Masculinity in Films

Laura Ingraham (“I’ll Be Back--for a Group Hug,” Commentary, Aug. 13) could have written a lighthearted column on Hollywood’s subversion of masculinity as she perceives it.

What is laughable, although for all the wrong reasons, is her gratuitous attack on President and Mrs. Clinton, which involves guilt by association over Harrison Ford’s earring. Having criticized the current fashion in male jewelry as “politically correct,” she takes a further, more illogical leap in order to launch a mean-spirited assault on Buddhists, meditators and vegetarians, as if they were somehow responsible for the bashing of “traditional masculinity.” Her examples of Hollywood’s real men show that she equates proper male behavior with physical violence. The theme that emerges is Ingraham’s own aggressive intolerance.

DAVID NELSON

Santa Barbara

* Surely Ingraham’s lambasting of actors Sylvester Stallone, Ford, Tim Robbins and others for their new “ethos of sensitivity” (i.e., concern for humanity) is tongue-in-cheek satire. It is certainly comical. Or is she (in language she would certainly approve) just another dumb broad?

ALAN RUSKIN

Los Angeles

* If Ingraham is so concerned about political correctness, I suggest she look inside her own party. William Weld’s nomination as ambassador to Mexico is being held hostage by Sen. Jesse Helms because of political correctness on the right. Ideological bullies in the Republican Party are far more strident, less prudent and a helluva lot scarier than a few actors whose real-life views don’t always coincide with those of the Neanderthals they portray in mindless action movies.

Oh, by the way, John Wayne was never really in the Army.

MIKE FINNIGAN

Studio City