1st Amendment Is the Real Hero in ‘People vs. Flynt’

Michael Levin’s recent complaint about the movies’ lack of heroes (“Flynt Doesn’t Deserve Heroic Film Treatment,” Counterpunch, Jan. 6) was especially irritating when he made such a sweeping generalization as, “Isn’t there anyone else they could make a movie about? Someone out there displaying some courage, something to emulate?”

The 100-year history of cinema is filled with movies about heroes (and heroines).

“The People vs. Larry Flynt” is simply one movie about one particular individual (like him or not). It is the filmmaker’s creative right to tell whatever story he or she wishes to tell. We can only wish it is a story well-told (and well-acted). Either way, moviegoers also have a choice: to see or not to see.

KIM GARFIELD

Los Angeles

Michael Levin and I must have seen two different films. To even dignify the word “hero” as portrayed by Flynt in the film is beyond belief. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Milos Forman was absolutely brilliant in showing Flynt to be a sleazy, scummy dregs of humanity in both his personal and his business lifestyle. There was not one scene, not one word of dialogue that came from Woody Harrelson’s lips that would classify Flynt as a hero in the screen sense; anti-hero would be more appropriate.

The real hero of this film is the 1st Amendment. It doesn’t take a hero to use the Constitution to protect his financial interests. Larry Flynt is not “what’s right for America”; the 1st Amendment is. Of course, the Constitution tolerates people who lower standards. Levin should understand that the Constitution is for everyone, whether we like it or not.

How can Levin criticize the film for dramatically portraying Flynt’s right to 1st Amendment protection and then a few paragraphs later say, “I don’t want anyone--judge, jury or legislator--telling me what I cannot read or write”? Wasn’t that exactly the point of the movie?

Or was I watching Beavis and Butt-head?

EUGENE B. COFSKY

Tarzana

Guess what? “The People vs. Larry Flynt” doesn’t ask us to condone the material in Hustler. And the movie plainly doesn’t depict Flynt as a saint. Indeed, at various points in the film, he’s portrayed as a boor, a pervert, an autocrat and an egotistical jerk. But he’s also shown as a man who knows how to stand up for his rights. And Americans like that. We like flawed individuals who don’t allow authoritarian structures to grind them down.

Now for Jerry Falwell. Fine, in 1980, while Levin was on assignment for CBS news, he “found no dirt” on Falwell. That doesn’t give Falwell or any other American (including Flynt or Oliver Stone) the right to shove their moral value systems down society’s throat. Which is exactly what Falwell and his so-called Moral Majority have tried to do to this country.

I don’t particularly want to adopt Flynt’s value system either, but then I haven’t noticed that he’s been trying to force-feed it down my throat.

ROB SULLIVAN

Los Angeles

Did Michael Levin think Milos Forman’s intention was to bring a sleazy porno magazine publisher to a new heroic plateau? If he looked closely, wouldn’t he find that the movie was not about Hustler magazine and Larry Flynt but the 1st Amendment and free speech?

Levin himself even says it wasn’t Larry Flynt who stood up for the 1st Amendment, it was the 1st Amendment that stood up for Larry Flynt. Heroes come in all different shapes and sizes. In the end, Jerry Falwell didn’t get beat by Larry Flynt but by the reigning hero of the movie, the 1st Amendment.

“The People vs. Larry Flynt” may not be the heroic movie we’re used to, but isn’t it nice to have a movie that gives us a more relevant and lasting dialogue than, “Man, when that helicopter blew up, that was awesome!”?

ADAM BIESK

Los Angeles