I think Manhattan and its pro-girl anti-woman story would be upsetting even if Hurricane Soon-Yi had never made landfall, but we can’t know, and there lies the very heart of the matter. Louis C.K.’s I Love You, Daddy—a tale of a father struggling to prevent his teenage daughter from hooking up with an older man—will meet a similar fate. It will be impossible to view outside the knowledge of Louis C.K.’s sexual misconduct—if it even gets seen. For now, distribution has been dropped and the film is not going to be released.
A great work of art brings us a feeling. And yet when I say Manhattan makes me feel urpy, a man says, No, not that feeling. You’re having the wrong feeling. He speaks with authority: Manhattan is a work of genius. But who gets to say? Authority says the work shall remain untouched by the life. Authority says biography is fallacy. Authority believes the work exists in an ideal state (ahistorical, alpine, snowy, pure). Authority ignores the natural feeling that arises from biographical knowledge of a subject. Authority gets snippy about stuff like that. Authority claims it is able to appreciate the work free of biography, of history. Authority sides with the (male) maker, against the audience.
Me, I’m not ahistorical or immune to biography. That’s for the winners of history (men) (so far).
The thing is, I’m not saying I’m right or wrong. But I’m the audience. And I’m just acknowledging the realities of the situation: the film Manhattan is disrupted by our knowledge of Soon-Yi; but it’s also kinda gross in its own right; and it’s also got a lot of things about it that are pretty great. All these things can be true at once. Simply being told by men that Allen’s history shouldn’t matter doesn’t achieve the objective of making it not matter.
What do I do about the monster? Do I have a responsibility either way? To turn away, or to overcome my biographical distaste and watch, or read, or listen?
And why does the monster make us—make me—so mad in the first place?