‘Pulp Fiction’ Is No Laughing Matter

Jack Mathews perpetuates a myth in “Can 200 Critics Be Wrong? (Maybe)” (Dec. 26) that is both absurd and destructive. In defending the juxtaposition of violence and humor in movies like “Pulp Fiction,” Mathews states that, after disasters, “psychologists gently assure us that the inevitable sick jokes are OK, even healthy. They relieve tension, promote healing--enjoy!”

How Mathews can confuse the gallows humor that follows natural disasters with the sick humor of “Pulp Fiction” is difficult to comprehend. Gallows humor allows us to defend against overwhelming feelings of impotence and despair in the face of profound tragedy. There are times when our ability to empathize with the pain of others is too great and we must gain emotional distance in order to continue functioning. To equate that process with the pandering to violent and sadistic impulses that occur in such movies as “Pulp Fiction” is ludicrous and obscene.

Our ability to empathize allows us to know the joy and pain of others, to put their needs before our own--in other words to love. To demean and negate empathy via sick humor creates an environment for hate, nihilism and sociopathy.

I am not suggesting that such pictures as “Pulp Fiction,” by themselves, produce sociopaths--innumerable social, psychological, biological and economic factors must come together to form a person who can rob, maim or kill without a second thought. But Mathews’ notion that “if all we have to worry about is . . . audiences who laugh at sick jokes, the future will take care of itself,” too easily dismisses the impact that such movies do have.

Few would deny that our society is rapidly growing a subculture that is very sick, and that is no joke.

MICHAEL G. MANDEL, M.D.

Santa Monica

I am infuriated by Mathews’ defense of “Pulp Fiction.” Every joke in this movie is chewed over until it loses all its juice. Every suspenseful moment is dragged out until it is heavier than wet cement.

Just because a movie is different doesn’t mean it’s good. Just because a movie attempts to be a black comedy doesn’t mean it succeeds.

Quentin Tarantino resembles nothing so much as a child trying to shock his elders by mouthing off every dirty joke that pops into his head. I sincerely hope that the voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will not be taken in by his mindless drivel the way the nation’s critics were.

HARRY MITCHELL

Chino

Mathews cut himself off at the knees in his response to USA Today columnist Joe Urschel. He failed to challenge Urschel’s outrageous reference to an “avalanche of scientific studies showing the connection” between fictional and real-world violence. No such “avalanche” exists, only the claims of would-be censors, repeated loudly and often enough to become accepted as truth.

Also worth noting was Urschel’s comparison of Hollywood to the tobacco industry. In the use of cigarettes as in the choice of movies, the intellectual fascists of our day don’t believe that we, as consumers, are capable of making our own decisions.

FRANK MILLER

Los Angeles

My gripe with the critical raves over “Pulp Fiction” has less to do with the violence or the filmmaker’s attitude toward violence (we get into murky turf about censorship, “artistic freedom” and the like) than with the film as a film. “Pulp Fiction” is mediocre filmmaking at best, which is why viewers like me are convinced that we were shown a different film from the tour-de-force cinematic innovation that the critics saw.

Mathews compliments Tarantino for his “brilliant ear for dialogue” and “a gift for story structure.” Yeah, sure! Brilliant dialogue such as Bruce Willis’ girlfriend’s endless rambling about the beauty of a potbelly and how much she’d like a blueberry pancake breakfast. As for story structure, I guess critic types were bowled over by such meaningless loops as the John Travolta character dying in the middle of the film and then coming back in a vignette at the end, or the opening coffee-shop scene being revisited at the end.

K. MOHAN CHANDRA

Rancho Cucamonga