Daphne Merkin, the author of that much-discussed profile of Soon-Yi Previn, spoke out Thursday accusing critics of her piece of being “sexist” and “racist.”
“My intention was to let a silenced woman’s voice be heard. Far from seeing the piece as anti-feminist, I think the attacks on it are sexist (even — or especially — when made by women) and more than a tad racist,” she told the New York Post in an email.
“I felt I was opening the door on their townhouse and showing us an odd but affecting couple,” Merkin continued. “It’s strange how critics don’t think Soon Yi deserves to be heard, that the abuse she suffered, because it was at the hands of a woman and not a man, is somehow less valid.”
Merkin confirmed her quotes in an email to TheWrap but declined to offer any additional comment.
In the piece for New York Magazine, Soon-Yi Previn defended her husband Woody Allen and accused her adoptive mother Mia Farrow of being an abusive parent.
“I was never interested in writing a ‘Mommie Dearest,’ getting even with Mia — none of that,” Previn said in the piece. “But what’s happened to Woody is so upsetting, so unjust. [Mia] has taken advantage of the #MeToo movement and paraded Dylan [Farrow] as a victim. And a whole new generation is hearing about it when they shouldn’t.”
The family has long been roiled by accusations from Dylan Farrow that Allen molested her when she was seven years old, something the actor has consistently denied.
The Merkin story earned a swift and broad rebuke online, with both Dylan and Ronan Farrow blasting the piece publicly on Twitter.
“As a brother and son, I’m angry that New York Magazine would participate in this kind of hit job, written by a longtime admirer and friend of Woody Allen’s,” said Ronan.
“As a journalist, I’m shocked by the lack of care for the facts, the refusal to include eyewitness testimony that would contradict falsehoods in this piece and the failure to print my sister’s responses. Survivors of abuse deserve better.”
https://twitter.com/RonanFarrow/status/1041504876621000704