Forrest Dump

It was 20 years ago today, July 6, 1994 that the movie Forrest Gump was released and the movie business hasn't been the same since. I never did like this movie. I mean, it had its moments, but there was just something about it, I didn't like. Since then, the movie has been called one of the most conservative movies to come out of Hollywood. People have also liked Forrest's carefree attitude and said it accounts for all of his fortune in the movie. However, this isn't true. First, calling this movie a politically conservative movie is like calling David Lynch a Hollywood hack. Tom Hanks plays the titular character to the best of his abilities, but it's a Simple Jack performance and the character of Forrest is poorly conceived. Forrest is an slow-witted person who starts out as being physically disabled to the point he has to wear leg braces. When his mother, played by Sally Fields, tries to get him enrolled in public school, the sleazey principal agrees to it as long as Mrs. Gump opens up her legs. It would have been easier for Mrs. Gump. She could've appealed to the local school board or the state level. Even by suggesting a quid pro quo act of sex, she could have even gone to the police. But it doesn't matter. Mrs. Gump whores herself out while her son listens to the principal have an orgasm and we're supposed to laugh at this. It's actually very horrible the trauma, especially for a young boy who doesn't understand. That's very conservative for you. Next, Forrest finds himself shunned by the school kids. Only one person, Jenny, wants to be his friend and they go together like "peas and carrots." Unfortunately, the filmmakers have to make Jenny the victim of sexual and physical abuse and worse, they decide to make her into somewhat of a whore too, even though she leaves the redneck Alabama town with the bad memories behind. No one can blame Jenny for wanting to leave and pursue dreams of being a singer and modeling. Instead, she has to become a junkie hippie who hangs out with Black Panthers and a violent hippie boyfriend. Worse, Jenny contracts the AIDS virus and dies. Maybe this is where the conservative part comes in. Try following your dreams, even though you had an awful childhood, and you'll die. The sad fact of the matter is that Jenny is basically Forrest's only friend until he enlists in the Army after playing football for five years for the University of Alabama. The movie makes light of how the college exploited Forrest's abilities to run fast, even though many other college age men his age didn't get the opportunity to go to college and then were drafted. In the book by Winston Groom, Forrest flunked out of college and was drafted. Also, the only reason Jenny liked him in the book was that he was built like John Holmes. In the Army, he meets his second friend, Bubba (Mykelti Williamson) who dreams of becoming a shrimp boat entrepreneur. Because he is also slow-witted and black, Bubba has to die. But not before he is almost saved by Forrest, who receives the Medal of Honor while rescuing others in his platoon, including Lt. Dan (Gary Sinise), who was willing to die for his country. Lt. Dan is the only character who brings some three-dimension to the movie thanks to Sinise's performance as he decides to act instead of ham it up for the camera like the rest of the cast. But the scenes in the VA hospital would make conservatives mad if it was filmed today as Forrest makes light of how he has all the ice cream he can eat in the hospital. Yes, all the ice cream he can eat. While other people are missing limbs and other body parts, Forrest gets to eat ice cream and learn how to play ping pong. This is conservative? But still it doesn't matter because Forrest is allowed to make a fool of himself while receiving the medal and then there is a silly scene on the Washington Mall that makes fun of both hippies and the military as Forrest is asked to speak about what it is like in Vietnam. What makes this scene suck is that a military official pulls out the wires of speakers so we don't hear Forrest's speech which is straight and to the point about losing your fellow soldiers. This is so Abby Hoffman can say that's beautiful as Forrest looks dumbfounded and the rest of the ground can't hear him. For the rest of the movie, Forrest plays ping pong for America (really?) against China and then goes into to the shrimp boat business for himself. By luck and force of nature, he is able to capitalize on the business after a hurricane destroys his competitors' boats. What makes it so bad is that Forrest's good fortune are by accident and really at the misfortune of others. He gets the medal for going back into the jungle to get Bubba. If he had left Lt. Dan, who was injured, to still fight, Dan could have won the medal. Bubba was dead anyway. And the shrimping business is on the misfortune of others. Then, Lt. Dan invests in some "fruit company" Apple Computers, which even at the time in the movie, wouldn't really have amounted to much since Apple was relatively small at the time. But it doesn't matter. Forrest's doesn't have any risk versus reward investments other people make. Everything seems to always turn out good for him. Yes, he loses a friend but people always lose friends. His mother dies, but that happens to a lot of people. The sad part is that the movie asks us to want Forrest and Jenny to get together even though we know we agree with Jenny for not wanting to hook up with him. He's a millionaire, but like I Am Sam, he doesn't have the abilities to be a parent. Worse, since he is slow-witted, Forrest would be easy to take advantage of. This movie hints at it as Forrest is hired to cut grass. But unlike his character in the book, Forrest's gullibility doesn't get him into trouble. Instead, we're asked to embrace his gullibility. No. In real life, it doesn't work that way. Finally, the movie asks us to actually believe that Forrest could run back and forth across the country creating a following, who think he is doing it for a cause. It's at this point, the movie has reached a point of absurdity, that we're asked to believe that Forrest help inspire other entrepreneurs, who create the "Shit Happens" bumper stickers and the "Have a Nice Day" smiley face T-shirts. Lastly, the movie has Forrest finally hooking up with Jenny, who is working as a waitress in a diner in Savannah, and rather than give us a happily ever after ending as Forrest meets his son, a young Haley Joel Osment, Jenny dies. Bravo, filmmakers, you've had the audience watch a man and a woman go through many ups and downs for almost two and a half hours. Then, you get them a deus ex machina by turning this into a "We Didn't Start the Fire" version of Love Story. Forrest Gump made a lot of money and critics, such as Siskel and Ebert, liked it, but looking back, the other movies released in the summer of 1994, Speed and The Lion King, are more memorable. And Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption which both lost Best Picture Oscar nominations to Gump are still remembered. Young filmmakers aren't watching Gump the way they are Pulp Fiction . And I like Tom Hanks, but the quintessential bromance of Shawshank is what makes the movie a fan favorite. At least, the filmmakers of Shawshank knew how to give us a happy ending as we see Andy and Red in a platonic hug embrace on the beach at the end. Gump really exposed the shaddy side of Hollywood as even though it made a lot of money, officials said it lost money and stiffed Grooms on profits. This angered him so much he immediately wrote Gump and Co., a slap in the face of all that the movie version of his book was. Having read the Gump novel that inspired filmmakers, I realized that they didn't want to stay true because the public didn't want to see a movie about a tall lumbering dunce go into outer space and then live with headhunters in the jungle. Forrest Gump is a movie that toys with our emotions for money. Watching the movie, you realize how awful of a movie it is as it makes light of racial segregation, the Vietnam War, AIDS, and natural disasters. Why would anyone want to embrace a movie like this. Looking back, Forrest Gump is one of the worst movies ever to win a Best Picture Oscar and Hanks has moved on to better things.