‘World’ Is Better but Not for Kids, Latinos

As in “Jaws,” Steven Spielberg has again pushed the ratings envelope, this time managing to get a PG-13 rating for an R-rated film. I am astounded by Kevin Thomas’ suggestion that families should take their little children to see a movie where men are torn in half on screen (“They ARE Back,” Calendar, May 23).

No child under 12 should be going to this film, though I am of the minority opinion that “The Lost World” is better than the original.

PHILIP MALAMUTH

Santa Monica

Like millions of people, I went to check out “The Lost World” this weekend. I anticipated a standard sequel-type movie that leaves the viewer disappointed and regretful of the expense, and reminiscing of the first. To my surprise, Steven Spielberg outdid himself.

Spielberg was recently heralded as the “most successful movie-maker ever” by Time magazine. It should have more appropriately added to his title, “a true visionary and creative genius.” Spielberg has already scared the living daylights out of me in “Jaws,” dazzled me in “Close Encounters,” encouraged my imagination in “E.T.,” developed my understanding and compassion in “Schindler’s List” and now, the dinosaur series has added to Spielberg’s numerous credits the words “visionary, dreamer, creator and a luminary.”

BHAVIN MERCHANT

Havertown, Pa.

“It’s important in these movies that animals never be characterized as villains, because they are not,” says screenwriter David Koepp in the promotional notes of “The Lost World: Jurassic Park.” I wish director Steven Spielberg would have taken the same care with his human characters in general, and a Latino character in particular.

In an offensive and stereotypical portrayal, a Latino character is oblivious to everything around him--even the screams of his companion while he’s attacked by a horde of mini-dinosaurs--except to the Latin music coming from his Walkman. His expression is unvariably vacant and stupid, even as he’s questioned regarding the disappearance of his companion. Naturally, when a little later he is stepped on and crushed to death by another dinosaur, his demise is not tragic but comic, inducing laughter and cheers from the audience.

My shock and disappointment is not that a Latino character has been presented in a negative or stereotypical fashion. Unfortunately, that happens all the time in films and television, where we continually see Latinos as drug dealers, gang members and maids. What is truly alarming in “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” is that Spielberg, who has proven himself so sensitive and helpful to other cultures (in this film, with a single character, he empowers the young, females and African Americans) has deliberately chosen to make the dumbest and most inept of his characters a Latino.

Is bringing this up being too sensitive? Perhaps. Shouldn’t we have a sense of humor? Most definitely. Must every picture be politically correct? Absolutely not. The problem here is that if someone like Steven Spielberg can be so careless and condescending when it comes to Latinos, what can be expected from the rest of Hollywood?

JORGE CAMARA

West Hollywood