Another Perspective on Hollywood AestheticsRe “An Interview...

Another Perspective on Hollywood Aesthetics

Re “An Interview With Paramount’s Top Guns,” March 18:

I found myself feeling a little queasy as I read the interview with producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. At first I thought a paragraph might have been left out . . . something that explained how two men whose claim to fame is producing Eddie Murphy spouting obscenities in formula cop-chase comedies (with lots of gratuitous violence) and Tom Cruise in puerile macho special-effects movies (with lots of gratuitous violence) can actually be publicly congratulating themselves for their “aesthetic.”

Reading further, I began to suspect self-parody in this wide-ranging interview, wherein the reader is told: “I am inclined to be esoteric” and “We’re not producers for hire.”

Why are men this self-deluded, greedy and ignorant rewarded with obscenely huge sums of money? Do studio heads really believe Simpson and Bruckheimer have talent or taste? No, I’m afraid, to quote Mr. S, “It’s beyond the realm of caca.”

SUSAN ROETHER

Los Angeles