skull crushed.nCut to the next morning, twitteringnbirds and Taylor, bloody but alive,nraising himself out of the muck. Henfinds a gun and then Barnes, alive asnwell and demanding a medic. Surroundednby bodies of Americans andnVC, Taylor shoots him, killing thisnmachine that could not die, beatingnBarnes at his own game.nI am the child, Taylor muses in thenchopper flying out, “of those two fathers,”nand they “fight for the possessionnof my soul.” To revenge Elias,nyou see, he had to fight Barnes onnBarnes’s own terms, tainting himselfnwith Barnes’s own evil.nTaylor then goes on about the “obligationnto build again,” our need tonfind “goodness and meaning in thisnlife,” and the movie ends with a closeupnof Sheen’s profile in bright whitenlight, an epiphany. Stone concludesnby running his dedication to the mennwho died serving in Vietnam, in onengreat last presumptuous act.nPlatoon is presumptuous, and it isnpowerful as well. Put a bunch of kidsnin the Philippine jungle, get a goodnmakeup man, and blow them up realisticallynon film, dredge up all ournharbored fear and awe of war and playnon our feelings about Vietnam, andnyou can move an audience.nWhat I cannot stress enough is thatnthere is no skill to it. It doesn’t take angenius to upset an audience. Violencendoes not need even a particularly goodnmanipulator behind the lens—it is ofnits own self a powerful thing, and anynhack in California can build a scriptnaround it. Violence is, in fact. Stone’sntrademark as a scriptwriter—he alsongave us that cinematic meatgrindernScarface. But just because Stone hasnchosen a period most Americans feelnstrongly about, and worked us overnwith his tortured, dead, and dying,nthat does not make the movie anythingnother than an exploitation — of hisnmoviegoer’s emotions, and especiallynof the Vets he presumes to portray.nSuccess inevitably brings a certainnmeasure of complacency. Praise begetsnself-praise, and enough good reviewsnand a man begins to think he knowsnwhat he’s talking about. “I never was anreligious person,” Stone told Time,n”—I was raised a Protestant, the greatncompromise—but I became religiousnin Vietnam. Possibly I was saved for anmission. To do some work. Writenabout it. Make a movie about it.” Hownhard it must be, when millions ofnpeople trot off to see your movie, notnto believe that Heaven hadn’t sparednyou just for this.nKatherine Dalton writes from NewnYork.nSTAGEnA Female Aestheticnby David KaufmannInterviews With ContemporarynWomen Playwrights by KathleennBetsko and Rachel Koenig, NewnYork: Wm. Morrow and Co.;n$25.00.nWhile Kathleen Betsko and RachelnKoenig are desperate to find, if notnmanufacture, a “female aesthetic,” itnfails to emerge from their InterviewsnWith Contemporary Women Playwrights;nin fact, most of the 30 representednplaywrights deny either its existencenor its relevance. Liliane Atlann(French) claims, “I don’t look for thenmasculine or the feminine elements;nboth exist in the world, and it is whennwe are not completely free that we areneither too masculine or too feminine,”nwhile in response to the question “Donyou feel that there is a female aestheticnin drama?” Susan Yankowitz (British)nbegins, “I wouldn’t say so.”nSomewhere in between A and Y,nMaria Irene Fornes’ reaction may benthe most indicative: “How could therenpossibly not be? Not only is there anwomen’s aesthetic, each woman hasnher own aesthetic and so does eachnman. It’s like saying ‘Is there a Hispanicnaesthetic?'” Rosalyn Drexler proclaims,n”People make art. Gender isnonly part of the artists’ experientialnstockpile.” Then there is Janet Neipris’nreply: “You mean does it come in thencolor pink? No. I know women playwrightsnwho write in red, then onenwho writes in desert colors, another innblack, maybe I write in blue. . . .nThere’s a human aesthetic that bothnconnects and separates all playwrights.”nMore ironically still, Nto-nnnzake Shange, who suggests that there isna “female aesthetic,” refuses to identifynit: “Because I’ve written [about] it alreadynand I don’t want to mess withnit.”nPerhaps Corinne Jacker’s summarynis the best. When asked “Shouldnwomen try to formalize their feelingsnabout how womanhood affects theirnwork?” Jacker explains, “Not if it isngoing to be a complaint, an accusationnthat critics and producers don’t take usnseriously enough … of all the women’snorganizations that have seminarsnand panels about how to get women’snplays produced, I haven’t yet found anconference that tried to grapple withnwhether or not women have identifiablyndifferent senses of time, event,nobjectivity, character, action, and sonon.”nWhile these are among the concernsnwe might have hoped would benraised, it is only despite Betsko andnKoenig that they are. The interviewersnhave invested too much in theirnnarrow-minded mission to recognizenthat they are not receiving much supportnfrom their subjects. It’s their ownnbad faith which is most evident; atntimes it leads to some shameful exchangesnwhich should have been toonembarrassing to include in the finalntranscripts. When they remindnAdrienne Kennedy that “You oncendescribed your divorce as ‘a choice fornwriting,'” Kennedy replies, “… Indon’t know whether I ever said that,”nbefore elaborating: “Looking back, Inthink that people put those words innmy mouth, because the divorce wasnnot that clear-cut. One paradox I’vennever quite recovered from is that Infeel my former husband encouragednme to write more than anybody hasnsince then. And he supported me financially,nand wanted to, and enjoyedndoing it.”nAs clear as Kennedy’s words may bento us, they apparently eluded her interviewers.nBetsko and Koenig are obviouslynguilty of putting words into thesenwriters’ mouths, as well as ideas inntheir heads. Their account is fillednwith deceit and distortion—they misrepresentnthese playwrights not only tonus, but to each other, as when they tellnKaren Malpede, “Some feel that thencommercial theater is not ready for thentruth of women’s lives, that they mustngain their credibility before exploringnJUNE 1987/4Sn