Thursday, February 6, 2014

Murray Rothbard on Woody Allen and Mia Farrow

The below originally appeared in the Rothbard-Rockwell Report, published in the early 1990s.

The outbreak of the Woody-Mia scandal during the week of the Republican Convention was a fortuitous coincidence that highlighted the cultural warfare theme. For decades Woody Allen has been the very embodiment of left-liberal values and expression. Beginning as a very funny comic, Woody’s movies have become increasingly pretentious and fake-philosophic, mouthing nonsense about religion, the meaning of life, and all the rest – all in a manner congenial to the equally pretentious leftist intellectuals that people Manhattan’s Upper East and West Sides, where Woody, Mia, and most of Woody’s fans live, and congregate. Throughout, Woody’s ideology has been implicitly leftist – sometimes explicitly, as in the pro-Communist movie The Front.

But not only that: Woody’s and Mia’s living arrangements constituted a veritable metaphor of what left-liberal “alternative lifestyles” are all about: out-of-wedlock, separate apartments, Mia’s adopting a veritable zoo of multicultural kids, one after the other – all very mod, very trendy, very politically correct. And then, whamo! Woody goes over just about the last line, or, if you want it put that way, the “last frontier” – incest. Well, OK, it’s not legal incest, but it certainly, morally, encompasses what incest is all about: bringing up a kid from early age, as a step-(common law) father, and then taking advantage of her innocent daughterly trust to launch an affair, replete with nude photos.

It has been almost too much for Woody’s fans. You mean “If It Moves, Fondle It” could include incest? Shocking! But after all, why not? If all bets are off, if there are no religious or moral restrictions on behavior, why not Ago with the flow,” why not go with your heart, feelings, gonads, why not Do It? Particularly shocking to Woody’s army of left-liberal fans has been his obtuse refusal to see any moral problem in his behavior. She (Woody’s quasi-step-daughter) “has turned my life around in a positive way.” Well, isn’t that it? Woody’s movie characters – clearly a metaphor for himself – always follow their heart/gonads but only after a lot of kvetching and pseudo-philosophizing; Woody in real life has apparently transcended all that into the purely hedonic.

I am usually not a fan of Dan Quayle or of his control William Kristol, but Kristol was exactly right when asked to comment on the Woody Allen affair: “I’m sure that Woody Allen is a good Democrat.” Yes. And here we are: it’s Woody Allen, “If It Moves, Fondle It,” alternative “families” as any-two-or-more-beings coupling, versus the Traditional, two-parent family, moral principles and restraints, and yes, Ozzie and Harriet, the Cleavers, and the Waltons. The corrupt, rotten New Culture, versus the glorious life-affirming Old. There is our Cultural War, and it has come none too soon, and just in time.

(ht Justin Raimondo)

1 comment:

  1. I made the mistake of renting Woody's latest production, not knowing it was his. Spoiler alert! The leading man was banging everything that moved and eventually left the leading lady for a teenage au pair. He left be telling her, "This one's different. What we have is real!" Movie ends with leading lady having a mental breakdown. I felt bad about wasting $1.28 and 2 hours to watch a bio.

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