CREATURE FEATURES

I attended the premiere of “Dunston Checks In” because a good friend of mine is in it and I wanted to support her. I normally boycott movies that use animals (Film Clips, Jan. 7) because of their innate cruelty and exploitation. Although the movie itself, aside from Dunston, was well made, I was disturbed that the audience found it funny to see this orangutan being forced to perform.

Here’s an innovative idea for a movie plot: Animal trainers become enlightened, realize that training animals for human entertainment is abusive, donate all the money they make to an animal abuse education organization, release their captives to a huge compound that closely resembles the creatures’ natural habitat, and never again force animals to wear clothes and perform stupid tricks for humans.

Perhaps computer animation will eliminate using performing animals altogether, and we will learn to respect them for the wonderful creatures that they are without “forcing” them to do anything. Then the animal trainers would have to find “real” jobs.

KADY LANE

Los Angeles