Soon-Yi Previn
This is a man who said "My daughter is HOT." Even people in Arkansas went "That's WRONG. That's that's just way out of place."
That's not too far into this clip of Robin Williams. He's talking about Donald Trump.
It's ragging on the trope that ignorant, rural Southerners date and marry cousins while outsiders look askance at that. And there's kind of some truth to that idea that Southerners marry cousins, but it's not incest to marry a cousin and it's often not a first cousin.
Several U.S. presidents have married their cousins:
Franklin Delano Roosevelt married his fifth cousin once removed, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, in 1905.
John Adams married his first cousin, Abigail Smith, in 1776.
Thomas Jefferson married his third cousin, Martha Wayles.
Albert Einstein' second wife was his first cousin on his mother’s side and his second cousin on his father’s side. That kind of gives me pause even though I'm kind of defending this.
Historically, before we had 8.3 billion people in the world, marrying a distant cousin wasn't uncommon. The Arab world still does a lot of that while redditors rag on them as screwed up, seemingly oblivious to how common that was in "Western" cultures not that long ago.
It's a trope about Southerners in part because some parts of The South were part of the original colonies. The further west you go, the more recently those states joined the union.
Here's an article trying to explain second cousins and such. Today, if it's not a first cousin, odds are somewhat poor you have ANY idea who your "third cousin, twice removed" is.
But think of how the Bible is filled with begats. Historically, people tracked the larger family and could name second cousins etc.
Now I'm wondering how many married couples both do 23andMe and learn something like "You're my fifth cousin, twice removed." And start hyperventilating.
Anyway, ragging on even people in Arkansas went That's WRONG! is saying "Folks with practices we look askance at for being questionable and not quite incest react to that with even us ignorant scum suckers can tell there's something wrong with that."
It's making the point that inappropriate private actions you can't prove can be inferred from abnormal or anomylous public statements or events and in a healthy culture, we police certain things that aren't per se criminal or abusive because tolerating them aids, abets and promotes certain things we don't want.
We cannot arrest Donald Trump for saying that, but the vast majority of people who hear it all agree it suggests he has an inappropriate relationship with his daughter.
In 1977, Mia Farrow adopted Soon-Yi Previn. In 1980, Woody Allen moved in with Mia Farrow. In 1992, Mia Farrow discovered nude photos of Previn that Woody Allen had taken which directly led to the end of their twelve year relationship.
I am of the opinion Woody Allen probably began molesting Soon-Yi Previn when she was just ten years old and the sexual nature of his relationship to her wasn't discovered until she was 21.
Sexual abuse is extremely hard to prove and I don't wish to advocate for "believe women" because that opens the door on easily ruining the lives of men by trash talking a guy with no evidence.
Sex abuse cases are relatively rare compared to how much sexual abuse seems to exist in the world.
But no court on the planet should have issued a marriage license to 27 year old Soon-Yi Previn and Woody Allen, age 62, who was effectively the only father she ever knew.
We technically don't really know her age:
The Seoul Family Court established a Family Census Register (legal birth document) on her behalf on December 28, 1976, with a presumptive birth date of October 8, 1970. According to Mia Farrow, a bone scan in the U.S. estimated that she was between six and eight years old ("We're saying seven") in early 1978, in accordance with the Seoul Family Court's information.
She was abandoned and eating out of garbage cans in Korea when a wealthy White American actress adopted her and then continued her own hard charging career. It seems unlikely she got adequate support for adequately adapting to American life and learning American culture and important legal information about America, etc.
Mia Farrow couldn't have doted on her sufficient to overcome this huge culture and language gap.
It makes me think of the movie The Color Purple.
Celie is an African American teenager in early 20th-century rural Georgia who twice has borne children by her abusive father, which were taken from her. He gives her away as a wife to Mister, who also abuses her, and his children mistreat her.
Celie is played by Whoopi Goldberg and Mister is played by Danny Glover. Mister needs a wife to cook, clean and help him raise the kids after his wife dies.
Celie's abusive father tells Mister "She's spoilt. Twice." to mean she's already had two bastard children and isn't a virgin. And late in the film, she learns her abusive father isn't her biological father. He's her stepfather.
Clearly relieved, she concludes "My children aren't my sister and brother." Though she was a child and being raped and it wasn't her fault.
The Color Purple is set in the Deep South a few decades after the end of the Civil War that freed the slaves. It's about people whose lives have been wrecked by larger societal forces before they were even born.
I don't know what legal language should be employed to cover a bizarre edge case like "My wealthy adoptive mother technically never married this man, but he's essentially the only father I have ever known." But I cannot tell you how absolutely horrified I am to live in a world where Woody Allen can marry her because TECHNICALLY she's not his daughter and everyone is fine with that.
It makes me think of the fact that a naked man who spoke no English was found on the streets after escaping Jeffrey Dahmer and the police returned him to Dahmer who then murdered him without trying to find a translator.
Soon-Yi Previn is in no position to stand up for herself. The courts shouldn't ASK her to.
They should just say essentially "You want to marry your defacto daughter?????? That's a big fat fucking NO from me, asshole."
And too bad, so sad if someday someone in Soon-Yi Previn's shoes for realzy realz falls madly in love with a man dating her adoptive mom and has her heart ripped out over being not allowed to marry him.
FYI I don't buy any of the post hoc whitewashing of the story where Allen claims he kept up appearances of being involved with Mia Farrow but the relationship essentially ended years earlier. Something something oceanfront property in Arizona...
Footnote
I will add that when I was fourteen, Alex looked up common law marriage in obscure law books in a big Georgia university and told me simply living together for seven years was a common law marriage in Georgia at that time, contrary to what I can currently find online.
To me, it's absolutely outrageous that this marriage license was issued with apparently no hitch at all.