On subject of ‘Richard Jewell’

Mary McNamara celebrates the push-back on sexist writing in “Richard Jewell” and credits the #MeToo movement [“‘Richard Jewell’ Outcry Signals #MeToo Change,” Dec. 17]. Of course this is important, as we have all become aware of through the media.

But if we take inventory of the upside of #MeToo, we must also take inventory of the downside. The absence of Al Franken from the U.S. Senate, the inability to see Woody Allen’s latest movie in the United States, the loss of a cultural environment that would allow for Roman Polanski to continue to work and make excellent films, even the lockdown of much of Garrison Keillor’s work for a time by Minnesota Public Radio.

If anyone doesn’t sense the ghost of McCarthyism and Orwell in #MeToo, that’s because most people don’t tend to see such things in real time. They learn about them later in history classes.

Stan Brown Claremont

I found it ironic that the same day that Mary McNamara in the Calendar section bemoaned Clint Eastwood’s excellent film “Richard Jewell” for its portrayal of the female reporter, The Envelope’s cover story [“A New Look for ‘Women,’ ” Dec. 17] is all about Greta Gerwig’s revisionist take on “Little Women.” Apparently, it is not acceptable for Eastwood to be allowed his interpretation of a real person, but it is entirely acceptable for Gerwig to completely alter the main character in a classic novel.

Seems like feminism is being employed selectively by The Times to hail the bastardization of a classic novel and at the same time belittle a great actor and filmmaker. John Zavesky Riverside