‘PURPLE’ PASSIONS

Marshall McNott wrote to show off the most amazing insight about “The Color Purple”: that an otherwise finely acted film was saddled down with a script written by the “staunchest of feminists” (Calendar Letters, Jan. 26).

That the original story was eviscerated (castrated?) by having its central relationship--a lesbian relationship--squeamishly yanked, probably means nothing. That Spielberg managed to make an attempted rape look like a scene from “Song of the South” (sans zip-e-dee-do-da) also probably means nothing.

But that someone dared to make a film where men looked bad--that’s something else.

Why does a film about good women facing bad men have to go out of its way to show that, yes, it does realize that there are a few good men (presumably not in the Marines)? What was McNott really complaining about, that “The Color Purple” made men look bad, or that it wasn’t concerned with men at all?

STEVEN B. KATZ

Pasadena