Taking Up a ‘Hero’ Complex Issue

In the OC Live! review of “My Father the Hero” (Kids on Film, Feb. 10), Lynn Smith has the complexes all bollixed up. “Oedipal” refers to a son’s unnatural love for his mother. If Smith wants to go Grecian, a more closely correct one would be the Electra complex, the libidinous desire of a daughter for her father. Neither apply in this dreary, very unfunny movie, since the girl has nothing but contempt for her father.

And while we’re at it, Shakespeare had nothing to do with “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” Any C-English major will tell you it was Sir Walter Scott. He wrote the couplet just before he began work on “Hamlet”!

THOMAS M. VIZE

Santa Ana