It's all too easy to condemnCity of Women as an aging artist's sexist response to feminism. But thefilm deserves another look before being written off as an affront to PC.For one thing, it's a dream, whose distortions ironically distanceFellini from his Mastroianni hero Snàporaz's attitudes. Foranother, the traditional male role is directly satirized in thecharacter of Katzone (translated as "Supercock"), a Mussoliniclone whom the film ridicules more grossly than the women at theconvention and the stoned girls in their cars. Perhaps it's best to seethe film not as an attack on feminist militancy, but as the struggle ofone self-confessed codger, all too accustomed to enjoying the fruits ofsexism, to ask himself where he really stands in our brave new world ofgender awareness-a project which Fellini had clearly begun in 8-1/2fifteen years before. Why assume that Fellini endorses either Guido'sfantasy of whip-cracking over a harem or Snàporaz's ride down theerotic memory chute? A generous reading would see in both therecognition of the artist's childish self-indulgence, more a jokeagainst himself than against women.-Seymour Chatman