‘American Pie’ Review
I feel it is imperative to express to you the shock and revulsion I felt when I read Kenneth Turan’s review (“A Heart in ‘American Pie’ ” July 9). The Times purports to be a family newspaper; to see [that] article was astonishing.
It is hard to know which was more shocking: to see brutally frank descriptions of the grossness contained in the film or to see the film described as warm and endearing.
Let me in turn be brutally frank in a different way. Columbine was not caused by access to guns (vote them up or down, I care not), but by a society where all values of decency and restraint are disappearing, and when promoted, are mocked.
This is not an argument for censorship. By all means let adults inflict the crudeness of “American Pie” on themselves; just do not inflict it on unsuspecting readers, especially with a tone that breezily implies there is something wrong with anyone who does not choose to endorse its “values”!
I hope that you will not only publish this but in the future demonstrate that this regrettable lack of taste was an aberration.
WANDA MARTIN
Mission Viejo
Only good movies
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