THE WOODY ALLEN WITCH HUNT: In a post written before Hachette Book Group cancelled the publication of Allen’s memoirs, and then updated after the axe fell, Rod Dreher writes:
I would love to know something about the demographics of the crowd — specifically, how many of the walkout protesters are under the age of 40. The reason I ask is because for a long time now, I’ve been hearing from conservative academics that as the old-school liberals move into retirement, they are being replaced by Millennial and Gen Z academics who are Jacobins, with no respect for liberal values of free speech, free inquiry, and expression.
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So if you get on the wrong side of the woke mob, neither the fact that the accusation against you has not been proved, nor your status as one of the most important film artists of the 20th century, will help. My God.
Who’s next?
UPDATE.2:More details on Hachette’s call, from the NYT. Excerpt:
Hachette Book Group on Friday dropped its plans to publish Woody Allen’s autobiography and said it would return all rights to the author, a day after its employees protested its deal with the filmmaker.
“The decision to cancel Mr. Allen’s book was a difficult one,” a spokeswoman for the publisher said in a statement. “We take our relationships with authors very seriously, and do not cancel books lightly. We have published and will continue to publish many challenging books. As publishers, we make sure every day in our work that different voices and conflicting points of views can be heard.”
Bulls**t. They caved to the progressive mob. Now woke 27-year-olds can push around the head of publishing houses, and determine who can and cannot be published. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Read the whole thing. Dreher goes on to link to a tweet by former Reason columnist Michael Moynihan, who notes that “Still available from Hachette Book Group: the autobiography of Joey, a ‘gripping’ account of a mafia serial killer who copped to 38 murders. You’ll be wowed by ‘the frank intelligence of’ the author!”
In December of 2017, Mark Hemingway explored “Why Liberals Have Such A Hard Time With ‘Monstrous Men’ And Their Art:”
Frankly acknowledging this might suggest that the liberals have endorsed ideas — e.g. oxymoronic notions of “sexual liberation” — that have been deeply harmful to women, all for the sake of knocking down obstacles to political power. I wonder how much betrayal [Woody] Allen must feel now. He did his part to push a liberal sexual and political agenda, was celebrated for it, and now he’s being drummed out of polite society for enjoying the fruits of these efforts?
As Steve wrote linking to Hemingway’s piece, “I’d just add that perhaps the saddest part about Woody Allen et al. is that they never understood they’d become disposable once they were no longer useful to the cause.” Having starred in the 1976 anti-Blacklist film The Front (one of his few films strictly as an actor, not a writer-director), I wonder how Woody is taking being cancelled by his fellow leftists?