“Separate the art from the artist,” people kept telling me. I can't anymore.

Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Casey Affleck—these accused men didn’t face any severe artistic punishment—save some public embarrassment that always finds the wind to magically blow over. Artists like these get to keep making their art with no real consequences.

But the thing is, I believe Dylan. And some time after her New York Times piece dropped, I decided that I couldn’t believe her and consume Allen’s work at the same time. While he continues to work, he also continues to terrorize her. She’s constantly being reminded not just of her assault, but also of the fact that the world doesn’t care about her assault. This world cares more about her abuser’s work than they do about whether or not he deserves to work.

I can’t make Allen lose his job, but I can stop watching his movies, especially on platforms that directly benefit him, like cinemas, Amazon and Netflix. It’s not a loud protest, but it’s what I can do until people start seriously believing victims and penalizing predators.

At first, it was difficult. I mean, I actually love Woody Allen movies! At one point, one of my favorites, “Midnight in Paris,” was on Netflix. I tried finding an angle that made watching it okay, but it required too many moral gymnastics so I gave up.

Then it got easier. It was like being allergic to a type of fruit or nut: you’ve had it before, and you remember the flavor, but it’s not good for you anymore, so you have to skip it at the supermarket.

In the few years that I’ve skipped Allen movies, I’ve thought a lot about the myth of the asshole genius. It’s mostly upheld by the fallacy that geniuses are assholes *because* they’re geniuses, and because we value prodigy, they can be assholes if they want because the world needs their genius art.