‘Eye’s’ Unspoken Truth

Why is it that Sally Field or Keifer Sutherland appearing on national TV programs promoting their new film, “Eye for an Eye,” or critic John Anderson (“Revenge Isn’t All That Sweet in Visceral ‘Eye,’ ” Calendar, Jan. 12) failed to mention the fact that the 17-year-old girl murdered in the movie was a stutterer? The film’s producer confirmed to me that it was the production company’s creative decision to portray the teenager played by Olivia Burnett with a stutter so that the audience could better relate to her.

Failing to mention that the murdered girl had a stutter resulted in the wrong impression given to the TV audience of “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” for example. A clip was shown from “Eye for an Eye” in which the accused murderer played by Sutherland gets off on a legal technicality. When leaving the courtroom, he turns to the parents of the murdered child and with a smirk on his face stutters, “I’m s-s-s-sorry.” This left the impression to the TV audience that this lowlife murderer was being portrayed as a stutterer. In fact, he was mimicking the murdered daughter’s speech impediment.

Her father, played by Ed Harris, tackled him to the ground. It would have been nice if Sally Field, who portrays the murdered daughter’s mother, made that clarification to Oprah’s vast TV audience.

Certainly the filmmakers did not intend to portray stutterers in a negative way in this film. Clearly, the mimicking of stuttering was used to further reinforce the despicable personality of this murderer.

Of course, the brutal murder of a child is felt deeply by a loving mother. I’ve seen the bond between a mother and a child with a special challenge to be very strong. One can assume that this stuttering youngster, who was portrayed as a highly functional person, required special attention when growing up, such as speech therapy, lots of love and nurturing. Sadly, it is still not uncommon that children tease and bully kids who stutter. But this special bond between a mother and a daughter with a special problem could further explain the actions finally taken by the mother to seek revenge for the loss of her beloved daughter.

“Eye for an Eye” is a rare exception for Hollywood films that have depicted stutterers as wacko murderers, such as “Dead Again” or “Die Hard With a Vengeance.” Filmmakers have also used stuttering for a cheap laugh in numerous films, including “My Cousin Vinny” or “A Fish Called Wanda.” Let us not forget the Porky Pig cartoons that continue to be shown to children today on various TV programming services.

This year, 1996, has been dedicated by the National Stuttering Project, a national nonprofit support organization for people who stutter, as “The Year of the Child Who Stutters.” With the help of various university and college speech centers, educational symposiums on the treatment of childhood stuttering will be held around the country this year, including two in the Los Angeles-Orange County area.

I hope by the end of the year the public will know more about this sometimes puzzling speech impediment and what can be done for it. The film “Eye for an Eye” was a welcome and unexpected addition to this year’s events.