WOMAN OF WONDERMENT

At first when I read Anne Beatts’ story about the television character Xena, I thought it was a spoof (“Princess of the Xeitgeist,” Nov. 30). But I now see she actually feels that Xena is an important role model for girls and women today.

Let me get this straight: A completely empty-headed, ambiguously sexed Amazon whose claim to fame is the ability to use any object as a weapon, beat up men and kill monsters is an apt role model and hero for today’s girls and women?

I suggest that Beatts visit her local library. Hopefully she’ll find that humanity has had, and still does have, some truly incredible heroes, both men and women. She appears stuck at about the age of 5 in her understanding of what human beings can and should accomplish.

ROBERT L. BROWN

Santa Monica

Beatts truly saved the best (and most revealing) for last in her profile of the popular Xena. To wit, in her final paragraph: “If I were 8 years old, you wouldn’t be able to get me away from the TV set.”

Good ol’ H.L. Mencken surely had it right: “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”

JACK GRIMSHAW

Yorba Linda

I enjoyed Beatts’ article. It did not turn me into a fan but I now understand the show’s popularity. It should be noted, however, that one does not buckle a swash. One swashes one’s buckle.

ALFONZO SMITH

Hawthorne