The American Spectator

Cinematic drama as envisaged by a New Age Puritan amuck in Princeton:

To the editor: Something fundamental has been left out of the new literate movies such as “Bull Durham.” There is plenty of humor, satire, baseball and sex. The beautiful, passionate heroine says that “there’s never been a baseball player slept with me who didn’t have the best year of his career.” How come we see this role model for teen-agers going to the baseball games, taking the pitcher to her bed but never taking her birth-control pills after breakfast or encouraging the use of condoms in the bedroom? She never worries about becoming pregnant or getting a sexually transmitted disease. Isn’t it time that movie producers gave young people sexually responsible heroes and heroines who know how to avoid having unwanted pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases?

—Evelyn Geddes

Princeton, N.J., Aug. 23, 1988

(September 4, 1988)