Last night I watched a TMC documentary: And The Oscar Goes To. Saying that I wept is about as meaningful as saying I sneezed—I am the easiest tears-mark in the world. Something about seeing actors fall on their proverbial knees in gratitude, brings out my crybaby side. I cried hardest listening to Tom Hanks talk about AIDS taking too many people, Hattie McDaniels, stunned words about this too-long-in-the-making recognition of black actors. Jane Fonda remembering how Vietnam overshadowed her Oscar win for Klute. Sidney Poitier refusing to answer when someone wanted him to speak as a representative of all black people—saying he needed to think before he spoke.

I cry with almost any award-winner, but men and women brave enough to address struggles around personal and social issues strike my core. They provide windows into goodness. Their acts deepen my appreciation of their art.

And—I know this about myself—the opposite is true.

An artist’s character colors the lens through which I read, see, hear them—it seeps into me. I don’t like to watch Alec Baldwin as much as I once did. His documented invectives, indicative of his character, spill onto my perceptions of him onscreen. My suspension of disbelief cracks because instead of seeing the work, I see the person behind it. Discomfort colors my laughter. Which, in many ways I hate. Because I thought he was terrific.

That he denies the impact of his comments, choosing excuses over facing his mistakes, makes it worse, makes it far more difficult for me to paper over his slurs and enjoy his performance.

I do not go looking for artist’s life stories, but when they hit me in the face, yes, I am affected. That Mariska Hargitay began a foundation to help victims of sexual abuse makes me more inclined to appreciate her art. Learning Mel Gibson to be anti-Semitic and abusive, I am less inclined to get lost in his world and more likely to skip watching him. Despite article after article, urging moral-free appreciation of art, when artists commit crimes, I do see their work through a new prism. And yes, I have my own tendencies, prejudices. I believe children when they say they were victimized. I don’t need to see a smoking gun. I know what abuse can do to a child. For a long list of reasons, they more often withhold information than reveal it.

Which brings us to Woody Allen, whose face is everywhere these days. It has been repeatedly written that Allen denies all allegations, but believing him begs this question: are you choosing to think that Dylan Farrow is lying? Interesting choice. I worked with criminals for almost ten years. They would lie about their crimes even as I stared at the evidence before me. Pictures of black eyes and broken arms. Each group I ran, men lied and denied. Their lies scorched across the room.

And they did a great job with their lies.  Perpetrators are far better than victims at dissembling.

Can we not be cognizant of the breadth and statistics of sexual abuse within art, as well as life? If you believe someone has done wrong, after a certain point, does looking the other way become mute tacit approval?

Bystanders have responsibilities.

To be clear, my own belief system and past marks my stances. My identity is the culmination of numerous events: having my innocence taken by a family member; feeling a life-long vulnerability after reading The Diary of Anne Frank; working with violent men. A thick strand of anger against those in denial came from my experiences. It’s not that I can’t manage interactions with anyone who crosses a morality line. (Certainly my own life has been filled with transgressions.) It’s that I can’t bear to interact with those whom I perceive as being in complete denial of what they did and the effect it had on others: I was drunk, she wanted it, she was bad, my buttons got pushed. It never happened.

I believe Dylan Farrow. I am done watching Woody Allen films. That is my stance.

But if it’s true that an artist’s personal life influences my view of his work, it’s also turning out to be true that many people (probably I’ve done this) let their opinion of an artist’s work determine how they view the artist’s personal life.

If we like Allen’s work, we, of course, prefer not to feel guilty as we watch his movies. We don’t want to feel queasy if we choose to work with him as an actor. So we either declare the purported act of abusing his daughter separate from his art, or we put the word ‘adopted’ in the middle of the phrase Woody Allen’s daughter.  We bang the drum about Soon-Yi not being his daughter, but only the daughter of his long-term girlfriend. We go on and on about she said, he said. We believe Allen’s decades long declaration of Mia Farrow as a vindictive woman. We say we will be objective until the law weighs in—despite not doing this in so many other cases. We make objectivity our king. We allow our admiration of him as an artist, and our own history with his work, to shape how we shape the story.

This is not a topic without gradation. I’m not above using the theory of relativity in my own need to read this or see that. But is it wrong of me to believe that it is more selfish to let our appreciation of art influence our moral standards when there is a child involved, when the “he said, she said,” reflects a debate about an event between a powerful adult man and a little girl?

Do I want a litmus test for artists, before I can appreciate their work?
No.

Do I have personally held beliefs that color my appreciation of art?
Yes.

I do measure intent in art. I do choose.

I choose Stephen Spielberg over Roman Polanski.
I vote with my pocketbook.
And I choose to draw lines.

Don’t take somebody’s life.
Don’t take someone’s innocence.
When choosing, choose honorable.

I often fail miserably, but I try, when choosing, to remember Jane Addams.