Ok I love Woody's work, but in the light of his daughters claims and marrying his step-daughter - don't people just ignore the facts in my subject heading a bit too easily? I know it's dealt with in the film but...
He's 42
She's 17
Just no.
Goodbye.
shareI think all his films mirror his personal life --> creepy pervs!
shareWoody Allen and Mia Farrow were not married. Soon-Yi was not his step-daughter.
Older guy, younger woman, A story as old as time itself. Happens every day and is completely natural.
If you want to get technical then you can say she was Allen's biological son's half sister. His son once referred to Father's day as "brother-in-law's day." Yep, that's completely natural .... in Arkansas.
shareAnd what would the attitude be if it was the other way around? A question I ask of the guys on here.
I would hope that the opinion would be the same. Because a minor is a minor.
Guys tend to have this weird, inconsistent attitude though when it comes to older women and younger men.
It suddenly becomes like, 'Dude, you scored.' The coming-of-age thing where guys think it's okay for a younger man to be deflowered by an older woman.
When you consider that teenage boys are really more immature than their female counterparts though, taking advantage of a young man is just as bad (if not worse) than the subject being talked about here, as per this movie.
Either way, I agree with a fairly renowned psychologist who said that an older man (or woman) who goes after a much younger woman ( or man)….even if they're not a minor….has issues. He said the same about the younger person. There's really no reason to have that kind of attraction for someone much older unless there's some issue going on. As he said, it's not a real healthy relationship, either way, because both parties have issues.
I agree with this sentiment although I think Allen could have made Tracy at least 20 or 22 and the film would have worked just as well.
It's a a trait you tend to see in a lot of old media is a young girl with an older man. Films in the 40s were full of leading men who were approaching 50 and their love interest was a woman in her early 20s. Even songs of the 50's and 60's sung by older men about girls on their 16th birthday were quite abundant. The more back in time you travel the more acceptable it was for an older man to date a very young girl.
I think the fact that she's 17 may have been a clever choice by Allen as a director he may very well have wanted to evoke some sort of uneasy feeling from the audience toward his character.
If this was the case then I applaud his artistic courage but at the same time it makes the mind race through situations about their age rather than focus on the film.
Either way whether you feel uneasy about it or not it's an interesting feature of the film and of course it is only just a film.
he didn't marry his step daughter. he and Mia farrow were never married, didn't even live together. And relationships between older men and younger women are hardly uncommon. old actors have always been paired with young actresses - look at Audrey hepburn for example. many of her co stars were old enough to be her father - Cary grant, Gary Cooper, Fred Astaire, Humphrey Bogart.
shareSHE IS NOT HIS F'ING STEPDAUGHTER!
shareWhat a bunch of self-righteous prudes most of you people are. He's 42. She's 17. Deal with it, or just don't watch Manhattan any more.
shareThe relationship was widely seen as creepy and inappropriate when the movie came out, although where I came from it wasn't considered illegal or anything that would make anyone I knew refuse to see the movie. I mean, I was in high school myself and was squicked by the scenes with Hemingway and Allen, but the movie was funny enough that I enjoyed the movie anyway. But it's one of those films I have no desire to see again, I've heard too much about Allen's creepy ways.
Plus, when I saw the movie again as an adult, I didn't think the relationship was believable. Tracy isn't written as anything like a real teenaged girl, with all their whining, insecurity, and ignorance, she's written as what creepy guys want teen girls to be! She's not a person, she's written as as someone so simple, uncomplicated, and uncritical that she acts more like a golden retriever than a human being. Which makes me think all sorts of nasty things about the sort of grown men who want teen girls to have human genitalia but to lack a human personality... want me to go on? Of course you don't!