Looking at the ‘View’

I found David Ehrenstein’s “AIDS, Death and Videotape,” which detailed Peter Friedman’s documentary film about two male homosexual lovers, to be deeply moving. It would have been more interesting, however, had the article revealed whether Friedman himself is homosexual. Ehrenstein does say that Friedman “lives with his lover, a French research scientist,” but the sex of that research scientist is never specified.

Does Ehrenstein--or, maybe, Friedman--believe that readers would simply conclude that the research scientist is male because they’d assume that (a) Friedman is homosexual, thinking only a homosexual would make this kind of a film, or (b) an unspecified research scientist would have to be male. Either strikes me as sexist. But, hey, maybe Ehrenstein (and/or Friedman) merely feels that the filmmaker’s sexual proclivity is nobody else’s business--in which case maybe I’m being sexist for suggesting that they might be.

RICHARD STEHR

Los Angeles