ALL ABOUT ALLY

Re “This Woman Is: 1. A ‘90s Heroine. 2. A Retro Ditz. Choose One. (If You Can.)” (by Carla Hall, March 8):

That’s easy . . . Ally McBeal’s neither. She’s the main character of the only original, funny (yes, it’s a comedy) show starring a woman on TV. What’s with all the complaints about her clothes? Did anyone care how “That Girl’s” Ann Marie could afford that designer wardrobe, or call her a ditz because she wasn’t a “bitch”?

Thank you David E. Kelley for creating all the characters on “Ally McBeal,” and also for Vonda Shepard’s music. And for those of you who don’t get it, there’s always “Caroline in the City.”

ANITA GEVINSON

Studio City

Carla Hall quotes a feminist literary critic who considers Ally McBeal a “. . . little shiksa baby dream goddess.” While I do not believe that goy-ness is a personality trait that is forefront in McBeal, creator David E. Kelley might just want to consider magnifying that trait in a future episode. I can just see it now: McBeal marries a nice Jewish man, and they have a nice half-Jewish child. That would make for some interesting and funny issues.

FRANK R. BURTON

Santa Monica

Will there ever be a time when the title of “shiksa” is used without the connotation of “bimbo”?

As a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman who is often referred to as (and reminded of being) a “shiksa,” I take offense at yet another assumption of vacuous WASPness.

I wonder what the reaction would be if the title of “JAP (Jewish American Princess)” were used as loosely and as derogatorily as “shiksa.”

Oops, sorry, oh wow . . . “derogatorily” is, like, a really big word.

BERNADETTE M. BOWMAN

West Hollywood

I’ve just finished reading Hall’s article and I came across an unfamiliar word: “shiksa.” This word doesn’t appear in my dictionary, so I was hoping you could familiarize me with its definition or meaning.

SHANE HASSETT

Pacific Palisades

Webster’s New World Dictionary, Third College Edition, defines “shiksa” as “a woman or girl who is not Jewish: term of mild contempt.”