It's OK to let the grown-ups laugh

I just read Barbara Vancheri's review of "Flushed Away," and while I have yet to see it, I found it puzzling she would criticize an animated film just because it contains humor that bypasses the average 6-year-old. I am an adult, and I enjoy this genre more than any other because I love a good chuckle or two, and, besides, I am convinced more animated films are being made with adults in mind anyway.

Perhaps it's a Hollywood notion that movies aimed at kindergartners are simply not profitable. I suppose Ms. Vancheri then feels that two standout films don't deserve their Oscars. After all, how many 6-year-olds know why the great white shark in "Finding Nemo" was named Bruce? (In reference to the name given to the mechanical shark in "Jaws.") And how about a big thumbs down to "The Incredibles" -- a highly entertaining animated film but clearly aimed at an older audience?

I don't understand why Ms. Vancheri thinks that just because a film is animated that it should be devoid of all "adult" humor in order to appease an age group that, given past experiences, doesn't even care what's on the screen and are more preoccupied with disturbing others who do appreciate the humor by running wild and turning the theater into their own personal playground.

Frances Walsh
Ambridge

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Comics and racism

Michael Richards' outburst has made national news. If you have ever landed on BET while channel surfing and had the misfortune to view many comedians, if that is what you want to call them, you would see and hear more white-bashing than you might believe.

The expletives are beeped out to the point where few words are audible. But there is no shortage of ghetto synonyms for Caucasians.

Neither is right and neither should be tolerated. However, it does not look like it will end anytime soon from either side.

G.P. Beatty
Brentwood

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Bacharach's liberal rally

As a longtime contributor and subscriber, I was extremely disappointed and dismayed last Thursday night at the Pittsburgh Pops Burt Bacharach performance.

His display of venom in the diatribe disguised as music was repulsive. More important, this left-wing radical used the members of the esteemed Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra to help broadcast his beliefs.

I appreciate his free speech rights. However, the audience was not informed prior to the concert that this would be a liberal hate rally. The board of the symphony owes an apology most of all to the members of the orchestra who were forced to participate, as part of their contractual obligations, in this political event. The board also owes an apology to the audience and the Pittsburgh community at large. If it hopes for continued patronage and financial support, this is the minimum it can do.

Marty Marasco
Monroeville

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Rather hear Burt

We attended the Burt Bacharach concert at Heinz Hall on Thursday evening. Shortly after he came on stage, he was interrupted by a woman screaming from the balcony, "Mr. Burt Bacharach ..."

We initially thought she was a plant and part of the performance, but clearly that was not the case. It seemed that she thought she was entitled to a personal interaction with him, which interrupted the performance and was unfair to everyone in the audience who had paid for a ticket. The Heinz Hall management did not have her escorted out, as they should have, and a short time later she began yelling out to him again.

Her behavior might have been acceptable at the Post-Gazette Pavilion or a local pub, but it was certainly out of line at Heinz Hall. If she is a subscriber and the management feels that it needs her money so badly, it should at least be sure that at future performances her mouth is securely covered with duct tape before the performance begins.

C. Lucas
Dormont

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The great escape

I read with interest Kurt Lesker's comments about the rush to the doors at the conclusion of a performance at Heinz Hall ("Proper applause," Nov. 16). It reminded me of the line in Edith Wharton's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of 1920, "The Age of Innocence."

To paraphrase: It was widely known in New York, but never acknowledged, that audiences want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it.

Some things never change.

Robert Thompson
Hazelwood

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Fur shame

LaMont Jones' Seen Magazine (November) article promoting fur was revolting. Mr. Jones lumps real and faux fur together as if they were interchangeable, as if the only real choice is which is more fashionable.

However, the hidden component inside every real fur coat is cruelty and torture: exactly what fur designers try desperately to cover up through dyeing and shearing interventions. Fur, which exists for vanity alone, is the result of extreme suffering. Animals on fur farms are kept in filthy tiny cages where they pace back and forth pathologically in boredom and distress.

The animals are killed using the cheapest and crudest methods so as not to damage the pelt: gassing, strangling and often genital and anal electrocution, which will cause animals to experience the intense pain of a heart attack while fully conscious. Sometimes animals are not even stunned fully, "waking up" while being skinned alive.

In the wild, animals are seized by steel-jaw-leghold traps, which crush their limbs and bodies. They may languish for days, often starving or freezing to death, before the trappers return. It is this kind of violence toward animals that designers conceal in bright pink, rose and green-colored trim, trying to keep fur far removed from the animal it once was.

There is absolutely no excuse for wearing fur, and it is even more unconscionable to be promoting and endorsing such a morally bankrupt industry. The Post-Gazette and Seen Magazine should refrain from promoting cruelty.

Jon Farinelli
Coordinator, Voices for Animals of Western Pennsylvania Bloomfield

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PETA's contradiction

Reading the letter threatening to report your Seen magazine to PETA because of the cover of a model wearing fur ("Fur is nauseating," Nov. 16) reminded me of a recent conversation.

For the first time in my life I met an actual PETA member, a very nice young woman who's a vegan, too. I've always wondered, so I asked her very respectfully if she could estimate the percentage of PETA members who are also pro-life. She said, "I would say zero."

I asked about the obvious irony. She said, "Well, we believe that animals cannot speak for themselves."

How's that for irony?

James F. Cataldi
Moon