‘Basic’ Difference

For readers Lee Lankford and Carolyn Williamson to equate the proportions of hero-villain depictions of gays and lesbians and other minorities is ridiculous (Letters, April 5).

The reason the gay and lesbian community objects to the steady stream of negative depictions of themselves in Hollywood films is that there are no heroes to balance those depictions. If, to use Williamson’s example, every depiction of white heterosexual males were similar to that seen in “Jagged Edge,” then, yes, white heterosexual males should object.

Lankford’s whining that only white heterosexual males can be tolerated as villains is actually correct because most of the heroes are depicted as white heterosexual males. This balance does not apply in the depictions of gays and lesbians and other minorities.

Groups like the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and Queer Nation are motivated not by “political correctness” but by the fear of discrimination as well as by groups of youths that roam our neighborhoods wielding nail-studded two-by-fours in search of those villains they see all too often in Hollywood films.

The Times advocates acts of verbal and physical abuse directed at gays and lesbians by printing homophobic letters such as Lankford’s and Williamson’s without a response.

KEVIN ADAMS

Hollywood