SATURDAY LETTERS : That Funny Stuff Just Isn’t So Funny

What exactly is Howard Rosenberg’s point in his glowing/panting review of “Dream On” (“A Lusty Show and Tell,” June 2)? He heralds it as one of the “funniest comedy series ever,” then unintentionally spends the rest of the column showing how its sexual explicitness is gratuitous and inane. He tells us nothing of the series’ supposed comic genius.

I must admit, I nearly split a gut when he described the masturbation scene. And the condom on the banana routine really brought home to me the enduring value of erotic comedy.

Frankly, I’m sick of smut being reframed as lively, progressive fare. Shows like “Dream On” reduce players and audience alike to genital parts.

Critics may not be moralists, but they at least need to assess the popular arts from a more expansive view of love and sex. Rosenberg reasoned from his crotch in critiquing “Dream On” and lost me altogether.

ANDY COMISKEY

Los Angeles

* Boy, am I glad Rosenberg alerted me to the series “Dream On,” which he says is one of television’s funniest ever! And why not? I mean, I can’t imagine the laughs available in a scene where a minor boy “comes of age” by watching a girl masturbate with a vibrator while he’s handcuffed. Please! My sides are splitting!

I’ve got a great idea for the producers and writers: Let’s make it even more hilarious and have a teen-age female handcuffed while a male masturbates. Can you imagine the yuks?!

I’m glad the producers have so sensitively defined their limits and won’t show actual penetration or people defecating on each other. I mean, we wouldn’t want to offend while we’re whipping up laugh after laugh.

And, while Rosenberg is taking steps to avoid his radiator boiling over, please check the thermostat on his conscience.

BILL FARIS

Lake Forest

* Rosenberg’s review of “Dream On” was more than lousy. It was a rambling porno description of a low-class show--from Pulitzer to porno.

For years I have read and clipped Rosenberg’s columns for my family and friends of all different beliefs. Suddenly this writer with high standards has sunk as low as the show. At 73, I’m saddened by the loss of someone I really admired.

NORA F. RENTA

San Fernando

Gia’s Film Should Be True

* Sounds like someone in the lesbian and gay community needs to call Queer Nation and ACT UP. I work in a production office in Burbank and understand all too well the ongoing battle between artists and the money men.

While it is true that ultimately profit is the bottom line, as a gay male with AIDS, I am sick and tired of this industry whitewashing lives of gays and lesbians (“Gia’s Life: Not a Model Success Story,” June 3). It is true that Gia’s life is tragic and does not have the happy ending usually required of Hollywood producers; it would be nothing less than criminal to deny that Gia was lesbian, an IV drug user and died from AIDS.

If Paramount’s production chief, John Goldwyn, does not wish to make a bleak film, he has simply attached his studio to the wrong project. In regard to the money, I cannot imagine it having a budget half as big as that of “Last Action Hero.” Furthermore, does every film that comes out of Hollywood have to appeal to everyone? I would like Sherry Lansing and Goldwyn to know that it is OK to make small films with small budgets for small audiences.

The level of homophobia in Hollywood amazes me, especially considering that this industry is filled to overflowing with gays and lesbians. For all its red ribbons, this town still refuses to get it, to grasp the reality of AIDS, and does not understand the urgency for people like myself, who are gay and dying from AIDS, to have our stories told honestly and compassionately.

GREGORY CARLISLE

Los Angeles

Tony Talk

* After the recent Tony Awards, one of the winners proclaimed that God had decided that “Kiss of the Spider Woman” should win. This is pure nonsense. This show won not due to some divine magic but to hard work and the fact that the voters enjoyed this production more than the others.

If there is such a deity, I’m sure he, she or it has more important things to do than worry about the winner of a silly award. People seem to think of God as a celestial butler catering to their whims. I’m continually puzzled why those in the arts who profess to be so religious trivialize the deity to such a degree.

DAN O’NEILL

Los Angeles

* Come on, CBS! One huge injustice was done with the Tony Award telecast June 6. By giving the show a two-hour time slot--and it meant two hours --network decision makers single-handedly managed to take the most consistently well-produced and entertaining award show each year and give it the pace of an elegant bowling banquet.

Never before have I witnessed award winners so hastily shoved off the stage by an orchestra forced to administer its music cues so that all that was planned could come off in time. Can’t a single night of the year be put aside to allow the Tony Awards their due?

DANIEL PAWLUS

Los Angeles

Colvin’s Maturity

* Jean Rosenbluth’s review of Shawn Colvin (“Kittenish Colvin Concert,” May 27) made me wonder if we attended the same concert. I came to hear Colvin perform smart, well-crafted, powerful songs. And I was not disappointed.

I have searched through Colvin’s CD covers for evidence of the “sophomoric . . . lyrics” cited by Rosenbluth. Not a trace. Colvin’s words are as mature and articulate as those of any card-carrying member of Mensa. Never do I sing a Colvin tune because I’m nostalgic for high school.

Such lines as “I bruise my friends for more/And I rail at heaven’s door” are not the stuff of adolescent experience. In fact, they remind me more of Dylan, as well as Milton, Dante and William Blake.

MARIA ELENA RODRIGUEZ

Culver City