Having some trouble caring what Scarlett Johannson thinks.

Ms. Johannson was in a few Woody Allen movies (Match Point, Scoop, Vicky Christina Barcelona) and was fun to watch in each one of them, though her acting was, how shall we say, restrained. So her defense of Woody against accusations of pedophilia, incest and statutory rape may seem understandable.

But this is one of those issues where the proper response to being questioned on this subject would be “I think it inappropriate of you even asking me this. You shouldn’t need a lecture in logic or manners or law to see why this would be so.” When The Hollywood Reporter asks, you needn’t answer.

Actors and actresses are too often prompted to talk about things they should not be talking about.

Professionalism in acting should include knowing when to say nothing.

But of course Hollywood’s narcissist culture precludes that.

So I guess that means I could, just maybe, work up some sympathy for Ms. Johansson, in that she has been caught up in a roiling idiocy that she cannot control, or even likely comprehend.

I mean, I have misguidedly spoken candidly to people I thought, mistakenly, had my interests at least a little bit in their heads.

So maybe I do give a damn.

twv

N.B. Ms. Johansson has been in a few movies that I think of as classics: Ghost World, The Man Who Wasn’t There, and The Prestige being the greatest among them. She was fine in other very good films, like The Girl with the Pearl Earrings and Lost in Translation. And of course she is most famous for playing a superhero.

Oh, and I write, above, that her acting in Woody Allen movies was “restrained.” Actually, I do not remember what she did in Vicky Christina Barcelona at all. Not even a shadow of a memory.