. The number of terrible movies you’ve been in that I’ve watched just to look at your face. Please, apologize for working with these assholes. Say something to suggest that you’re on the side of the women they’ve victimized. Anything. Just let me daydream about you being my sugar daddy without experiencing pangs of guilt. Be part of this movement so you can continue to be my favorite eye candy.
IMAGE SOURCES: 1 and 2 from Kevin Porter’s twitter, [3] [4] [5] [6]