Fostering Response

The Jodie Foster article was candid and refreshing (“Jodie Foster’s Brilliant Career,” by Hilary de Vries, Dec. 11). Indeed, she is having a brilliant career and probably has not yet shown us her best.

This woman would be a worthy role model in any period of time.

C. A. King

San Francisco

*

In making such a fetishistic point of Foster’s obsession with fearlessness and strength (begging the question of Foster’s obvious fears of vulnerability and dependence), De Vries neglected to answer the question she raised about rumors that the actor-director may be a lesbian.

If Foster is so fearless, why did she dodge De Vries on that point? On one hand, it isn’t anybody’s business if she is homosexual; but on the other, if she is, why doesn’t she simply set the matter to rest by saying, “Yes, I am, and what of it?”

Michael Lightcap

North Hollywood

*

In her basically respectful and compelling feature on Foster, De Vries strayed toward the end and started to get personal. Shouldn’t a journalist be aware that a rumor repeated is a rumor fueled?

Foster is entitled to express the visions that drive her, and we are entitled to witness the work. The rest is none of our business.

Jeanine D’Elia

Granada Hills

*

Now that Foster is a superstar, it’s too bad that she apparently feels the need to trash the careers of others. Her remark that Meryl Streep’s presence was the only reason she would go to see a film by Curtis Hanson was not only unnecessary but also confusing, coming, as it did, from the co-star of “Maverick,” perhaps the most mindless movie of the summer of 1994.

Hanson’s film “The River Wild,” while perhaps failing to meet Foster’s criteria for a “meaningful” film, reveals twice the craft of her own indifferently received directorial debut (“Little Man Tate”). Foster might do better to get off her high horse and study the art of crisp direction, regardless of the genre in which such lessons might occur.

Helen Slide

Los Angeles

*

I have always admired Foster’s work and have no concern as to whether she is porcelain or lesbian. But where were her vaunted brains when she gave an interviewer an opportunity to quote her about the wounded bird?

It should have been a pleasant change to read a non-adulatory article about a Hollywood person, but this was too in-your-face, even to a non-bird lover.

Ruth Trager

Pacific Palisades

*

Does Foster feel about sick or injured people the way she does about the injured bird? She comes off as not only cold but cruel as well.

Shamma Day Davis

Santa Monica

*

Perhaps Foster’s attitude defines, in one sad sentence, the state of mind one must have to succeed in the entertainment industry.

Annie Caroline Schuler

West Hollywood

*

Foster may be a good actress, but she is neither a good person nor a worthy role model. Her display of selfishness and cruelty is alarming. Yale obviously taught her nothing.

Terri Lynn

Westwood

*

Hey, weakness really, really bugs me, too. It bugs me so much, in fact, that if I were to find Foster flopping on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, wounded by one of her psychotic admirers, I’d have no choice but to kick her--all the way to France.

S. H. Paul

Long Beach